The Antikythera computing device, the most complex instrument of antiquity has been reconstructed and reinterpreted at the London Science Museum.
The new model is based on mechanism fragments dated from approximately 50 BC which have puzzled generations of engineers and historians. Found in amongst other treasures of an ancient wrecked ship – the Antikythera – the machine was packed with little cogwheels like a squashed clock.
“It had been suggested by scholars that the main dial showed the positions of the Sun and Moon amongst the stars at any chosen date� the other dials showing information on the lunar month and further functions which could not be understood because of its poor state. Nicknamed the “calendar computer”� it was hailed as the world’s first computer� but no one really knew what the gadget was for.”
After years of researchâ?? Wright has made a precise model – in the style of the original and using techniques available at the time – to demonstrate that his idea works. He saidâ??
â??Unfortunately historians do not know too much about the astronomy of that timeâ?? because later scholars paid so much more attention to the work of the famous astronomer Ptolemyâ?? who lived a few generations laterâ?? that earlier works were lost. But Ptolemy provided some cluesâ?? which helped in building the reconstruction.â??