The history of the “Hourglass" makes for some interesting reading. Internet searches using the keywords ‘hourglass', ‘sandtimer', ‘sand timer', ‘horology', or ‘timekeeping' will get you more results than you could read in a lifetime. Here are a few that I have found, but the information out there is seemingly endless.
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Hourglass.html
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1469.htm
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sands-of-time-the-hourglasss-u-121964
http://www.time-for-time.com/history.htm
If you have any strange and wonderful uses for a sandtimer, please feel free to drop me a line and I will see if I can get it into the site somewhere to share.
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