Science is always pushing on. The forward momentum is hard to keep up with sometimes, but all it takes is a quick look back to realize that there’s still a lot to learn from the past. And the ancient greeks have especially kept us on our toes with the Antikythera Mechanism. Since it was discovered in 1900 off the Greek island of Antikythera, the complex clock-like device has puzzled archaeologists and UFO hunters, alike.
Theories about the function and purpose of the Antikythera Mechanism have ranged from it being a very basic clock to intense back-and-forth arguments about how this gift from the aliens doesn’t belong in a museum. All the while, scientists have been piecing together the Mechanism’s real use by de-coding its inscriptions. Turns out, their discoveries are much better than any of the theories.
Digital scanning done over the course of a decade has indicated the Antikythera Mechanism was “a philosopher’s guide to the galaxy, perhaps the world’s oldest mechanical computer.” The scanning has indicated that the Greeks of around 200 BC were capable of sophisticated technological innovation, thousands of years ahead of their time.
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“These very small texts are a very big thing for us,” researcher Alexander Jones told the Associated Press. “It’s a lot of detail for us because it comes from a period from which we know very little about Greek astronomy and essentially nothing about the technology, except what we gather from here.”
As it turns out the Antikythera Mechanism followed the path of the sun and the Moon, their locations within the Zodiac, as well as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The Mechanism also had the potential to predicted solar eclipses.
With x-rays and fine-tuned scanning technology researchers have sifted through 82 pieces of the device and have gained a richly detailed understanding of the artifact’s true nature. According to team member Mike Edmunds, the mechanism was a sophisticated tool not in “the realm of executive toys,” like previous theories suggested.
Although researchers now know more than ever about the Antikythera Mechanism, there is still a lot to pick up on — literally. The ancient shipwreck where the fragments were found 115 years ago still sits 150 feet under the surface of ocean and archaeologists are continuing the search for more pieces today, in hopes that it will provide a better understanding or a whole new machine.
Technology has progressed 2000 years since ancient Greece, but the deeper we dig the more clearly we can see, the greeks weren’t exactly 2000 years behind us.
(Via ABC news)
