Engraving scales for scientific instruments?

[bugbear]

(This is the least-wrong forum I could find for this post)

As anyone who did physics at school knows, the "problem" of dividing
a scale was solved in 1773 by Jesse Ramsden, when he invented his
famous Dividing Engine.

But (of course) scientific instruments had been made for many centuries
prior to this.

Does anyone know of references to the early (presumably more manual)
techniques - both the calculation of the scales (especially non uniform ones)
and the physical making of the marks appear to be interesting problems.

BugBear