60 Fun Facts About Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism is generally described as the oldest known example of what?

It could predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance.

In which year was the mechanism recovered from the shipwreck?

The wreck itself was found around Easter 1900; the mechanism came up probably in July the next year.

The mechanism was found by a crew of sponge divers from which Greek island?

Captain Dimitrios Kontos and his men were sailing to fishing grounds off North Africa when they found the wreck.

At roughly what depth did the divers find the wreck off Point Glyphadia?

The first diver down, Elias Stadiatis, surfaced so quickly that his captain assumed he was drunk on nitrogen.

What did diver Elias Stadiatis do at the wreck that made his captain think he was drunk from nitrogen?

Captain Kondos put on the gear and went down himself to check.

Which museum director first noticed in 1902 that one of the corroded lumps contained a gear wheel?

His cousin, the politician Spyridon Stais, was with him; most scholars thought a geared device far too advanced for the period.

Which museum holds all the fragments of the mechanism?

Reconstructions by Price, Wright and others are displayed alongside them.

Into how many separate fragments has the mechanism been divided after conservation?

Only seven are mechanically significant, and four contain gears.

How many teeth did the largest gear, about 13 cm across, originally have?

That number matches the Saros eclipse cycle of 223 synodic months.

The mechanism's bronze had corroded into which mineral, which cracked and shrank when brought up from the sea?

It went untreated and unnoticed for two years while staff pieced together the statues.

Which Yale science historian revived study of the Antikythera mechanism from 1951 and published X-ray findings in 1974?

He and Greek physicist Charalampos Karakalos imaged all 82 fragments with X-rays and gamma rays in 1971.

A 2005 team from which university used X-ray tomography to read hidden inscriptions inside the Antikythera device?

The scans, led by Mike Edmunds, suggested the mechanism had 35 meshing bronze gears.

According to the 2005 scans, roughly how many meshing bronze gears did the mechanism have?

Thirty of them are still visible in the fragments.

Which astronomer of Rhodes developed the lunar motion theory used by the Antikythera mechanism?

He was active from about 140 to 120 BC on Rhodes, a busy port and centre of astronomy.

Which Stoic philosopher founded an academy on Rhodes where one theory says the mechanism was made?

Cicero said Posidonius had 'recently' built a device showing the Sun, Moon and five planets.

A Corinthian-type calendar found on the Antikythera mechanism in 2008 suggested a link to which inventor's school?

Syracuse was a Corinthian colony, though a 2017 study showed the calendar cannot be that of Syracuse itself.

Coins at the Antikythera wreck prompted a theory the mechanism came from which city with a great library?

Its library was second only to Alexandria's during the Hellenistic period.

Multiple lines of evidence date the shipwreck that carried the mechanism to approximately when?

Coins recovered in the 1970s were minted between 76 and 67 BC, ruling out any link with Sulla's earlier looting.

In which century did machines of similar complexity reappear, with Richard of Wallingford's astronomical clock?

That is a gap of roughly 1,500 years.

How was the mechanism operated?

The crank, now lost, drove the large four-spoked gear and moved the date pointer about 78 days per full turn.

The rotatable front-dial ring has long been assumed to carry the months of which calendar?

The month names are Egyptian but written in Greek letters; a 2024 study argues the ring may in fact hold 354 lunar-calendar days.

The fixed inner ring on the front face is divided into twelve equal 30-degree sectors representing what?

Following Babylonian custom, each sign got exactly a twelfth of the ecliptic regardless of constellation size.

The Moon pointer's motion was made to speed up and slow down using what, in its earliest known use?

A pin-and-slot arrangement mimicked the Moon's elliptical orbit without the Greeks knowing it was an ellipse.

How did the mechanism display the phase of the Moon, as demonstrated by Michael Wright?

It sat in the lunar pointer and turned via a differential gear based on the angle between Sun and Moon.

How many dials are on the back of the mechanism?

Two large spirals, the Metonic and the Saros, plus three smaller indicators.

The Metonic dial tracks a cycle of 235 synodic months, which is very close to how many years?

It is the interval after which the lunar phases recur on the same dates, handy for converting lunar and solar calendars.

The Saros dial's cycle of 223 synodic months, about 18 years and 11 days, was used to predict what?

Glyphs in 51 of the dial's cells mark 38 lunar and 27 solar eclipses.

The Exeligmos dial covers a 54-year cycle equal to how many Saros cycles?

Because a Saros is a third of a day over a whole number, three of them bring the count back to whole days.

The 'Olympiad' dial on the back tracked the four-year cycle of what?

Its four sectors name Isthmia, Olympia, Nemea, Pythia, plus the minor Naa and Halieia games.

What is unusual about the pointer on the Games dial compared with every other pointer on the instrument?

One of the four sectors names the very minor Naa games of Dodona in Epirus.

The Antikythera Metonic spiral's month names match calendars from Epirus and which Ionian island, ancient Corcyra?

This has been used to argue the mechanism was adapted for a client in north-west Greece.

The Callippic cycle inscribed on the back door lasts how many years?

