The trick to this research question is the keyword horology. It means the study of timekeeping. You will find some good background information in this Wikipedia article on horology, and the links within that article.
Review the vocabulary definitions and links to different kinds of clocks. That will give you an idea of what the subject area covers, and it will give you keywords to search in the library databases
Suggested databases to search:
- Historical Abstracts - world history since 1400 - good for Renaissance and Age of Exploration timepieces
- JSTOR - a multidisciplinary database with a great ancient and classical history collection - good for timepieces from ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient India, etc.
- ScienceDirect - good database for any technological topic
These databases can be accessed via the library's Article Databases link. Scroll down to click on the name of the database, and log in, if prompted. Then you can keyword search using the terms you identified earlier.
