Antikythera Mechanism mystery turns 115

[UM-Bot]

It has been over a century since the ancient device was found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/307693/antikythera-mechanism-mystery-turns-115

[paperdyer]

This is the first time I'd heard of this.  If the ancient Greeks and Egyptian empires hadn't fallen, I wonder what other marvels we'd have by now.

[Hanslune]

That is one of the more interesting what ifs. The combining of the Greek philosophical search for answers with Roman engineering prowess. Yet in the Byzantine Empire it didn't go very far.

[EBE Hybrid]

One may wonder about "who, in 150BC, had the creative engineering genius to design and build this machine".

Then you have to think to yourself "The craftsman who made the cogs for the gears must hve been remarkably talented to have been able to accomplish a job like that"

After that you've got to give credit to the amazingly skilled toolmaker who made the tools that enabled the craftsman to make the gears, and on and on it goes until you think "Was this mechanism seriously assebmbled circa150BC, must be proof of future time-travellers"!

[Hanslune]

1 hour ago, EBE Hybrid said:

One may wonder about "who, in 150BC, had the creative engineering genius to design and build this machine".

Then you have to think to yourself "The craftsman who made the cogs for the gears must hve been remarkably talented to have been able to accomplish a job like that"

After that you've got to give credit to the amazingly skilled toolmaker who made the tools that enabled the craftsman to make the gears, and on and on it goes until you think "Was this mechanism seriously assebmbled circa150BC, must be proof of future time-travellers"!

The thought process is the amazing part. Building it was only a secondary effort. Certainly not time travelers as it shows a celestial system based on the geocentrism. It also has notes written in dialect of ancient Greek.Yet it is still very kewl!

[docyabut2]

15 hours ago, UM-Bot said:

It has been over a century since the ancient device was found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/307693/antikythera-mechanism-mystery-turns-115

It also could have been a burial device on the ship, a symbol of protection. there are many of these sphere  like shapes  found all over the world  in burial  connection to death.

Edited May 18, 2017 by docyabut2

[back to earth]

Happy birthday to you 

Happy birthday to you 

Happy birthday dear Antikythera mechanism mystery 

Happy birthday to you 

Edited May 18, 2017 by back to earth

[Chaldon]

Remember that the ancient homo sapiens weren't stupid, their society was. And is.

[Aardvark-DK]

My thoughts spun further than this example.
A lot of questions is raised...

This is probably not an unique example, there must be others like it

there must be forerunners to this mechanism

there must be further developments of this mechanism...

 

I really like this mystery, it puzzles me...

 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Aardvark-DK

[Hanslune]

5 hours ago, Aardvark-DK said:

My thoughts spun further than this example.
A lot of questions is raised...

This is probably not an unique example, there must be others like it

there must be forerunners to this mechanism

there must be further developments of this mechanism...

 

I really like this mystery, it puzzles me...

 

There may have been:

Quote

Rehm suggested that it might possibly be the legendary Sphere of Archimedes, which Cicero had described in the first century B.C. as a kind of mechanical planetarium, capable of reproducing the movement of the sun, the moon, and the five planets that could be seen from Earth without a telescope—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/05/14/fragmentary-knowledge

Quote

Similar devices in ancient literature
Cicero mentions two separate machines
similar to the Antikythera mechanism.
.
The first was built by Archimedes and brought to Rome by the Roman
general Marcus Claudius Marcellus after Archimedes' death at the siege
of Syracuse in 212 BC. Marcellus had a high respect for Archimedes and
this was the only item he kept from the siege. The device was kept as a

family heirloom, and Cicero was shown it by Gallus about 150 years
later. The motions of the sun, moon and five planets were shown by the
device. Gallus gave a 'learned explanation' of it and demonstrated it
for Cicero.
.
And when Gallus moved the globe, it was actually true that the moon was

always as many turns behind the sun on the bronze contrivance as would
agree with the number of days it was behind in the sky. Thus the same
eclipse of the sun happened on the globe as would actually happen.
Cicero, De Re Publica I 21-22

