Only Time Will Tell: Mechanized Time in Old Japan

A day divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes, which are each 60 seconds in length, feels natural. But at one time, daylight didn’t divide so mechanically. Many mistakenly think people didn’t care about timekeeping even just a century-and-a-half ago. The idea: agriculturally based economies didn’t need hourly timekeeping and instead focused on seasonal and monthly timekeeping. However, sundials and other methods of timekeeping were common to time plantings, festivals, and other tasks.

We also consi...