[SunkenCiv]

Main Antikythera mechanism fragment. The mechanism consists of a complex system of 32 wheels and plates with inscriptions relating to the signs of the zodiac and the months. Image: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, No. 15987.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

It’s part of a SKITTLES dispenser.

[pepsionice]

The best description for this: If you took ten of the best scientist and engineers of our times today, and locked them into a vault with no access to computers, and gave them a simple detailed requirement to develop or design something like this out of thin air......it might take forty years and you can’t even be sure of the success of the end-result.

Somewhere out there....two and three thousand years ago....we had brilliant men...generations ahead of Einstein. And what they knew....was lost.

[CptnObvious]

Gears and water (and blowing sand and dirt from the shore) would mess it up quickly on a ship of that day. It would be far too expensive a device for a ship when other devices for navigation were much far less expensive. And why would someone on a ship need to know when the Olympic games were to be held?

No, my guess is this device was built for the Greeks by the Babylonians that they had conquered and was being shipped by boat when it floundered. It was probably for a King's administration for telling the times of such events faithfully. It's value, at that time, is inestimable.

[Jaxter]

Bump.

[Hot Tabasco]

I think those guys who work on Rolex watches could fix this thing up in a jiffy.......

[catfish1957]

Hmmmm. Found on Mars this year....

[minnesota_bound]

Here is a photo of an archaeologist in Egypt. Note what the red arrow is pointing to....
That's right ALIENS!

[preacher]

The Antikythera Mechanism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpLcnAIpVRA&feature=player_embedded

[lonevoice]

ping

[Cvengr]

and to think all of this and a wheelbarrow wheel as well....

[ApplegateRanch]

In the absence of C-clips, D-rings, and countersunk Phillips head machine screws, what held this thing together?

In the absence of modern machine tools, those have to be hand cut gears; or the wax blanks were, if they were cast. That many (~120-150 on that main one in the photo) fine teeth, on so many small gears, which have to mesh precisely, all made by hand, seems an incredible feat. IF it’s 128, then multiple bisections could be used to lay it out; otherwise how was it laid out? Brown & Sharpe weren’t born yet.

So, considering its complexity, relative accuracy, etc., it should be obvious that this was far from a first attempt.

[stockpirate]

mark for later