In an interview with L’Express, Camille Grandmaison, from the Besançon Time Museum, recalls: human beings took millennia before managing to precisely measure time. The first tools appeared around 1500 BC with sundials, well before the arrival of the mechanical clock at the end of the 12th century and the pocket watch in 1510. Five centuries later, the world inherited a form of universality of wristwatches on wrists, which was not necessarily synonymous with uniformity. Quite the contrary. The apparent contradictions of watchmaking trends actually coexist in harmony. For some, a return to sobriety in the display of hours and a revival of women’s mini-watches. Others favor work on the dials, this small metal disk where creative diversity is concentrated. As much as time, the watch remains a marker of style.
L’Express: Since when have human beings known how to measure time?
Camille Grandmaison: From the Paleolithic, around – 40,000 years BC, men and women have observed the cyclical nature of nature: the alternation of day and night, the progression of the seasons, the position of the stars according to the period of the year…
But it was really from writing, around 3000 BC, that the first calendars appeared, notably in Mesopotamia with the year of 365 days, the week of 7 days, the hour divided into 60 minutes … Note that the duration of one hour varied between winter and summer, in order to match the duration of exposure to the sun. It was only in the 19th century that globalized fixed time appeared, particularly useful for train traffic.
What were the first instruments for measuring time?
The very first sundials appeared around – 1500. At this time, the first flow clocks were also invented. These are the clepsydras, based on the flow of water, or the fire clocks, with the burning of candles, oil or incense. Hourglasses only came in the 12th century, with the mastery of glass technique.
When was the invention of mechanical watchmaking?
From the end of the 13th century. In Europe, very large clocks with gears are installed in monasteries, to allow monks to know what time to go to services. Around the middle of the 14th century, the first domestic clocks came, the prerogative of the wealthier classes.
Is the second stage of miniaturization the watch?
Yes. The first appeared around 1500, but they were often an hour behind reality and, as a result, were mainly used as jewelry! Their precision would improve later, thanks in particular to the brilliant inventions of the Dutchman Christian Huygens. Later still, electric watchmaking would come in the 19th century, quartz watchmaking in 1928 and finally atomic watchmaking in 1949.
For what the museum of time is it based in Besançon?
Because the city was the capital of French watchmaking from the 19th century, notably due to its proximity to Switzerland and its know-how in metalworking. It was here, too, that there was a national watchmaking school, an astronomical observatory, not to mention large companies like Lip or Kelton.
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