Famed Roman shipwreck reveals more secrets (possibly more "Antikythera Mechanisms")

Originally posted by Jukiodone
Here's a working version made out of Lego:

It's always interested me that although the instructions are written in Greek, there are absolutely no other similar examples of this type of Mechanism in the Greek engineering record for over 1000 years.

It seems to me that because the mechanism used mathematics that are traditionally thought as "Greek"; historians assume it was made by the Greecians.

When we actually look at the origins of Maths as we know it today, it seems many Greek attributed theories were in fact from the Indian vedic period (trigonometry) and Babylonian/Persian/Arab scholars who later developed this work.

The Greeks were the first European society to learn the old knoweldge and after a few subsequnet tweaks by Modern Scholars in history text books; suddenly the Greeks are the fathers of all knowledge.

I call OOPART,,,in fact I think its the only proven OOPART ever discovered and is significant enough to ask the question of how far technology cvan develop locally on Earth in advance of other cultures.

If we look at today and compare the US ( The I-Phone in Space country) with Papua New Guinea I wonder how long it would take Papua New Guinea to put a man on the moon if Europe, Amercia and Asia were suddenly submerged taking all that info with them???

edit on 5-1-2013 by Jukiodone because: (no reason given)

edit on 5-1-2013 by Jukiodone because: (no reason given)

There is clearly a Greek tradition of mechanical devices such as the " mechanism", Romans brought examples back with them from the conquest of Syracuse.

Cicero's De re publica, a 1st century BC philosophical dialogue, mentions two machines that some modern authors consider as some kind of planetarium or orrery, predicting the movements of the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets known at that time. They were both built by Archimedes and brought to Rome by the Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus after the death of Archimedes at the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC. Marcellus had great respect for Archimedes and one of these machines was the only item he kept from the siege (the second was offered to the temple of Virtus). The device was kept as a family heirloom, and Cicero has Philus (one of the participants in a conversation that Cicero imagined had taken place in a villa belonging to Scipio Aemilianus in the year 129 BC) saying that Gaius Sulpicius Gallus (consul with Marcellus' nephew in 166 BC, and credited by Pliny the Elder as the first Roman to have written a book explaining solar and lunar eclipses) gave both a "learned explanation" and a working demonstration of the device.

There was also a town square sized mechanical clock, complete with automatons, in Syracuse a well, the building still exists.
With our modern numeric algebra, designing a comparable mechanism isn't that difficult, its tedious but not difficult. It is all about numbers of revolutions of a driven gear as compared to a number of input revolutions
of a driver gear.
The real genius of the whole thing is that the Greeks knew nothing of ratios, or computational algebra, they geometric algebra, and as someone who has an engineering and mathematical education, I am stunned by those facts.
With a basic understanding of ratios and computational algebra designing the mechanism is pretty simple, but without an understanding of ratios and limiting your higher mathematics to geometric algebra, the execution of the mechanism is astounding.
The reason more devices such as this haven't been found is that bronze is recycleable, and they were melted down and made into statues and spoons and broaches, when there purpose was no longer understood.
I suspect that the device's original purpose was for navigation, using an Egyptian method for determining longitude where the postion of celestial bodies is compared to their position as seen from a bench mark location.
I'll try to find the article on this method.

reply to post by Fisherr

Hello Fisherr....

Yes... that is the programe i was trying to describe....

thank-you for finding it...

Thanks Blackmarketeer

I agree with slayer that this exac has the chance to be one of the most interesting!

Note: those vessels found in deep water are on the known 'sealane' between Greece and Italy. The ancients did cut across the Med regularly because if they got lost they'd hit land pretty soon. Same for Sicily-Tunisia, Cyprus-Palistine, Crete-Nile delta, etc



Let's hope they find more stuff

reply to post by Klassified

I'm wondering what the bronze statue had in its right hand at one time. The positioning of his hand looks almost like he could have been holding the infamous cone we often see in Sumerian reliefs.

If I was to guess, I would say it is Adam reaching to accept the apple from Eve? I have no way of knowing that for sure. Thing about these old cultures is they were way religious oriented when it came to their works of art back then. Every other piece was a statue of Adam. And it would represent in a freeze frame of his life one of the most important moments (according to the creation story).

Just observing...

reply to post by tri-lobe-1


Im still looking for it. Would like to watch it. If you ever remember the name of it, U2U me......

reply to post by Fisherr


Looks like Fisherr found it !!!!!

reply to post by intrptr

I'd say your observation is good, and that's a real possibility. It's the finger placement that made me think of it.



But yeah, he could also be reaching for an apple.

I always thought the Antikthera mechanism was a interesting find. Clockwork mechanisms some time before we were supposed to make them like that? I've seen that vid of the one made from legos that engineer built. The gear ratios on it had me stunned. We can only hope that they find more like it.

reply to post by Klassified

Yours is more intriguing actually. At least the hand is holding something. Do you know anything about who that winged character is supposed to represent or why a pine cone? And whats with that paint bucket (lol) that he is holding in the other hand?

I know Nephalim, and pineal glands, et al. Just wondering your take on it? Thanks...

I always think that statue's hand position is reminiscent of reaching out to cop a feel :-)

Amazing find OP, star and flag (I wish I could give you 10 of each). I absolutely adore seeing threads like this!

