Antikythera Mechanism - Speculation About The Mechanism's Purpose

Speculation About The Mechanism's Purpose

It is thought that the purpose of this device was to predict lunar and solar eclipses based on Babylonian arithmetic-progression cycles. The inscriptions on the device also support suggestions of mechanical display of planetary positions.

Derek J. de Solla Price suggested that the mechanism might have been on public display, possibly in a museum or public hall in Rhodes. The island was known for its displays of mechanical engineering, particularly automata, which apparently were a speciality of the Rhodians. Pindar, one of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, said this of Rhodes:

The animated figures stand
Adorning every public street
And seem to breathe in stone, or
Move their marble feet.
—Pindar (trans. Rev. C. A. Wheelwright - 1830), Seventh Olympic Ode (95)

Arguments against the device having been on public display include the following:

  1. The device is rather small, indicating that the designer was aiming for compactness and, as a result, the size of the front and back dials is unsuitable for public display. A simple comparison with the size of the Tower of the Winds in Athens would suggest that the Antikythera mechanism manufacturer designed the device for mobility rather than public display in a fixed location.
  2. The mechanism had door plates that contained at least 2,000 characters, forming what members of the Antikythera mechanism research project often refer to as an instruction manual. The attachment of this manual to the mechanism itself implies ease of transport and personal use.
  3. The existence of this "instruction manual" implies that the device was constructed by a scientist and mechanic for use by a non-expert traveler (the text has much information associated with well known Mediterranean geographical locations).

The device is unlikely to have been intended for navigation use because:

  1. Some data, such as eclipse predictions, are unnecessary for navigation.
  2. Damp, salt-laden marine environments would quickly corrode the gears, rendering it useless.

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