image: Wikimedia commons (link).
The Antikythera Cosmos from Tony Freeth on Vimeo.
In an accomplishment which must rank as one of the most impressive feats of "reverse engineering" of all time, a team of scholars led by Tony Freeth -- who have in some cases been working on the project for over a decade -- has reconstructed the "front face" and the intricate supporting mechanics of the ancient Antikythera Mechanism, the remnants of which were discovered at the site of an ancient shipwreck on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, where the mysterious device had been resting for approximately two thousand years (the mechanism is thought to have been made in the first or second centuries BC)..
Tremendous "thank you" goes out to Deniz D, who alerted me to this remarkable recent reconstruction, described in this article on Vice published on March 12. The accomplishment of the group from University College London who appear to have solved the mystery of the mechanism's design is examined in even greater detail in the accompanying video, which is truly a "must-watch" and may literally take your breath away as it presents the visual model of the original ancient device.
I myself have been fascinated by this ancient device since about 2006, when I had the opportunity to attend a lecture given at Hewlett Packard's campus on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, describing the breakthroughs in the study of the Antikythera Mechanism which had been enabled using computer-aided "reflectance imaging" and "interactive relighting," described in this article (also from 2006).
These capabilities and imagery from the early 2000s played an important role in the recent breakthroughs by the team, whose patience and diligence in continuing to pursue the secrets of this incredible ancient machine rightly deserve to be ranked alongside the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone and hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt and the decoding of the ancient cuneiform writing of ancient Mesopotamia.
The mechanism is named for the island in the Mediterranean near the site of an ancient Roman shipwreck which was discovered in 1901. The island itself gets its name "Antikythera" from its location to the south of the larger island of Kythera or Cythera -- Antikythera literally indicates "over against Cythera" or "opposite Cythera."
The island of Kythera or Cythera itself was in ancient times closely associated with and sacred to the goddess Aphrodite, and indeed the island is said by at least one ancient writer to have been named after the goddess. In the ancient poems of Hesiod as well as in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the goddess Aphrodite is sometimes called Cytherea.
The video linked above explores the remarkable story of the efforts to reverse engineer the geared mechanism found in fragments among the shipwreck near Antikythera, beginning shortly after its recovery by sponge-divers in 1901.
The conclusion reached by the team led by Tony Freeth describes a mechanism of incredible sophistication, displaying the phases of the moon and the two "nodes" where the plane of the moon's orbit intersects the earth-sun plane, allowing the prediction of eclipses, since eclipses of the sun or moon can only take place when a new moon or a full moon occur as the moon crosses one of these nodes. For previous posts discussing the lunar nodes, see for example here and here.
In addition, the team reveals that the Antikythera Mechanism almost certainly displayed the motions of the sun as it moves through the background path of the zodiac throughout the year, as well as the motions of all five visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), even incorporating the phenomenon of their retrograde cycles!
Throughout the linked video, the narrator makes more than one reference to the supposedly mistaken design of the Antikythera Mechanism's positioning of the earth in the center with sun and planets circling around it on successive interlocking rings -- but note that from the perspective of an observer on earth this is exactly what we see, and the mechanism is obviously designed to depict the heavenly cycles from the perspective of an observer on earth. This fact in no way necessitates the conclusion that the ancients who designed this incredible ancient machine believed that earth was stationary, just because earth is placed at the center of the device.
Furthermore, as discussed in a video I made entitled "Simon Shack, Tycho Brahe, Retrograde Mars, and the vital importance of our Moon," it is quite possible to explain the heavenly motions we see from our vantage point on this planet either by the conventional Keplerian model or by a model in which our sun is actually interacting with a binary companion and in doing so going around our earth even as it interacts with its binary companion -- and there appears to be abundant evidence which suggests that the Keplerian model may in fact be incorrect, in which case the narrator of the above video should issue a public apology to the designer or designers of the Antikythera Mechanism.
Indeed, the motions of the planets as seen from earth, and as described in the linked video about the Antikythera device, may actually be more satisfactorily explained by the "Tychos" model proposed by researcher Simon Shack, building upon the work of astronomer Tycho Brahe, than by the model introduced by Kepler and subsequently adopted as the only possible explanation for the motions of the planets.
Note also the central role played by the ancient philosopher Parmenides in assisting Tony Freeth and his team of researchers in unlocking the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism's design and gearing ratios. This aspect of the story is quite remarkable and involves an inspired level of analysis and sleuthing by the research team, based in part upon newly-discovered inscriptions among the fragmented remains of the original device. Those who have been following this blog for many years, or who are familiar with the work of the important scholar Peter Kingsley, will recall that Parmenides plays a central role in the indispensable book In the Dark Places of Wisdom, discussed in numerous previous posts including this one and this one.
Finally, if you watch the above video, you will hear modern materials scientists marveling at the design of the Antikythera Mechanism which has emerged -- and wondering how they could have produced the physical mechanism itself, using the tools available in the ancient period. This question is extremely important -- and I would suggest that another recent discovery should be considered in conjunction with any discussion of the level of tooling available in ancient times.
That discovery is the Pylos Combat Agate, which features artwork of incredible sophistication and detail, on a tiny scale which has astonished scholars. I wrote extensively about this important artifact when it was first revealed to the world, and about the evidence which shows that the scene on the Pylos Agate is celestial in nature: see for example my video here and discussion here.
You can read more about the incredible new discovery by Tony Freeth and his colleagues in their article in the journal Nature, here.
I find it very significant that this most intricate computer from the ancient world had as its primary purpose the tracking of the heavenly cycles, which themselves form the foundation for the ancient myths not only of Greece but of virtually every other culture on our planet, from every inhabited continent and island.
Congratulations to the entire team and to everyone who played a role in re-discovering the secrets of the Antikythera Mechanism! As the end of the linked video implies, this important milestone does not end the mystery, but leads to more questions about humanity's ancient history -- and the ways in which the conventional narrative we have been led to believe may be fatally flawed and in need of radical revision.