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Scientists Finally Discovered the Truth About Antikythera Mechanism

What is Antikythera Mechanism ?

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games which was similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games. This artefact was among wreckage retrieved from a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera in 1901.

The Antikythera mechanism (Fragment A – front and rear); visible is the largest gear in the mechanism, approximately 13 centimetres (5.1 in) in diameter.
Main w:en:Antikythera mechanism fragment (fragment A). The mechanism consists of a complex system of 30 wheels and plates with inscriptions relating to signs of the zodiac, months, eclipses and pan-Hellenic games. The study of the fragments suggests that this was a kind of astrolabe. The interpretation now generally accepted dates back to studies by Professor w:en:Derek de Solla Price, who was the first to suggest that the mechanism is a machine to calculate the solar and lunar calendar, that is to say, an ingenious machine to determine the time based on the movements of the sun and moon, their relationship (eclipses) and the movements of other stars and planets known at that time. Later research by the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project and scholar Michael Wright has added to and improved upon Price’s work. The mechanism was probably built by a mechanical engineer of the school of Posidonius in Rhodes. Cicero, who visited the island in 79/78 B.C. reported that such devices were indeed designed by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius of Apamea. The design of the Antikythera mechanism appears to follow the tradition of Archimedes’ planetarium, and may be related to sundials. His modus operandi is based on the use of gears. The machine is dated around 89 B.C. and comes from the wreck found off the island of Antikythera. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, No. 15987.

On 17 May 1902 it was identified as containing a gear by archaeologist Valerios Stais. The device, housed in the remains of a 34 cm × 18 cm × 9 cm (13.4 in × 7.1 in × 3.5 in) wooden box, was found as one lump, later separated into three main fragments which are now divided into 82 separate fragments after conservation efforts. Four of these fragments contain gears, while inscriptions are found on many others. The largest gear is approximately 13 centimetres (5.1 in) in diameter and originally had 223 teeth. In 2008, a team led by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth at Cardiff University used modern computer x-ray tomography and high resolution surface scanning to image inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism and read the faintest inscriptions that once covered the outer casing of the machine. This suggests it had 37 meshing bronze gears enabling it to follow the movements of the Moon and the Sun through the zodiac, to predict eclipses and to model the irregular orbit of the Moon, where the Moon’s velocity is higher in its perigee than in its apogee. This motion was studied in the 2nd century BC by astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes, and it is speculated that he may have been consulted in the machine’s construction. There is speculation that a portion of the mechanism is missing and it also calculated the positions of the five classical planets.

The instrument is believed to have been designed and constructed by Greek scientists and has been variously dated to about 87 BC, or between 150 and 100 BC, or to 205 BC, or to within a generation before the shipwreck, which has been dated to approximately 70–60 BC. Later clockwork is known from the medieval Byzantine and Muslim worlds, but works with similar complexity did not appear again until the development of mechanical astronomical clocks in Europe in the fourteenth century.

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All known fragments of the Antikythera mechanism are now kept at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, along with a number of artistic reconstructions and replicas to demonstrate how it may have looked and worked.


How did the ancient Greeks predict the month, day, and hour of an eclipse, even accounting for leap years? Could a device have told them the 462-year cycle of Venus and 442-year cycle of Saturn? And if so, who made it?

We examine a shipwrecked ancient artifact that was virtually ignored for half a century before being revealed by modern technology to be an ancient wonder of humanity that’s rewriting what our ancestors knew of astronomy.

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