Antikytheron Mechanism

March 15, 2007

Antikytheron

Provided by: Anthony Ayiomamitis
Summary authors & editors: Anthony Ayiomamitis

The scientific community was a buzz with the results released last fall surrounding the Antikytheron Mechanism. This device (shown above) was accidently discovered in 1900 (or 1901) by a sponge diver and which is now claimed by some historians to be of greater historic significance than the Mona Lisa and something which was 1,000 years ahead of its time. Poseidonius of Rhodes is believed to have been the "brains" behind its construction.

I spent two wonderful hours at the National Archaeological Museum (Athens, Greece) photographing every possible angle involving the three primary components of the mechanism, the associated results due to x- and gamma-ray analysis and the replica built by Price using multiple x-ray analyses as a basis.

The first photo is the primary and largest remnant of the Antikytheron Mechanism, whereas the second photo also includes the associated x-ray photo which is both very revealing and stunning. This mechanism, aside from being an engineering marvel, is a mini-planetarium, for it predicts the motion of the Sun and Moon across the sky, it exploits the Saros Cycle to predict solar and lunar eclipses, it documents the constellations (especially the zodiac), accounts for various astronomical phenomenon including the elliptical orbit of the Moon, and even takes into account leap year.

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