The Antikythera Mechanism is one of the most remarkable artefacts ever discovered. It was found by sponge divers off the coast of the island of Antikythera over a century ago.
It was originally dated to the 1st century BC and had been ascribed by some to the Greek astronomer Hipparchos, but recent research by Professor Alexander Jones of New York’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World has pushed this back to the 2nd century BC(b). Jones dismissed as ‘desperate’ a suggestion by Dr. Jo Marchant, that the mechanism had been part of a timepiece that possibly controlled the sequential appearance of figures to indicate seasons.
It is apparently a clockwork device for calculating astronomical events. A number of models have been built(c), based on the evidence of the fragments discovered and further study is continuing. Even Lego was used by designer Andrew Carol to build a replica of the mechanism(e).
{05.04.2011}In 2008 it was announced that writing engraved on the housing indicated the locations of Olympic Games. At the same time a possible connection with the renowned Archimedes was being posited by some commentators(f). An even more remarkable feature was the clever use of two gears, one positioned slightly off-centre in relation to the other, allowing the mechanism to track the apparent speeding up and slowing down of the moon each month, resulting from its elliptical rather than circular orbit(g).
The following website(a), will keep you up to date on related developments.
Commentators such as David Hatcher Childress see the Antikythera device as just another piece of evidence of more complex scientific knowledge among early cultures than is usually accepted and that by extension the possibility of a technologically advanced Atlantis[620].
(a) http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/
(b) http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/jul/29/archaeology-astronomy
(c) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eUibFQKJqI
(e) http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2010/12/worlds-oldest-computer-recreated-in-lego.html
(f) http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/new-origins-for/
(g) http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/antikythera-mechanism
