page_title: Automaton clock
hierarchical_section_title: Automaton clock
caption_attribution_description: Diagram of a fancy clepsydra, this type being an automaton or self-adjusting machine. Water enters and raises the figure, which points at the current hour for the day. Spillover water operates a series of gears that rotates a cylinder so that hour lengths are appropriate for today's date. The ancient Greeks and Romans had twelve hours from sunrise to sunset; since summer days are longer than winter days, summer hours were longer than winter hours.
context_page_description: An automaton clock or automata clock is a type of striking clock featuring automatons. Clocks like these were built from the 1st century BC through to Victorian times in Europe. A Cuckoo clock is a simple form of this type of clock.
  The first known mention is of those created by the Roman engineer Vitruvius, describing early alarm clocks working with gongs or trumpets. Later automatons usually perform on the hour, half-hour or quarter-hour, usually to strike bells. Common figures in older clocks include Death, Old Father Time, saints and angels. In the Regency and Victorian eras, common figures also included royalty, famous composers or industrialists.
  More recently constructed automaton clocks are widespread in Japan, where they are known as karakuri-dokei. Notable examples of such clocks include the Nittele Ōdokei, designed by Hayao Miyazaki to be affixed on the Nippon Television headquarters in Tokyo, touted to be the largest animated clock in the world. In the United Kingdom, Kit Williams produced a series of large automaton clocks for a handful of British shopping centres, featuring frogs, ducks and fish.
context_section_description: An automaton clock or automata clock is a type of striking clock featuring automatons. Clocks like these were built from the 1st century BC through to Victorian times in Europe. A Cuckoo clock is a simple form of this type of clock.
  The first known mention is of those created by the Roman engineer Vitruvius, describing early alarm clocks working with gongs or trumpets. Later automatons usually perform on the hour, half-hour or quarter-hour, usually to strike bells. Common figures in older clocks include Death (as a reference to human mortality), Old Father Time, saints and angels. In the Regency and Victorian eras, common figures also included royalty, famous composers or industrialists.
  More recently constructed automaton clocks are widespread in Japan, where they are known as karakuri-dokei. Notable examples of such clocks include the Nittele Ōdokei, designed by Hayao Miyazaki to be affixed on the Nippon Television headquarters in Tokyo, touted to be the largest animated clock in the world. In the United Kingdom, Kit Williams produced a series of large automaton clocks for a handful of British shopping centres, featuring frogs, ducks and fish.
caption: An early 19th-century illustration[1] of Ctesibius's clepsydra from the 3rd century BC. The hour indicator ascends as water flows in. Also, a series of gears rotate a cylinder to correspond to the temporal hours.
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