Man has been measuring and reading the time for several thousand years. People followed the movement of the sun, used hourglass, water and candle clocks, and only for the latest seven centuries, our civilization has been using mechanical clocks.

Today, a video story about the unique item in the museum Collection exposition - Musical quarter striking moon phase wall clock with automaton  created in the Netherlands in the middle of the 16th century is under the heading "Exhibit in detail".
Due to the technical equipment and design features, this is rather bulky item. The clock does not have a familiar hunter case: the mechanism is mounted inside steel frame, and wooden doors close the sides. At the same time, the bottom part is not overlapped because of hanging loads, and the upper part it not covered due to the musical mechanism, which includes six bells and hammers, and every fourth hour one selected melody out of three recorded on the pinned metal cylinder sounds. Large dial is on the front side, golden Roman numerals indicating hours are on the chapter ring, minute divisions in the form of two thin strips are located on the inner red-brown chapter ring of smaller size.

The clock has two hands - hour and minute one; black-golden circle is seen on the blue-green dial field – the moon phase indicator, which means that in addition to chronometric information, this clock provides the viewer with information about the movement and position of celestial objects.
Three wooden figures – mechanical dolls are fixed behind golden balustrade in the upper part. Chronos, the god of time in ancient Greek mythology is in the center. The figure of Chronos moves in accord with the balance spring. Two male figures with hammers called "striking jacks" or Jacquemarts* are on both sides of Chronos. Hourly striking is carried out by a hammer striking the large bell.

* The name given to mechanical figurines that are controlled by a clockwork mechanism and perform a quarter strikes, in other words, they strike the bell every quarter of an hour.