 

 

Quote

Cicero also says that another such device was built 'recently' by his
friend Posidonius, "... each one of the revolutions of which brings
about the same movement in the sun and moon and five wandering stars
[planets] as is brought about each day and night in the heavens..."
Cicero, De Natura Deorum II.88 (or 33-34)
.
It is unlikely that either of these machines was the Antikythera
mechanism found in the shipwreck, because both the devices mentioned by

Cicero were located in Rome at least 50 years later than the estimated
date of the shipwreck. So we know of three such devices. The modern
scientists who have reconstructed the Antikythera mechanism also
agree that it was too sophisticated to have been a one-off device.

https://archive.org/stream/denaturadeorumac00ciceuoft/denaturadeorumac00ciceuoft_djvu.txt

So maybe, just maybe there were three of them - perhaps more.

Edited May 19, 2017 by Hanslune

[Onoma]

Built using the foundation of Mesopotamian procedural texts that deal with omen

[back to earth]

Which text ? 

[Onoma]

4 minutes ago, back to earth said:

Which text ? 

Texts

The mechanism uses the synodic month average that is the fundamental basis of the luni-solar calendar of Mesopotamia

That would be all omen texts, afaik

 

 

 

[back to earth]

Ah !    Missed the 's'  .

But I am often confused by people's use of the term 'Mesopotamia'  - not sure whether it means  Iraq, Syria, Turkey,  Sumer, Akkad, Babylon or Assyria    

Or does ot mean ALL texts from those cultures and times , back then they all used the same or similar calander ?

[Onoma]

6 minutes ago, back to earth said:

Ah !    Missed the 's'  .

But I am often confused by people's use of the term 'Mesopotamia'  - not sure whether it means  Iraq, Syria, Turkey,  Sumer, Akkad, Babylon or Assyria    

Or does ot mean ALL texts from those cultures and times , back then they all used the same or similar calander ?

 

The earliest known examples of the intercalary luni-solar calendars date to Sumer

By my recollection, it's mainly procedural texts ( for magic rituals ) and also omen texts ( which are also sometimes procedural texts, but sometimes just plain ephemeris )

They used the synchronized luni-solar calendar and then also had a system of intercalations for the stellar calendar ( the mazzaroth / zodiac ), but were well aware of other intercalations and cycles, for example the intercalation of the eclipse year with the luni-solar year ( approximate;y 19 days shorter )

The Antikythera mechanism calculates the Saros length using the Sumerian: šar ( Akkadian:  kiššatu; mâdu , Babylonian : sāru meaning 3600 ( As a number ) which in turn is the time it takes for the three-body system to return to the same relative positions on the ecliptic

Hence the largest gear being 223 teeth ( the number of months in the full saros )

Plato also knew of these mathematics, wrote about it in The Republic ( Plato's number )

 

 

 

 

[Onoma]

An early example of the evidence of the use of the intercalary calendar is found in an  Enūma Anu Enlil tablet, in the first line:

30 TAB-ma ba-ra-ri i-ta-aʾ-dar

 AN.GE₆ LUGAL URI^ki

"If the moon is early and eclipses at dusk (barāri), it is an eclipse for the king of Akkad"

 From the Akkadian adāru, which is from the Sumerian : kana ( to be dark ) which is where the name of the intercalary month of " adar " originally comes from

Helps to remember that ancient astronomers in Mesopotamia were more interested in recording eclipses than any other type of phenomenon, and " blood moons " in particular, but also any red phenomenon associated with a syzygy

 

 

 

[Onoma]

Here are some examples of agglutinative words used in astronomical texts, using the šar

 

 

 

The terminology where we find things like a garden referenced are based on the idiomatic speech commonly found in texts dealing with astronomy

cf " the Plough star "

The High Priest ( originally ) not only served as the head astronomer, he was also the scribe recording observations ( like the ephemeris  Christopher Columbus fooled the island natives with, when he told them he would make an omen in the sky appear to let them know God was angry they would not supply him with food, as he knew the timing of the eclipses as noted in the ephemeris he carried with him  )

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tatetopa]

This one still amazes me.  There is not a technology friendly society in Greece around this time I think.   Craftsmen of all sorts were lower in the social order than farmers and soldiers.  Not much encouragement to ingenuity.   Only one or two other mechanisms have been described, I think none survived.  This hints at so much we don't know about this period.

