From Swiss Army knives to iPhones, it seems we just love fancy
gadgets with as many different functions as possible. And judging
from the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism, the desire to impress
with the latest multipurpose must-have item goes back at least 2000
years.
This mysterious box of tricks was a portable clockwork computer,
dating from the first or second century BC. Operated by turning a
handle on the side, it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and
planets through the sky, sported a local calendar, star calendar
and Moon-phase display, and could even predict eclipses and track
the timing of the Olympic games.
I gave a talk on the device at London's Royal Institution last
night. One new clue I mentioned to the origin of the mechanism
comes from the Olympiad dial - there are six sets of games named on
the dial, five of which have been deciphered so far. Four of them,
including the Olympics, were major games known across the Greek
world. But the fifth, Naa, was much smaller, and would only have
been of local interest.
The Naa games were held in Dodona in northwestern Greece, so
Alexander Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
in New York has suggested that the mechanism must have been made by
or for someone from that area.
Intriguingly, this could mean the device is even older than
thought. The inscriptions have been dated to around 100 BC, but
according to Jones the device may have been made at latest in the
early second century BC, because after that the Romans devastated
or took over the Greek colonies in the region, so it's unlikely
that people would still have been using the Greek calendar
there.
But the highlight for most of the audience - judging from the
spontaneous round of applause it received - was this breathtaking
new animation (below) of the gearing inside the mechanism. It has
been made by Mogi Vicentini, an Italian astronomer and computer
scientist, and it brings the device to life brilliantly.
Judge for yourself, but I think it shows that the mechanism
would hold its own against the best of today's luxury gadgets.