<P> In China, a striking clock was devised by the Buddhist monk and inventor Yi Xing (683--727). The Chinese engineers Zhang Sixun and Su Song integrated striking clock mechanisms in astronomical clocks in the 10th and 11th centuries, respectively . A striking clock outside of China was the water - powered clock tower near the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, which struck once every hour . It was constructed by the Arab engineer al - Kaysarani in 1154 . In 1235, an early monumental water - powered alarm clock that "announced the appointed hours of prayer and the time both by day and by night" was completed in the entrance hall of the Mustansiriya Madrasah in Baghdad . </P> <P> From the 14th century, some clock towers in Western Europe were also capable of chiming at a fixed time every day; the earliest of these was described by the Florentine writer Dante Alighieri in 1319 . The most famous original striking clock tower still standing is possibly the one in St Mark's Clocktower in St Mark's Square, Venice . The St Mark's Clock was assembled in 1493, by the famous clockmaker Gian Carlo Rainieri from Reggio Emilia, where his father Gian Paolo Rainieri had already constructed another famous device in 1481 . In 1497, Simone Campanato moulded the great bell (h. 1, 56 m., diameter m . 1, 27), which was put on the top of the tower where it was alternatively beaten by the Due Mori (Two Moors), two bronze statues (h. 2, 60) handling a hammer . </P> <P> User - settable mechanical alarm clocks date back at least to 15th - century Europe . These early alarm clocks had a ring of holes in the clock dial and were set by placing a pin in the appropriate hole . </P> <P> Another mechanical alarm clock was created by Levi Hutchins, of New Hampshire in the United States, in 1787 . This device he made only for himself however, and it only rang at 4 AM, in order to wake him for his job . </P>

What is a hamster on an alarm clock called