Abstract
The Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek astronomical calculator, has challenged researchers since its discovery in 1901. Now split into 82 fragments, only a third of the original survives, including 30 corroded bronze gearwheels. Microfocus X-ray Computed Tomography (X-ray CT) in 2005 decoded the structure of the rear of the machine but the front remained largely unresolved. X-ray CT also revealed inscriptions describing the motions of the Sun, Moon and all five planets known in antiquity and how they were displayed at the front as an ancient Greek Cosmos. Inscriptions specifying complex planetary periods forced new thinking on the mechanization of this Cosmos, but no previous reconstruction has come close to matching the data. Our discoveries lead to a new model, satisfying and explaining the evidence. Solving this complex 3D puzzle reveals a creation of genius—combining cycles from Babylonian astronomy, mathematics from Plato’s Academy and ancient Greek astronomical theories.
Highlights
The Antikythera Mechanism is a cultural treasure that has engrossed scholars across many disciplines
We wanted to determine the cycles for all the planets in this Cosmos; to incorporate these cycles into highly compact mechanisms, conforming to the physical evidence; and to interleave them so their outputs correspond to the customary cosmological order (CCO), described below
S24, S25, Supplementary Videos S1–S3 visualize our new model: the culmination of a substantial cross-disciplinary effort to elucidate the front of the Antikythera Mechanism
Summary
The Antikythera Mechanism is a cultural treasure that has engrossed scholars across many disciplines. The major surviving fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism are labelled A–G and the minor fragments 1–757 They are partial, damaged, corroded and covered in accretions (Supplementary Fig. S1). In 2005 Microfocus X-ray Computed Tomography (X-ray CT) and Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) of the Mechanism’s 82 fragments added substantial data This led to a solution to the back of the m achine, with the discovery of eclipse prediction and the mechanization of the lunar a nomaly (Supplementary Fig. S20). Most previous reconstructions used pointers for the planetary displays, giving serious parallax problems and poorly reflecting the description in the inscriptions—see section on Inscriptional Evidence None of these models (Supplementary Discussion S6) are at all compatible with all the currently known data. Came the discovery in the tomography of surprisingly complex periods for the planets Venus and Saturn, making the task very much harder
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