Featured Very Unusual Chinese/Japanese Brass 'Clock' - Any Ideas ?

During my ongoing search form Asian porcelain items, I've by chance come across this unusual item, the like of which I've never seen before.
The seller claims that it is a clock of some sort, from either China or Japan. The mechanism certainly seems to resemble that of some type of timepiece.
The back panel of the item appears to bear a price tag similar to those I've seen on older 20th century items from China, so I assume that we're not talking about an antique item worth mega bucks.
Nevertheless, I'd be grateful to expand my limited knowledge and find out the exact purpose of this unusual item.
Any help most gratefully appreciated.

 

Intriguing item. Thanks for sharing. Sorry I cant offer any assistance. It would be fun trying to get it up and running.

The Chinese symbols below the circular bit denote numbers and months. May and October are mentioned. As are the numbers 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9

There are numbers denoted on the left hand side as well.

 

The wavy lines appear to plot trajectories of the sun, or maybe other celestial bodies. Possibly a mechanical sundial?

 

https://www.asianstudies.org/public...-chinese-science-and-the-teaching-of-physics/
Scroll down a little bit to where it says 'the scientific'. There is a disk that says qi meter underneath it. A couple of symbols on it correspond to your device. There is a pdf download with a full article on it. This might shed some light...

 

It is definitely a clockwork mechanism of some kind. In American & European clocks, the fact that it is pinned together and that the pinions are solid rather than lantern would be a sure sign of 19th Century (or earlier) craftsmanship, but I know little about Asian clocks. I do know that in traditional Japanese culture, the length of the hours varied according to the seasons. Could the curved lines be a reflection of that?

 

It does resemble Japanese temporal pillar clocks, a shaku-dokei. Maybe it originally had a wooden case.
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-3834574

 

It could be a Japanese clock. The Japanese used to divide their day into two eight hour periods, with the periods divided by sunrise and sunset. This means that in winter the night hours were long, and the day hours short, the opposite being true in summer. Japanese clocks needed faces that could accommodate the varying lengths of the hours (usually by just swapping out one face for another on a regular cycle). Yours seems to show the hours getting longer on one side, and shorter on the other.

 

Thank you all very much indeed for your comments, which are greatly appreciated.
A Japanese clock it is, then!

Best regards to all !!!!