FRIDAY SURPRISE: I do not recall.

Friday, December 19, 2008 Filed in: Friday Surprise!, Completely irrelevant, History

Recognize this?

antikythera_mechanism_250274

How about now?

antikythera_mechanism_250274a

Well, you're not alone. This blob of corroded bronze was discovered off the Greek isle of Antikythera in 1900. In the decades since, archaeologists have been baffled by (and no doubt argued about) just what the thing was - let alone what it did.

The Antikythera Mechanism, as it came to be known, remained an enigma until the 21st century - when advanced imaging techniques allowed researchers to see into the amorphous blob, identifying gears and inscriptions. As it turns out, the Mechanism is a mechanical computer to predict astronomical data - the solunar cycle, eclipses, and even Olympic years and the intersection of all of those.

From those images, a British gentleman - one Michael Wright - was able to build a working replica of the Mechanism. Here, for the first time in over 2,000 years, you can see what it actually did:

The Mechanism is exciting in two ways: first, and most obvious, is that is shows a level of mechanical design and workmanship that is a full millennia ahead of what we thought was possible. Scientists date the mechanism to about 100 B.C.E, and comparable clockwork mechanisms don't show up again until more than a thousand years later.

Second, it suggests that the people who constructed it had an understanding of the concepts of a heliocentric (sun-centered) universe, which would not become accepted for nearly 1,500 years after the Mechanism had been built.

What is interesting to me is the idea that knowledge - in this case, mechanical and astronomical - can be forgotten, at least in a cultural sense. In this age of abundant and ubiquitous information, it is hard to accept it as a perishable commodity. It makes one wonder: what else have we forgotten?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags:

|
© 2010 Grant Cunningham Click to email me!