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Before we get hyped up, please realize that the device itself is fundamentally just a very advanced clock.

Albeit it is an amazing piece of technology, please also realize that the Romans, at the height of their empire, were fully aware of bacteria (despite no evidence for microscopes), use of needles, primitive brain and eye surgery, and even a few prototypes for steam engines and paddle boats. There may have also been a primitive railroad system in Greece (Not using any steam engine lol).

Please bare in mind all of this, and then realize this. Just because you have a technology, does not mean you are using it to its maximum potential.

Now think about all we have.

(Yea I should probably source all this. Bit lazy, so I'll do it if someone asks)

reply to post by intrptr

The bucket(bandaddu) contains the blood(or water) of life. The cone, as you know, is believed to represent the pineal gland(Although others speculate differently). I'm wanting to say the winged character here is an Annunaki named Ninurta(Also known by other names). Son of Enlil and ninlil.

reply to post by Klassified


That is an Assyrian bas-relief from Dur Sharrukin depicting a 'blessing diety' (or genie) holding a pine/fir cone and using it to purify devotees with sacred water (or possibly even pollen). It's thought to either represent a blessing, purification, or fertility ritual. Basically dipping the cone into the bucket and sprinkling it on the devotee.

Not any crazier than our modern churches sprinkling holy water on a devotee. In this case the bas-relief doesn't depict any particular named god, just a 'blessing genie'. Neo-Assyrian reliefs would show the similar blessing genies with an eagle's head.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I just want to say Black....

Thank You for this thread.


Learning more about the Antikythera Mechanism, Archimedes, and the thought of something wonderful being pulled up from this site, made my weekend.

reply to post by punkinworks10


Thanks for the info, that's more or less how I see the Antikythera mechanism, it's useful like an orrey or the moon dial on a grandfather clock - great at showing you the next convergence of moon and planets and sun for eclipses and the like. I even had a simple "paper computer" from one of those Astronomy magazines back when I was a kid that would show what planets or constellations would be visible once you turned the paper dials to the correct dates. The Antikythera mechanism is a work of genius, but as far as telling the time of day - doesn't do it.

It's simply not a machine for navigation at sea. You need an accurate timepiece (that functions on a rolling ship), the ability to determine high noon, and a concept of longitude and latitudes, and none of that came into a workable system until the British Royal Navy made it work. The Antikythera mechanism is a calendar, not a clock.

Antikythera Mechanism Part 1: by Nature Video


Part of the video description...

New interpretations of the Antikythera Mechanism reveal that it could be used to predict eclipses,

Interesting topic, s&f.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Like most everyone else here I am very excited to hear such news! Nice find, worthy of my hard to get star & flag!



I await further news OP I'm depending on you to do the followup on your story. Keep us posted!


-Alien

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


It shows astrological alignments - based on a geocentric solar system view, so 3 points for cleverness and good mechanical skills but -2 for getting the actual structure of the system wrong!

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
reply to post by punkinworks10

 

Thanks for the info, that's more or less how I see the Antikythera mechanism, it's useful like an orrey or the moon dial on a grandfather clock - great at showing you the next convergence of moon and planets and sun for eclipses and the like. I even had a simple "paper computer" from one of those Astronomy magazines back when I was a kid that would show what planets or constellations would be visible once you turned the paper dials to the correct dates. The Antikythera mechanism is a work of genius, but as far as telling the time of day - doesn't do it.

It's simply not a machine for navigation at sea. You need an accurate timepiece (that functions on a rolling ship), the ability to determine high noon, and a concept of longitude and latitudes, and none of that came into a workable system until the British Royal Navy made it work. The Antikythera mechanism is a calendar, not a clock.

Hi ,
No not used for navigation as we know it, but if it can actually indicate the positions of planetary bodies and their motions through the night sky, then it could be used to determine longitude.

Thus, if a known star is in a given position on the celestial sphere (measured by azimuth and right ascension), a table could be drawn up at a given location for each night, showing how distant the Moon appears to be from that star.

For example: If a ship sailed west out of a port, and its new longitude were now 15 degrees west (one hour) of that port, and those on the ship could see the Moon and the reference star, the Moon would appear to be 0.5 degree east of where the table would show it to be for the port of departure. There is nothing here that navigator Maui in 232 B.C. could not have known. The only question would be whether his instruments could measure an angular difference on the order of 0.5 degree.

Our Observations Our observational experiment showed that a simplified torquetum could do it. In the time that Altair had moved 41.8 degrees west along the equatorial plane, the Moon had moved only 40.25 degrees, a difference of 1.55 degrees. Because the Moon should retrograde about 0.5 degree/hour, the calculated regression would equal 1.39 degrees. This error of less than 1/6th (or 0.166) of a degree is well within our instrument limitations, which can be read only to 0.25 of a degree.

This experiment was conducted with a simplified tanawa or torquetum.
I'm not sure about the hypothsized maui expedition, but it is a very interesting idea, and the earliest devices like the mechanism date to the same period.
The source article
www.21stcenturysciencetech.com...

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

Thanks BM, I get these mixed up at times doing a quick web search, and going only by what's on the webpage description. And they aren't always right. I appreciate the correction. Harte caught another one of these I posted recently. I'm going to have to double and triple check these from now on.