[back to earth]

Perhaps true of Greek societies, but there were other advanced societies  as well . We have some hints  ( see the Garden of Babylon thread )  .   Eg.  the 'prehistorical'  eras before the recorded  early Persian  empires  ;    'Pishdadian Empire '

Vast amounts of their literature has been lost or destroyed ( by Alexander, the Arab conquest, and others )   and still today we know little of the  pre-Persian far eastern Empires in central Asia and the beginnings of urban settlement there ( around 4,500 bc ) , and never really looked into it until the 1970s  ( excepting  the Russian Viktor Sarianidi  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Sarianidi    ) 

 

[DieChecker]

Just as today we have geniuses who invent new and amazing things, they had geniuses in ancient times. 

The MOST amazing thing probably isn't that such a device existed, but that some of it survived into modern times to be found and wondered over.

[Onoma]

Here's the breakdown of the largest gear, and how it is based directly on the synodic month average inherited from the Sumerians

I've put the base 60 in red at the top ( the standard Mesopotamian base for the month reckoning ) and the base 10 fractional representation underneath, also in red

When I referred to Plato as having written of the knowledge of these mathematics, it is specifically what he refers to as the: 

" Lord of better and worse births ", which he writes is the number 12.960,000 ( 60⁴ ) ( Different from " Plato's number " , but related )

" births " merely refer to planetary cycles, it's a term later used by the Jews to refer to the synodic month length as a " birth " ( molad )

 

That number ( 60⁴ ) in turn has been identified in Babylonian texts as the upper limit of their multiplication tables ( afaik ) and has also been identified in in a modified form in the so-called " Gilgamesh epic " texts

 

To this day, this average synodic month length is the basis of the modern Jewish calendar, written as 29+ 13753 / 25,920 days, but this is another remnant of Mesopotamian mathematical astronomy, as their calendar uses " 25,920 " for the

day ( 25,920 chelekim - barleycorn )

month 29 + 13753 / 25,920 days

Great year ( mazzaroth ) 25,920 years ( Stellar, in 360 day increments )

[Gingitsune]

On 5/31/2017 at 5:36 PM, Onoma said:

Texts

The mechanism uses the synodic month average that is the fundamental basis of the luni-solar calendar of Mesopotamia

This is exactly what they said in the BBC video seanjo linked, a bit long, but well worth seeing.

The calculus were from Mesopotamia, but the craftmanship was Greek, everything is written in Greek inside the machine. They even manage to reduce the possibility to a single Greek city, Syracuse. Their guess is, the mastermind behind this is no other than Archimedes, although it's probably some underlings who probably made this one.

On 5/18/2017 at 1:52 PM, seanjo said:

And this is a great vid on the device....

 

 

[Onoma]

 

 

Cool, just watched the video

Have to admit, I usually shy away from TV, but that was pretty good

It didn't really get into the topics too deeply, but for the layman, it was good

But to be honest, I believe academics have hardly cracked it's secrets  

 

 

[Hanslune]

4 hours ago, Onoma said:

 

 

Cool, just watched the video

Have to admit, I usually shy away from TV, but that was pretty good

It didn't really get into the topics too deeply, but for the layman, it was good

But to be honest, I believe academics have hardly cracked it's secrets  

 

 

Come now don't hold back tell us what you think they missed (and I'm sure they have missed a lot which is why it is still being investigated - and why they went back to the original wreck.