Callippus improved on the Metonic cycle by multiplying it by four and dropping a day.

The inscriptions on the back door of the wooden case are thought to serve as what?

It records the numbers 76, 19 and 223 for the Callippic, Metonic and Saros cycles.

Fragment D contains an unexplained gear that Xenophon Moussas argues gave the position of which planet?

A 2016 decipherment of the inscriptions revealed numbers tied to the synodic cycles of Venus and Saturn.

What shape were the mechanism's hand-cut gear teeth?

Not all are even, which shows they were filed from a bronze blank by hand.

Which general brought Archimedes' planetary machines to Rome after Syracuse fell in 212 BC, per Cicero?

One was the only item he kept from the siege; the other went to the Temple of Virtue.

Per Pappus, the inventor of Syracuse wrote a now-lost manuscript on building such devices, titled what?

Attempts to build his odometer as drawn failed until square teeth were swapped for Antikythera-style angled ones.

Which French explorer relocated the wreck in 1953 and returned with a full team in 1976?

His team recovered nearly 300 artefacts, including coins, jewellery and human remains of the crew.

A 2,000-year-old human skeleton found at the wreck in 2016 was given which nickname?

It was discovered on 31 August 2016 during the modern survey programme.

The 'dolphin' recovered from the wreck, the only one ever found, was what kind of object?

The 100 kg lead bulb with an iron spike was dropped from the yardarm through an attacker's deck and hull.

The Antikythera Ephebe has been identified as Perseus, Heracles or which Trojan prince holding an apple?

He held a spherical object in his right hand, possibly the Apple of Discord offered to Aphrodite.

The island of Antikythera lies between the Peloponnese and which large island?

In antiquity it was called Aigilia; today it is part of the municipality of Kythira.

A fictional Antikythera mechanism, sought by a Nazi scientist to find time portals, drives which 2023 film?

In the film the device fails to account for continental drift, a theory unknown in ancient times.

On 17 May 2017 Google marked which anniversary of the mechanism's discovery with a Doodle?

The date is that of Valerios Stais spotting the gear wheel in 1902.

Which YouTube channel's Antikythera replica uses only ancient Greek tools and techniques?

Hobbyist Andy Carol built a working Lego version in 2010.

Which Finnish band's 2024 album Yesterwynde includes a track called 'Antikythera Mechanism'?

They also released a limited-edition watch referencing the device.

In 2022 researchers proposed the mechanism was calibrated on 23 December of which year BC?

Other experts prefer 204 BC; construction itself is dated anywhere from 205 to 87 BC.

Of the 82 known fragments, how many are mechanically significant and hold most of the gears and inscriptions?

Another 16 smaller pieces carry fractional inscriptions; Fragment F was only discovered in storage in 2005.

By how many degrees can the simulated Mars pointer be wrong, per Freeth and Jones?

The fault lay in Greek planetary theory, not the gearing; nothing better was possible until Ptolemy's equant in the Almagest, around 160 AD.

Which mechanism, using two gears on slightly offset axes, models the Moon's varying speed?

The Greeks did not know the orbit was elliptical, yet the speed variation now explained by Kepler's laws is built in.

In Cicero's De re publica, who gives a 'learned explanation' and demonstration of Archimedes' sphere?

Pliny credited Gallus, consul in 166 BC, as the first Roman to write a book explaining solar and lunar eclipses.

According to Cicero's Gallus, who presented the first model of the solid celestial globe?

Eudoxus later traced the stars on its surface and Aratus put them into verse, before Archimedes added moving Sun, Moon and planets.

Where did Marcellus deposit the second of Archimedes' two planetary machines in Rome?

The other he kept as the only item he took from the siege of Syracuse, and it became a family heirloom.

Reconstructions of Archimedes' odometer only worked once its square-toothed wheels were swapped for what?

The Romans used the same odometer design to place their mile markers, as Vitruvius and Heron describe.

Cicero said a similar device had been built 'recently' by which friend of his?

Scholars doubt any of the machines Cicero names was the shipwreck device, which was probably not unique in any case.

A Roman-era bronze combination lock using two rotary dials was unearthed in which Athens district?

Its bolt could not retract until both dials' notches aligned, an early form of mechanical logic with a hidden bypass.

The Banū Mūsā's Book of Ingenious Devices, describing over 100 mechanisms, was commissioned in which city?

The 9th-century caliph's commission may preserve ideas from ancient Greek texts kept in monasteries; al-Biruni described a geared calendar around 1000.

Which 11th-century Chinese polymath built a clock tower with a mechanically rotated armillary sphere?

It displayed the positions of some stars and planets, part of a broader history of complex mechanical devices outside the Greek world.

Under what title did PBS's NOVA air the 2012 BBC Four documentary about the mechanism?

National Geographic's Naked Science had covered it as 'Star Clock BC' in 2011, and Tony Freeth made The World's First Computer in 2012.

A ten-times-scale replica of the mechanism was inaugurated in February 2024 at a university in which country?

The Monumental Antikythera Mechanism for Hermosillo stands at the University of Sonora; hobbyist Andy Carol built a working Lego version in 2010.