Clocks have become so commonplace that we forget how they came about. Time has always been of great importance to man. Before the invention of modern clocks, man had attempted to tell the time in various ways. He needed to do so because time controls how we manage our activities.

Many years ago, man had disturbing questions about time. He was constantly asking, how do we tell the time? Or more specifically, how do we accurately tell the time? Man kept asking these questions and resultantly came up with devices to enable him know what time it was and thus help him regulate his activities.

One attempt to tell the time by means of devices similar to today's wall clocks was made by the ancient Egyptians. Known for their technological prowess, the ancient Egyptians invented several tools and techniques including canals, shadoufs and irrigation. They applied a simple technique of water and pipes to tell the time. This device was called the water clock; the predecessor of modern wall clocks.

First developed in 1400 BC, the water clock worked with a simple mechanism. The clock had two containers of water; one higher than the other. Water dripped from the higher container to the lower one via a connecting tube. The containers had marks on them; representing the time of day.

Water clocks were a marked improvement over sundials. Since the device used fixed mechanical objects and did not depend on the movement of the earth, you could tell the time even in the night when the sun was down just like contemporary wall clocks. So they became more versatile and dynamic in usage. Again, they provided accurate time. You could easily tell the time at any point of day and not by the general position of the sun as applied in the sundials.