Antikythera mechanism and the timing of the Olympiads

Complex clock combines calendars:

The Antikythera Mechanism, a clockwork device made in Greece around 150–100 BC, astounded the world two years ago when scientists deduced how this machine was used to make complex astronomical time-reckonings. Now they say that the instrument, discovered in 1901 in a Mediterranean shipwreck, did much more than that.

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Researchers have been trying to decode the mechanism's inscriptions and functions for several years. Their latest findings reveal that it links the technical calendars used by astronomers to the everyday calendars that regulated ancient Greek society — most strikingly, the calendar that set the timing of the Olympic Games.

“The mechanism is full of surprises,” says Alexander Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, who is one of the decoding team. “The latest revelations establish its cultural origin for the first time.”

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In 2006, Freeth was part of a team that used this and other techniques to figure out much of the mechanism's function, showing it to be an instrument of unparalleled sophistication in antiquity, more or less unrivalled until the clockwork mechanisms of the later Middle Ages3.

Now they say that the device was even more sophisticated than that — it unites abstruse astronomical determinations of time with the calendar of civic society. Another ancient Greek calendar cycle, called the Metonic cycle, was established to cope with the incommensurability of the lunar cycle and the solar year — the period of Earth's rotation around the Sun, as determined, say, by the time between successive summer solstices. One Metonic period is equal to 235 lunar months, which is almost exactly 19 solar years. The Metonic cycle, thought previously to be used only by astronomers, is represented on a dial on the Antikythera Mechanism. But this dial now turns out to be inscribed with the names of months in a regional calendar used in Corinthian colonies in northwest Greece — providing evidence that the device was used for mundane reckonings, and giving a surprising clue to its origin.

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But Freeth and his team now think that the instrument may have come from Syracuse in Sicily, the Corinthian colony where Archimedes devised a planetarium in the third century BC. “Archimedes died at the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, so we are confident that he did not make the mechanism,” says Freeth. “But it is possible that it came from a heritage of instrument-making that originated with him in Syracuse. It is an attractive idea, but purely speculative at present.”

Nature 454, 614-617 (31 July 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature07130

Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism

Tony Freeth1,2, Alexander Jones3, John M. Steele4 & Yanis Bitsakis1,5

Previous research on the Antikythera Mechanism established a highly complex ancient Greek geared mechanism with front and back output dials1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. The upper back dial is a 19-year calendar, based on the Metonic cycle, arranged as a five-turn spiral1, 6, 8. The lower back dial is a Saros eclipse-prediction dial, arranged as a four-turn spiral of 223 lunar months, with glyphs indicating eclipse predictions6. Here we add surprising findings concerning these back dials. Though no month names on the Metonic calendar were previously known, we have now identified all 12 months, which are unexpectedly of Corinthian origin. The Corinthian colonies of northwestern Greece or Syracuse in Sicily are leading contenders—the latter suggesting a heritage going back to Archimedes. Calendars with excluded days to regulate month lengths, described in a first century bc source9, have hitherto been dismissed as implausible10, 11. We demonstrate their existence in the Antikythera calendar, and in the process establish why the Metonic dial has five turns. The upper subsidiary dial is not a 76-year Callippic dial as previously thought8, but follows the four-year cycle of the Olympiad and its associated Panhellenic Games. Newly identified index letters in each glyph on the Saros dial show that a previous reconstruction needs modification6. We explore models for generating the unusual glyph distribution, and show how the eclipse times appear to be contradictory. We explain the four turns of the Saros dial in terms of the full moon cycle and the Exeligmos dial as indicating a necessary correction to the predicted eclipse times. The new results on the Metonic calendar, Olympiad dial and eclipse prediction link the cycles of human institutions with the celestial cycles embedded in the Mechanism's gearwork.

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Nature article on Antikythera mechanism

From the BBC:

For example, the Moon sometimes moves slightly faster in the sky than at others because of the satellite's elliptic orbit.

To overcome this, the designer of the calculator used a "pin-and-slot" mechanism to connect two gear-wheels that introduced the necessary variations.

"When you see it your jaw just drops and you think: 'bloody hell, that's clever'. It's a brilliant technical design," said Professor Mike Edmunds.

The New York Times:

The mechanism, presumably used in preparing calendars for seasons of planting and harvesting and fixing religious festivals, had at least 30, possibly 37, hand-cut bronze gear-wheels, the researchers reported. An ingenious pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth.

The functions of the mechanism were determined by the numbers of teeth in the gears. The 53-tooth count of certain gears, the researchers said, was “powerful confirmation of our proposed model of Hipparchos’ lunar theory.”

Jo Marchant writing in Nature:

The researchers realized that the ratios of the gear-wheels involved produce a motion that closely mimics the varying motion of the Moon around Earth, as described by Hipparchus. When the Moon is close to us it seems to move faster. And the closest part of the Moon's orbit itself makes a full rotation around the Earth about every nine years. Hipparchus was the first to describe this motion mathematically, working on the idea that the Moon's orbit, although circular, was centred on a point offset from the centre of Earth that described a nine-year circle. In the Antikythera Mechanism, this theory is beautifully translated into mechanical form. "It's an unbelievably sophisticated idea," says Tony Freeth, a mathematician who worked out most of the mechanics for Edmunds' team. "I don't know how they thought of it."

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Charette also hopes the new Antikythera reconstruction will encourage scholars to take the device more seriously, and serve as a reminder of the messy nature of history. "It's still a popular notion among the public, and among scientists thinking about the history of their disciplines, that technological development is a simple progression," he says. "But history is full of surprises."

François Charette in Nature:

From the paper:

The Antikythera Mechanism shows great economy and ingenuity of design. It stands as a witness to the extraordinary technological potential of Ancient Greece, apparently lost within the Roman Empire.

Nature 444, 587-591 (30 November 2006)

T. Freeth et al.

The Antikythera Mechanism is a unique Greek geared device, constructed around the end of the second century bc. It is known1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 that it calculated and displayed celestial information, particularly cycles such as the phases of the moon and a luni-solar calendar. Calendars were important to ancient societies10 for timing agricultural activity and fixing religious festivals. Eclipses and planetary motions were often interpreted as omens, while the calm regularity of the astronomical cycles must have been philosophically attractive in an uncertain and violent world. Named after its place of discovery in 1901 in a Roman shipwreck, the Antikythera Mechanism is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards. Its specific functions have remained controversial11, 12, 13, 14 because its gears and the inscriptions upon its faces are only fragmentary. Here we report surface imaging and high-resolution X-ray tomography of the surviving fragments, enabling us to reconstruct the gear function and double the number of deciphered inscriptions. The mechanism predicted lunar and solar eclipses on the basis of Babylonian arithmetic-progression cycles. The inscriptions support suggestions of mechanical display of planetary positions9, 14, 15, now lost. In the second century bc, Hipparchos developed a theory to explain the irregularities of the Moon's motion across the sky caused by its elliptic orbit. We find a mechanical realization of this theory in the gearing of the mechanism, revealing an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.

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