Things Not Supposed to Exist 1: Antikythera Mechanism



Ancient Computer or Piece of Rock with Medallion Attached?

There are many things in existence that are not supposed to exist according to the prevailing opinion of mankind, the zeitgeist, the established facts, that which is proven by science and so forth. When taken to it's logical conclusion, humanity should not really exist. The chance of us existing is so remote that it is like a hurricane passing through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747 jet, as some rather famous scientist put it some time ago.

Here we have the first in our series of things that are not supposed to exist.

It is the Antikythera mechanism recently brought to our attention by an article in the Guardian newspaper (British mainstream press) by Michael White. Despite his wafty, disorganised and unfocused attempt at analysis, the article almost hits on a very important point that I will outline here and in the other articles in this series: we consider ourselves to be at the pinnacle of scientific discovery and invention. Our ancestors were never as intelligent as us. Progress is relentless and we are at the cutting edge.

Unfortunately for White he skirts around the issue and frankly falls off the liberal cliff into a baffled sigh and a bit of head scratching: 'why did Newton say he got where he was by standing on the shoulders of giants? why didn't we get taught about this machine at school?' and so on.

Well, the Antikythera mechanism is seen as a 2,000 year old computer. Not by modern, mainstream science though. They see it as a bit of rock with a cog fastened onto it. Probably even sneer that it is just a large medallion that got stuck to a bit of flotsam. Usual mainstream capitalist science: if your bosses don't give you money to investigate it, then you don't investigate it.

Here are the facts: the mechanism was found in 1900-1901 from the Antikythera ship wreck. It was meant to have been constructed in the early 1st century BC. According to the scientists who have bothered to investigate, it is designed to calculate astronomical positions. In fact Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University states that:

"This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely carefully ... in terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa."

What is fascinating about this mechanism is that it contains many well crafted gears to form an analog computer. There are many hypotheses about who constructed it but there is no hard evidence as to the originator. Some say it was made by the academy of Stoic philosopher Posidonius on the Greek island of Rhodes, and that it was designed by the astronomer Hipparchus. Some say it was made in the colonies of Corinth, with implied connections with Archimedes.

After the initial discovery, the scientists of the time dismissed the object as being an anachronism, as it was too complex for the time it was believed to have been constructed. Such a wonderful viewpoint: 'No other object of that time period of similar sophistication is known to us, therefore that object either doesn't exist or was not constructed then.' Ah, the arrogance and ignorance of modern scientists. Ignore what poses a problem and continue down a blind path.

However, Michael Wright is one of those who has bothered to investigate it. According to Wikipedia, Wright has suggested that there are 72 gears with teeth formed through equilateral triangles and 'when a date was entered via a crank (now lost), the mechanism calculated the position of the Sun and Moon or other astronomical information, such as the locations of planets. Since the purpose was to position astronomical bodies with respect to the celestial sphere, in reference to the observer's position on the Earth, the device was based on the geocentric model'.

It continues:

'The mechanism has three main dials, one on the front, and two on the rear. The front dial has two concentric scales. The outer ring is marked off with the days of the 365-day Egyptian calendar, or the Sothic year, based on the Sothic cycle. Inside this, there is a second dial marked with the Greek signs of the Zodiac and divided into degrees. The calendar dial can be moved to compensate for the effect of the extra quarter day in the solar year by turning the scale backwards one day every four years. A 3651⁄4-day year was used in the Callippic cycle about 330 BC and in the Decree of Canopus in 238 BC.'

By 2008, scientists reported that the mechanism also tracked the Metonic calendar, predicted solar eclipses and calculated the timing of the Ancient Olympic Games.

Cicero in his De re publica from the 1st century BC, describes two similar machines, and links its creation to Archimedes. However, the ancient Sicillian, Gallus, stated that the machine was a very ancient invention, even then, Cicero goes on to state that the first model was presented by Thales of Miletus. Cicero goes on to say that 'the invention of Archimedes was admirable, because he had calculated how a single revolution should maintain unequal and diversified progressions in dissimilar motions. When Gallus moved this globe it showed the relationship of the Moon with the Sun, and there were exactly the same number of turns on the bronze device as the number of days in the real globe of the sky.'

Judging from this information, and the scientists who have reconstructed the Antikythera mechanism, there is forming a consensus that it was too sophisticated to be a unique device. This means that there was a knowledge and history of creating such machines on a larger scale than just one or two. In fact, judging from the mechanical complexity of the device, it could have been used in Europe in the Renaisance to help develop mechanical clocks.

The misconception repeated again and again by contemporary mainstream scientists is the ignorance and folly of the ancients. The ancient Greeks developed mathematics to a sophisticated level judging from the remains of their civilisation that we have located. What was burnt in the destruction of the library of Alexandria s not known, but it could have been centuries of advanced knowledge gone up in smoke.

Just as the sacking of Rome destroyed civilisation and meant centuries of barbarism reigned in the western world, so the small fragments of ancient knowledge was preserved in the churches by the only literate class. Centuries of slow recovery and reinvention continued to where we are now.
With the Antikythera mechanism we have a mere glimpse into the intelligence and knowledge that our ancient ancestors held. It shows they were no less inquisitive or inventive as ourselves. In fact it also shows that what we were told by mainstream teachers in whatever educational institute we went to, is completely ignorant and misguiding. These are the things that are not supposed to exist.

By Raygun