An Ancient Greek Astronomical Calculation Machine Reveals New Secrets
... The lump is known as the Antikythera mechanism, an extraordinary object that has befuddled historians and scientists for more than 120 years. Over the decades the original mass split into 82 fragments, leaving a fiendishly difficult jigsaw puzzle for researchers to put back together. The device appears to be a geared astronomical calculation machine of immense complexity. Today we have a reasonable grasp of some of its workings, but there are still unsolved mysteries. We know it is at least as old as the shipwreck it was found in, which has been dated to between 60 and 70 B.C.E., but other evidence suggests it may have been made around 200 B.C.E. ...
In March 2021 my group at University College London, known as the UCL Antikythera Research Team, published a new analysis of the machine. ... Our paper posits a new explanation for the gearing on the front of the mechanism, where the evidence had previously been unresolved. We now have an even better appreciation for the sophistication of the device—an understanding that challenges many of our preconceptions about the technological capabilities of the ancient Greeks. ...
The most prominent feature of the front of the largest fragment is the main drive wheel, which was designed to rotate once a year. It is not a flat disc like most of the other gears; this one has four spokes and is covered in puzzling features. ...
We now understood how the front display matched the description in the back-cover user’s manual, with the sun and planets shown by marker beads on concentric rings. The front cover also displayed the moon’s phase, position and age (the number of days from a new moon), and the dragon hand that showed eclipse years and seasons.
With the concentric rings for the planets, we realized that we could now make sense of the front-cover inscription as well. ...
With the Antikythera mechanism, we are clearly not at the end of our story. We believe our work is a significant advance, but there are still mysteries to be solved. The UCL Antikythera Research Team is not certain that our reconstruction is entirely correct because of the huge loss of evidence. It is very hard to match all of the surviving information. Regardless, we can now see more clearly than ever what a towering achievement this object represents.