Time in Middle-earth

[The Might]

Especially in the Hobbit, time seems to be measured just like in our world.
Clearly the same system exists as Bilbo only received the message of the Dwarves at 10.45. Of course, this probably is only one of the many differences that exist between the Hobbit and other works by Tolkien.

But what about LotR?
I know the moon seems to play an important role there in the determination of time, perhaps the sun and stars as well.
But does he ever explain how clocks (such as the one owned by Bilbo) were invented or how they worked?
Perhaps you know of some quotes I didn't find so far.

[Elmo]

I'm guessing the clocks in lotr would work just like the ones in medieval times here's the wikipedia page on it

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I think hewhoarisesinmight is right about the medieval measure of time. Concerning hobbits - as we know, hobbits had many things which were not that much medieval (umbrellas...), so perhaps they had even mechanical clock? It seems clear however that in the Shire the time was measured from midnight to midnight (or more likely from midnight to noon as AM and from noon to midnight as PM), because it is not stated only in The Hobbit, but also in LotR. So, no only-Hobbit-contradiction here! The most obvious part speaking of counting of time is this:

Originally Posted by RotK, Chapter 1: Minas Tirith

With that Gandalf went out; and as he did so, there came the note of a clear sweet bell ringing in a tower of the citadel. Three strokes it rang, like silver in the air, and ceased: the third hour from the rising of the sun. After a minute Pippin went to the door and down the stair and looked about the street. (...)
"Nine o'clock we'd call it in the Shire," said Pippin aloud to himself.

Evidently here we face the typical time-measure system based on the movements of the Sun. But be this only Númenorean/Gondorian habit or be it used in more parts of M-E, we don't know. Taking into account the Númenorean enterprise and their impact on the whole world, this system of measure might have been adopted by other cultures as well. But maybe not, counting the time from dawn was not such a typical thing. Some cultures in our world, also in ancient times, also measured the time from dusk - the Jews, for example. Now speaking of it, I recall the Elves also did. Indeed:

Originally Posted by LotR Appendix D, The Calendars

A "day" of the sun they called ré and reckoned from sunset to sunset.

So there might have been cultures who have measured the time many different ways, as much as in our world. About the Easterlings or Southrons we can only speculate, for example. And Orcs and Dwarves? I can imagine a Dwarf very well constructing a mechanical clock, since they being stuck somewhere underground would have no other way of keeping track of time (or - of course they would, by water clock for example, but this would be very, let's say, precise and also - dwarfish.) Maybe the Hobbits could have obtained the knowledge of the mechanical clock, as well as the 24h system, from them? (the Dwarves living in Ered Luin) This would explain why such system did not reach the other, even more "civilized" parts like Gondor (or even Arnor at the time of its glory). This would also imply that the Stoors from Anduin would still count time in some other, more "primitive" or better said, "natural" way.

Only speculating, though. We have no evidence of mechanical clock in ME - or have we?
(goes to look deeper)

Wow, a really interesting topic. I really dived into it

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I would assume that the clock on Bilbo's mantelpiece (The Hobbit, Chapter 2) is mechanical. As a matter of fact, I incorporated several ideas that you mention, Legate, into a fan fiction* about Hobbits who stayed in the Shire during the War of the Ring! I too assumed that clocks were a Dwarven invention and that any knowledge about their workings came to the Hobbits from them.


*Folco's fan fiction story - still incomplete, but not entirely without hope...

[Findegil]

If if we do not have hard evidence for the clock on Bilbos Mantelpiece, we have a picture by Tolkien of Bilbos hall ["Pictures by JRR Tolkien"; no 20: "The Hall at Bag-End, Residence of B. Baggins Esquire"]. In this picture we have two obviously mechanical clocks. On left beside the door showing six o'clock and one to the right with pendulum and two wieghts on a chain which shows to my great surprise seven o'clock.

