Antikythera Mechanism

Not commercially available (except on rotary tables etc ), but would have to be made for this mechanism. (it uses many) My point is , if this has to be made anyway, why not use it for marking out ?

dave8

Edited By david bennett 8 on 26/11/2022 17:08:40

General comment. I was just musing on how I might have done it. Cheers.

dave8

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I forgot to explicitly mention [although there is a scale visible]

Those holes are 0.4mm diameter

MichaelG.

I think if future archaeologists find examples of our current instruments with mechanical/geometric components like, say, telescopes, theodolites or 20th C warship gunnery dumaresqs, it will be in a well-populated context of contemporary supporting technology like machine tools and measuring devices.

Where's the circumstantial context for the AK mech?

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Presumably spread about the sea-bed

MichaelG.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 26/11/2022 19:15:41

Here is a very simple example of using a geared pointer for positioning. The enamel paint markings were indicated on stained glass by simply winding round the minute hand after putting on the 12 o'clock dot with a paint brush. (sorry its sideways)

dave8

But I meant elsewhere in the context of the civilisation involved - just as in the case of the modern instruments I suggested, you'd find remains of the supporting machine tool technology etc. anywhere technical goods are manufactured.

I'm just saying that products don't exist in isolation - their supporting technology is spread throughout the culture's area of influence.

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If you follow a chain of links from that Wikipedia page, Mick ... you will eventually get to this one:

**LINK**

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact

... from which I deduce that informed opinion says this product does currently "exist in isolation"

MichaelG.

Thanks for that, Michael. I hadn't known of the OOPArt acronym. I'll have a read of that.

The division plate on GHT's Lorch watchmaker's lathe seems worth a mention; he says (page 119 of Workshop Techniques):

"This plate, together with the lathe and its accessories was obtained from Germany in 1939 and I never use it without thinking of the person who drilled all those 2209 holes which are mostly 1mm dia. but the two outer rows, comprising 660 holes, are only 0.8mm dia". (I think the relevant hole counts were 360 and 300).

Looking at the photo of this plate, I would doubt that the holes were stepped out. Being intended for direct indexing, they would need to be accurate.

I do not think your hypothesis is valid unless there were thousands of such mechanisms made, rather than the only one so far found.

If they had the wherewithall to design such a mechanism, someone would have the skill to make it.

We can speculate all we want, made all the more intreaging due to only a small part of the mechanism surviving after centuries under water, but will we ever know what it was for, how it did it and how it was made, probably not fully unless another mechanism was to surface in a slightly better condition.

The ancients knew a lot more than we give them credit for.........

Edited By Howi on 27/11/2022 10:05:10

That's my view as well, except our modern understanding is biased by whatever happens to have survived, which may not be much.

Not far from where I was brought up in Bath lie some remains of the Wansdyke. The remains suggest it's a 30 mile long fortified border about built about AD500 by southerners to keep northerners out. Although a substantial earthwork, it's not known who built it, who the enemy was, or why it was needed. It seems to mark a border between two substantial power groups unknown to history. Around AD500 there existed a power able to organise a huge civic engineering project, probably requiring most fit males in the region to report for duty with a spade, and presumably able to fund a fighting force large enough to man it. There's no evidence it was ever attacked, and hints it was soon abandoned.

A little further south can be found the remains of the GHQ Stop Line. Built in a hurry in 1940 by General Ironside in expectation that the Germans would invade after Dunkirk, what's left is a scattered smear of pillboxes, dragons teeth, and demolition arrangements. Had the line been put to use, depth and strength would gave been added with trenches, barbed wire, mines, and artillery support, but none of this evident. To make sense of it, you have to know who the invader was, and what constraints both sides were operating under. A pillbox on it's own makes little sense; they were always part of a larger defensive arrangement, most of which was very temporary. Worse, some of the clues left to future archaeologists are positively misleading! Although the GHQ line was carefully laid out by Royal Engineers to maximise protection and establish interlocking killing zones, the pillboxes were installed in a hurry by civilian contractors. The build-quality is often poor, and some of them were installed back to front. Thus a future archaeologist might conclude the whole thing was for show, never intended to be used. The written record says otherwise, but archaeologists rarely see those!

Perhaps the GHQ line and Wansdyke were both built to deal with temporary emergencies, and the need for them soon passed, leaving them behind as inconclusive evidence that something big was going on.

On the subject of the Antikythara Mechanism, it is known that other mechanical devices existed at the time because Cicero mentions them. But he doesn't explain how many, how complicated, or how they were used. The evidence is incomplete, leaving us to make educated guesses as best we can.

The study of archaeologists is quite interesting, because looking at their early work often reveals biased conclusions, caused by overlaying cultural prejudices on partial clues left by ancient peoples. Time-Team often got unprofessionally excited about finding 'high-status' buildings, the problem being Blenheim Palace does not represent how most of us live. When joining the dots, be careful not to draw a rude donkey!

Dave

For what it’s worth [i.e. something closely approximating the diameter of Euclid’s point]

My working hypothesis is that the ‘lone genius’ Inventor of the mechanism was on his way to the Ancient Greek Patent Office … when the ship sank.

MichaelG.

< duplicate >

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 27/11/2022 12:56:55

< triplicate >

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 27/11/2022 12:56:26

As I've said before, I think it's accidentally left behind from a visiting time machine. Or they were poking some gentle fun at humanity...

Yes, and why not do that? We think we're dead clever, but we messed about with lenses for more'n a thousand years before somebody thought to put a couple of 'em together and make a telescope...

If the original AM did indeed use its own geared pointer to indicate holes and divisions, it could explain some of the obvious spacing errors. We could not expect these relatively crude hand cut gears to be error-free. It could also go some way to answering Neil's original post.

dave8

My theory is that a gang of guys at an ancient Greek Model Engineers club got together in their newsletter to design "... this really zany mechanism and drop it in the sea so that when someone fishes it up in 2000 years ....."