Tirlúmë — (Quenya: tir "watch over" + lúmë "hour/time") — tells time in the tengwar numerals of Tolkien's Elves.

Numbers are written in base-twelve, the duodecimal system the Eldar used, with a single glyph for each value 0–11. Digits read little-endian (units first).

Eight color presets — Azure, Forest, Mithril, Gold, Ember, Night-blue, Parchment — or fully custom ink and background. Optional seconds and date, switchable 12- or 24-hour display.

This is a new (2022) display design intended for use on wall-mounted clocks and digital watches with color screens, created by Jeremy Bornstein and James Home. The goal is to be easily readable (with a bit of practice) and also not to scream HEY I AM A CLOCK YOU NEED TO KNOW THE TIME, because that is often annoying.

This design was partially inspired by the set theory clock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr), in that it is an alternate method for displaying the precise time on a digital clock. Our design is somewhere between a first principles design and recycling of useful concepts from existing clocks.

The clock is divided into four sections with two perpendicular lines in the form of a plus sign (+). This is remeniscent of a normal clock face which often has markings at top, bottom, left and right. However whereas a normal clock face is a 12-hour display and makes two complete rotations every day, ours is a 24-hour display and only rotates once per day. More information is in the full documentation.