Antikythera Mechanism - Origins

Origins

This machine has the oldest known complex gear mechanism and is sometimes called the first known analog computer, although the quality of its manufacture suggests that it may have had a number of undiscovered predecessors during the Hellenistic Period. It appears to be constructed upon theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek astronomers and is estimated to have been made around 100 BC. In 1974, British science historian and Yale University Professor Derek de Solla Price concluded from gear settings and inscriptions on the mechanism's faces that the mechanism was made about 87 BC and was lost only a few years later.

It is believed to be made of a low-tin bronze alloy (95% copper, 5% tin), but the device's advanced state of corrosion has made it impossible to perform an accurate compositional analysis.

All of the mechanism's instructions are written in Koine Greek, and the consensus among scholars is that the mechanism was made in the Greek-speaking world. One hypothesis is that the device was constructed at an academy founded by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius on the Greek island of Rhodes, which at the time was known as a center of astronomy and mechanical engineering; this hypothesis further suggests that the mechanism may have been designed by the astronomer Hipparchus, since it contains a lunar mechanism which uses Hipparchus's theory for the motion of the Moon. However, recent findings of The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project suggest that the concept for the mechanism originated in the colonies of Corinth, which might imply a connection with Archimedes.

It was discovered in a shipwreck off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera. The wreck had been found in October 1900 by a group of Greek sponge divers. They retrieved numerous artifacts, including bronze and marble statues, pottery, glassware, jewelry, coins, and the mechanism itself, which were transferred to the National Museum of Archaeology in Athens for storage and analysis. The mechanism itself went unnoticed for 2 years: it was a lump of corroded bronze and wood and the museum staff had many other pieces to busy themselves with. On 17 May 1902, archaeologist Valerios Stais was examining the finds and noticed that one of the pieces of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. Stais initially believed it was an astronomical clock, but most scholars considered the device an anachronism, too complex to have been constructed during the same period as the other pieces that had been discovered. Investigations into the object were soon dropped until Derek J. de Solla Price became interested in it in 1951. In 1971, both Price and a Greek nuclear physicist named Charalampos Karakalos made X-ray and gamma-ray images of the 82 fragments. Price published an extensive 70-page paper on their findings in 1974.

Coins that were found at the site by Jacques Cousteau in the 1970s date the shipwreck to shortly after 85 BC. Inscriptions on the device itself indicate that it was in use for 15 to 20 years before that. The ship carrying the device also contained vases that were in the Rhodian style. Rhodes was a trading port at that time, where the great Greek astronomer Hipparchus was thought to have worked from about 140 BC to 120 BC. After his death, an astronomy school was set up to continue his tradition and there is some speculation that this is where the mechanism originated.

It is not known how it came to be on the cargo ship, but it has been suggested that it was being taken to Rome, together with other treasure looted from the island, to support a triumphal parade being staged by Julius Caesar.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the United States received permission from the Greek Government in 2012 to conduct new dives around the deep shoals of Antikythera. Brendan Foley of the institute will be conducting a new survey of the debris field along with other archaeologists, including Theotokis Theodoulou of the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. The researchers are hoping to find other small pieces of the Antikythera mechanism on the sea floor, although the chances of that occurring are considered very slim. Additionally they hope to locate and survey other shipwrecks that floundered on the island's shoals.

A documentary was made in 2012 about the mechanism called The World’s First Computer, written and directed by Mike Beckham. The device was also a central artifact in the movie, Stonehenge Apocalypse (2010) where it was used as the object that saved the world from impending doom.