Frequently Asked Questions
The Antikythera Mechanism is widely considered to be one of the most important archeological artifacts ever found.
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The Mechanism provides a unique window on history, allowing us to view the collected astronomical knowledge of the Ancient Greeks, and through them the knowledge of the Ancient Babylonians.
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The ‘Metonic Cycle’ is a particular approximation of relationship between the solar year and the lunar month.
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The three main fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism are on display at the Bronze Collection of the National Archeological Museum in Athens (Greece).
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Any suggestion that the mechanism is a fake is quickly ruled out on examining the mechanism at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
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No, by the same argument that it is not evidence of time travel.
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The mechanism was found on an ancient Roman merchant ship, wrecked just off a tiny island called Antikythera, between Crete and mainland Greece.
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Almost certainly not as described by Derek de Solla Price in his key publication “Gears from the Greeks: ‘Only six divers were available and because of the water depth they could not remain on the bottom for more than five minutes, which together with four minutes for ascent and descent entailed about nine minutes of submersion without air-tanks or tubes to help them…’ But by divers using closed, flexible diving suits, with copper diving helmets and surface supplied air.
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The ship, a Roman merchant ship of some 300 tons, had sunk on a well-used trade route from the Eastern to the Western Mediterranean.
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The Mechanism is believed to be made of Bronze, or more specifically a low tin bronze (95% copper, 5% tin).
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The mechanism was made using simple steel tools.
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There is no hard evidence for the place of manufacture for the Mechanism.
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Once again there is no hard evidence identifying a particular maker.
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The ‘Saros Cycle’ is a particular approximation to an eclipse cycle.
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The remaining fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism contain 30 gears.
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The mechanism has 3 main dials, one on the front, and two on the back.
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Unfortunately bronze is a valuable and highly recyclable commodity.
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In simple terms these are the periods of time that it takes for the Moon to compete a cycle, traveling from one ‘observable’ reference point, back to the same point.
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While a century of research has finally answered the question what the mechanism did, we are actually no nearer answering the question what was it for.
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The mechanism was discovered little over a century ago, and only now are we beginning to understand with some degree of certainly what the mechanism could do.
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The Sothic year originates with ancient Egyptians.
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Without a doubt it tells us that both Ancient Greek astronomy and mathematics were very advanced.
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A ‘parapegma’ is precursor to the modern day almanac.
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The remaining fragments of the lower back dial contain 16 sets of characters which were inscribed within some of the 223 divisions of the spiral dial.
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