Karmic Knowledge

Live Science today reports on an astronomical device used by the ancient Greeks to calculate the motion of the sun and the moon. First discovered back in 1900 with the remains of an ancient shipwreck, the device, known as the Antikythera Mechanism, is believed to have been built some time between 65 and 100 BC. It has taken more than 100 years for researchers to reconstruct and understand how this technologically advanced device worked.

Live Science reports:

A new analysis of the Antikythera Mechanism [image], a clock-like machine consisting of more than 30 precise, hand-cut bronze gears, show it to be more advanced than previously thought—so much so that nothing comparable was built for another thousand years.

“This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind,” said study leader Mike Edmunds of Cardiff University in the UK. “The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right…In terms of historical and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa.”

According to the report, the front dials had pointers to the sun and the moon, and the back dials were used to predict solar and lunar eclipses. The device is reported to have been capable of replicating the irregular motions of the moon as it orbited the earth. It has been speculated that the Mechanism may have also been used to track astrologically auspicious occasions.

The article has some great photos along with other insights into the project. Wikipedia has some additional information, though I daresay it will have to be updated after the researchers on this project present and publish their findings this week.

So much knowledge forgotten, so much potential still to be uncovered. It makes me wonder what else the ancients knew.

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