Location: Greece Length: 14 min.
In 1901, sponge divers found an extraordinary mechanism on the sea bottom near the island of Antikythera. It astonished the whole international community, stumping scientists for decades. Was it an astrolabe, an astronomical clock, or something else? More recent research is revealing its secrets. Dating from around the 1st century B.C., it is the most sophisticated mechanism known from the ancient world. The Antikythera Mechanism operated as a complex mechanical "computer" to track the cycles of the Solar System.
An MFreeth.com production 2008
Copyright 2008 by McMillan Publishers Ltd.
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Web links:
Antikythera Mechanism (Wikipedia)
Antikythera Mechanism Research Project
Calendars with Olympiad Display and Eclipse Prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism (Nature 454:614-617)
Decoding the Ancient Greek Astronomical Calculator Known as the Antikythera Mechanism (Nature 444: 587-591)
A Photo Essay on the Antikythera Mechanism (K. Kris Hirst, about.com: Archaeology)