In 1901, while waiting for a storm to pass, a group of sea sponge collectors came across the remains of a Roman galley that had sunk in the region of the island of Antikythera. Among the various archaeological finds found at the site are 82 fragments of what would have been a larger machine used to perform astronomical calculations. These pieces became known as the Antikythera Mechanism and intrigue scientists to this day.
Currently, the mechanism is on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens and from afar the pieces look like nothing but stones. However, with a closer look it is possible to see traces of a very advanced technology for the standards of the period to which it belonged.
The rescued parts look like gears with teeth similar to those found in watches (invented many centuries later) and rings divided into angles like a protractor of the ones we use in school. According to science popularizer Jo Marchant, nothing with this level of technology belonging to antiquity had been discovered until then.
The pieces
One of the fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. (Source: Smithsonian Museum)
According to an article published in the journal Nature, it can be said that the Antikythera Mechanism was a mechanical computer composed of bronze gears whose function was to make predictions through the mechanization of astronomical cycles and theories.
In 2005, through X-ray analysis, researchers were able to unravel most of the mysteries surrounding the back of such an old computer. The front, however, remains a mystery, as all the salvaged fragments were rear ones. Other research findings were inscriptions on pieces that describe the Greek cosmos of the period in which the machine worked.
Its inventor is also a mystery
Researchers suspect that the Greek mathematician Archimedes may be the father of the invention. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Despite all the efforts of the researchers, it has not yet been possible to conclude who is the genius behind the mechanism. Some scientists point to the mathematician Archimedes as the creator of the machine, but there is no proof of this.
The theory that Archimedes was the inventor is related to the inscriptions found on the gears. The predictions that the machine made ranged from the exact day that eclipses would occur to the dates that the Pan-Hellenic games would be held. And, among such games, the ones that received more prominence in the inscriptions engraved on the machine were the Isthmian Games, which took place in Corinth.
In addition, the names of the months engraved on some parts of the mechanical computer also they were Corinthians. Thus, some researchers began to suspect that the inventor was a citizen of Syracuse, one of the Corinthian colonies and precisely the city where Archimedes lived.
To reinforce this theory, there is also the fact that he was in Syracuse when the Romans invaded and sacked the city, even taking with them parts built by the mathematician.
