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( Striking clock)
A striking clock is a clock that sounds the hours audibly on a bell or gong. The striking feature of clocks was originally more important than their clock faces; the earliest clocks struck the hours, but had no dials to enable the time to be read.[1] The development of mechanical clocks in Europe was motivated by the need to ring bells upon the canonical hours to call the community to prayer. The earliest known mechanical clocks were large striking clocks installed in towers in monasteries or public squares, so that their bells could be heard far away. Though the first striking clocks were 12 hour clocks, particularly in Syria, many early clocks struck up to 24 strokes, particularly in Italy, where the 24 hour clock, keeping Italian hours, was widely used in the 14th and 15th centuries. The 12 hour clock, and consequently 12 hour striking, became more widespread, particularly in Britain and Northern Europe, and eventually became the standard. A typical striking clock will have two gear trains, because a striking clock must add a striking train that operates the mechanism that rings the bell in addition to the timekeeping train that measures the passage of time. The most basic sort of striking clock simply sounds a bell once every hour. This sort of striking clock is called a passing strike clock. It is far simpler to create such a clock; all that must be done is to attach a cam to a shaft that rotates once an hour; the cam raises and then lets fall a hammer that strikes the bell. Originating before the mechanical clock itself, in water clocks, such clocks were the earliest striking clocks; they rang once for each canonical hour, and were used as reminders to summon monks or nuns to their prayers. This sort of striking is still found in some skeleton clocks. It does not require a separate gear train to arm and release the single stroke sounded.
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