Venkatesh Rao

I always associate oral cultures with pre-clock time.

Yeah, it's a solid association. Here's a particularly good musing on it https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/modernism-time-and-consciousness-the-influence-of-henri-bergson-and-marcel-proust …

Speaking of clocks and literality: you know the first reference to a striking clock is in the Divine Comedy?

I did not know that! Thanks (interesting+useful for in-planning book project on all this)

Question for you: which came first? Prayers at specific times of day or accurate clocks? (I’ve always wondered)

I mean, prayers were clearly a killer use-case.

Prayers clearly. Tied to sun for daily, moon phases for week-month, and to both for seasonal (solstices etc)

So the need to perform hourly-timed prayers was a driving force in clock tech? (First mechanical clocks were probably Muslim.)