Before the invention of mechanical watches, the main device by which people determined time was a sundial. They consist of a dial and a rod, the shadow of which, moving along the dial due to the movement of the Sun across the sky, shows the true solar time. In the Northern Hemisphere, shadows move throughout the day in a direction that we call "clockwise". According to the logical idea of the inventors of the first mechanical clock, the hands of the mechanical clock had to simulate the movement of the shadow in the solar clock. If mechanical watches were invented in the Southern Hemisphere, the direction "clockwise" would most likely be the opposite.
