A Unique Clock in Prague

BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Street vendors vie for the attention of passing tourists. A medley of laughter, chatter in different languages, and blaring music fills the square. But wait! Why is the crowd quieting down? It is almost the top of the hour, and all eyes are fixed on two blue windows on the tower of the town hall. Suddenly the windows slide open, and figures representing the apostles of Christ appear. Peter, bearing a large key, heads the procession. As the 12 figures take their turns at the windows, two by two, they seem to survey the crowd below.

WE ARE witnessing the spectacle of the astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall of Prague, in the Czech Republic. Every hour on the hour from eight in the morning until eight at night, this amazing mechanism springs to life. Besides the mechanical parade of apostles, there are other moving figures on the  outside of the clock. These portray the things that the people of Prague used to fear the most. On one side, weighing his purse in his hand, stands the Miser, representing greed. Near him is Vanity—a man admiring himself in a mirror. Both the Miser and Vanity nod in self-approval. On the other side of the clock stands the skeleton—Death—who tolls a bell with one bony hand and turns over an hourglass with the other. All the while, the skeleton opens and closes its toothy jaws and nods toward the Turk—representing invasion—who stands next to him. The Turk shakes his head, refusing to go with him.

The story is told of a sparrow that flew into the skeleton’s mouth just as it shut for the last time in the performance. The hapless sparrow was imprisoned there for an hour before the skeleton opened its mouth again! If people in today’s computerized age are fascinated by this entirely mechanical marvel, can you imagine the impression it made on those living hundreds of years ago?

A Closer Look at the Clock

Tourists naturally concentrate primarily on the moving characters, which were added during the centuries after the clock was first installed. But the clock’s oldest and most ingenious element is the astronomical dial. What can it tell us? First, the time. The black outer ring is marked with gold Gothic numerals according to the old Czech system of dividing the day into 24 hours beginning at sundown. This ring rotates so that the 24th hour always coincides with sunset, regardless of the season. Roman numerals just inside the outer ring divide the day into two 12-hour periods, with noon at the top and midnight at the bottom. The fingers of a golden hand point to the time of day.

Also on the astronomical dial, the movement of a large golden disk indicates the path of the sun, while a small sphere shows the phases of the moon. The apparent rotation of the starry skies around the earth is shown by a smaller, eccentric ring that is marked with the signs of the constellations. Fixed in the middle of the face is the earth, including its meridians, parallels, and poles, with Prague at the center. On the face are also three circles representing the equator and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The dial thus shows the relative positions of earth, moon, sun, and stars throughout the year. Below the astronomical dial is the calendar disk, on which country scenes are painted  to depict each month of the year. The calendar disk indicates the date by advancing one of 365 steps each night at midnight, except for one night during leap year.

A look inside the mechanism of the clock reveals a mind-boggling array of big and little wheels. The complicated device is cared for by a mechanic, who checks it thoroughly every week.

The History of the Astronomical Clock

There are many legends linked to Prague’s astronomical clock. According to one, a certain Master Hanuš constructed it. So outstanding was the masterpiece that town authorities feared he would build similar clocks elsewhere, thus stealing fame from Prague. To prevent him from doing so, they hired men to assault and blind Master Hanuš. The legend ends with the dying Hanuš reaching into the wheels of the clock and destroying it.

Happily, this is just a tall tale. But Hanuš was a real person, a clockmaker in Prague from 1475 to 1497. For many years experts believed that it was he who made the astronomical clock. However, recent research shows that Mikuláš of Kadaň constructed the clock as early as 1410. Hanuš rebuilt it in 1490. Since the 16th century, the timekeeping mechanism has been repaired and rebuilt several times. Since being rebuilt in 1865, however, most of its components have remained.

At the end of World War II, Nazi forces set fire to the Old Town Hall as they pulled out of Prague. The astronomical clock was badly damaged. After the war two main proposals to restore the clock were considered—to return it to its original appearance or to supply it with new dials and figures that had a completely different symbolism. In Prague, atheistic thinking was on the rise, and figures of the apostles were not favored by the Communist authorities. Before the design was altered, however, three master watchmakers demonstrated that the clock could be repaired, and so it was restored to its prewar appearance. Thus, today we still see a miser, a skeleton, a Turk, and the apostles, rather than, say, a carpenter, a bricklayer, a tailor, and a laundress.

Finally the Cock Crows

Twelve apostles march in the astronomical clock’s procession, but some details are not really Biblical. Judas Iscariot and James the son of Alphaeus have been replaced by Paul and Barnabas, who are not counted among the 12 in the Bible. (Acts 1:12-26) Around the head of each apostle is a halo—a pagan symbol that was not used by the early Christians.

After the last apostolic figure makes its appearance, a gilded cock roosting above the windows crows. The hour is rung, the windows close, and the crowd begins to disperse. Would you like to see it all again? Well, we will have to wait another hour. Meanwhile, we can study the face of this clock, which has been attracting visitors to Prague’s Old Town Hall for nearly 600 years.

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THE ASTRONOMICAL DIAL

Current time 12:57 p.m.

Sunset 5:21 p.m.

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THE CALENDAR DISK

Date indicated January 1

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Vanity and the Miser

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Death and the Turk