Taking into account that Tolkien said that Hobbingen is on the latitude of Oxford then a difference of 1 hour in day time corrospondes to an distance of roughly 1500 km or 932 miles.
This is more or less the straight distance from Hobbing to the middle of Mirkwood. That means that he clock beside the door in Bilbos hall showed the Rhovanion time while that at his side wall showed Eridor time!

For the dwarvish reconing of time I assume that since the sundown on Dúrin's day was so improtant they would also recon time from sundown to sundown.

Therefore it might be a hobbitish invention to count day from midnight to midnight.

Respectfully
Findegil

[The Might]

Interesting find Findegil, nice idea, I guess that pretty much explains it.
Appendix D does indeed provide us with interesting information about calendars, but not about clocks, or on how they actually worked. I would assume they would be similar to older clocks from the past centuries, at least in the Shire, but it seems that their creation remains a mystery.
Anyway, I personally think that this took place some time after the creation of the Shire, after the Hobbits' lifestyle became more quite and peaceful.

[PrinceOfTheHalflings]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I think hewhoarisesinmight is right about the medieval measure of time. Concerning hobbits - as we know, hobbits had many things which were not that much medieval (umbrellas...), so perhaps they had even mechanical clock?

I realise that this comment was made 10 years ago, but I often see the Hobbits' use of umbrellas mentioned as some kind of unwarranted intrusion from the "modern world". However, collapsible umbrellas similar to what we use today have existed for at least 2000 years - being described in ancient Chinese texts - and indeed one from the first century AD was recently found in a Korean tomb. The technology may well have existed for centuries before that.

In any case, simple umbrellas existed for thousands of years before that in various cultures, and it isn't obvious that the umbrellas in the Shire are anything like modern ones in any case.

Back on topic, the idea of clocks is also pretty ancient. Water powered mechanical clocks existed in Ancient Greece, Rome and China - although were probably fairly rare. Sundials and other timekeeping methods were quite common. As far as ancient cultures being able to tell time by some kind of division of the day into hours - well, even a culture with only sundials would understand the idea. The Ancient Egyptians divided the day up into 24 hours - which seems to have stuck with later civilizations in the West. They also developed the water clock, an accurate time measuring device, at least 3,500 years ago.

The English word "clock" derives from the Middle English clokke - which means "bell", and of course in earlier times bells would be rung to mark the passing of hours. Clokke is cognate with Middle Dutch, French and Latin words that also mean bell.

As with "umbrella" I don't necessarily think that we are meant to think that "clock" means a Victorian Era mechanical model. It makes perfect sense that if the Hobbits had a complicated Calendar (which we known they did) then they would also be interested in measuring the passage of time in units of measure smaller than a day. Perhaps the Hobbbits borrowed the actual design of their clocks from Dwarves (or Elves) or perhaps they even bought such things from the Dwarves.

As for Ghân-buri-Ghân - I'm sure he was a quick learner!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

When mechanical clocks were first introduced in the West in the 14th century (in monasteries, to ring the bells of the canonical hours-- faces and hands came later), they caused no end of confusion because they could only tell hours of a fixed length- which didn't work at all with Roman and early medieval practice of dividing the solar day into hours whose length varied with the seasons. Prime came at dawn and vespers at sundown, and the length of the hours in between were much longer in summer than in winter. Sundials didn't have this problem.

(NB: The Gospels, written in the 1st C. AD, reference the sixth and ninth hours (noon and midafternoon).

[Faramir Jones]

According to Tolkien's illustration of the Hall of Bag-End that he drew for The Hobbit, on the right (from the viewer's perspective) wall there appears to be a pendulum clock.



If that's the case, it shows how 'advanced' the hobbits were; because such a clock was invented by Dutch scientist and inventor Christiaan Huygens in 1656, and patented the following year. This invention, according to one book, meant that the accuracy of clocks could be improved to about 10 seconds per 24 hours:

https://books.google.ie/books?id=1jw...istory&f=false

There's also the issue of what looks like a barometer, on the wall to the left of the open door...