Sometimes among the archaeological finds there are objects that make us reconsider the views on the history of the development of mankind that existed earlier. It turns out that our distant ancestors had technologies that were practically not inferior to modern ones. A striking example of the high level of ancient science and technology is Antikythera mechanism.
Diver's find
In 1900, a Greek ship fishing for sea sponge in the Mediterranean Sea got into a severe storm north of the island of Crete. Captain Dimitrios Kondos decided to wait out the bad weather near the small island of Antikythera. When the excitement subsided, he sent a group of divers to look for a sea sponge in the area.
One of them, Lycopantis, surfaced and said that he saw a sunken ship on the seabed, and near it a huge number of horse corpses, which were in varying degrees of decomposition. The captain did not believe it, he decided that the diver dreamed everything because of carbon dioxide poisoning, but nevertheless decided to check the information received on his own.
Having descended to the bottom, to a depth of 43 meters, Kondos saw an absolutely fantastic picture. Before him lay the remains of an ancient vessel. Near them are scattered bronze and marble statues, barely visible from under a layer of silt, densely dotted with sponge, algae, shells and other bottom dwellers. It was their diver who mistook for the corpses of horses.
The captain suggested that this ancient Roman galley could carry something more valuable than bronze statues. He sent his divers to inspect the ship. The result exceeded all expectations. The booty turned out to be very rich: gold coins, precious stones, jewelry and many other items that were not of interest to the team, but for which it was still possible to gain something by handing them over to the museum.
The sailors collected everything they could, but much still remained at the bottom. This is due to the fact that diving on such
depth without special equipment is very dangerous. During the lifting of treasures, one of the 10 divers died, and two paid with their health. Therefore, the captain ordered the work to be curtailed, and the ship returned to Greece. The artifacts found were handed over to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
The discovery aroused great interest among the Greek authorities. After examining the objects, the scientists found that the ship sank in the 1st century BC during a voyage from Rhodes to Rome. Several expeditions were made to the crash site. For two years, the Greeks lifted almost everything that was there from the galley.
Beneath the limestone
On May 17, 1902, archaeologist Valerios Stais, who was analyzing the artifacts found off the island of Antikera, picked up a piece of bronze covered with lime deposits and shell rock. Suddenly, this block broke, as the bronze was badly damaged by corrosion, and some gears glistened in its depths.
Stais suggested that this was a fragment of an ancient clock, and even wrote a scientific work on this subject. But colleagues from the archaeological society met this publication with hostility.
Stans was even accused of cheating. Critics of Stans said that such complex mechanical devices could not have existed in the era of Antiquity.
It was concluded that this object came to the crash site from later times and has nothing to do with the sunken galley. Stais was forced to retreat under the pressure of public opinion, and the mysterious object was forgotten for a long time.
"Jet plane in Tutankhamun's tomb"
In 1951, Yale University historian Derek John de Solla Price accidentally stumbled upon the Antikythera Mechanism. He devoted more than 20 years of his life to the study of this artifact. Dr. Price knew he was dealing with an unprecedented find.
Not a single instrument of this kind has survived anywhere else in the world,” he said. - Everything we know about the science and technology of the Hellenistic era, on the whole, contradicts the existence of such a complex technical device at that time. The discovery of such an object can only be compared with the discovery of a jet aircraft in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Reconstruction of the mechanism
Derek Price published the results of his research in 1974 in Scientific American. In his opinion, this artifact was part of a large mechanism consisting of 31 large and small gears (20 survived). He served to determine the position of the Sun and Moon.
The baton from Price was taken over in 2002 by Michael Wright of the London Science Museum. During the study, he used a CT scanner, which allowed him to more accurately get an idea of the structure of the device.
He discovered that the Antikythera mechanism, in addition to the Moon and the Sun, also determined the position of the five planets known in antiquity: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Modern research
The results of the latest research were published in the journal Nature in 2006. Led by Professors Mike Edmunds and Tony Frith of Cardiff University, many distinguished scientists have been involved. Using the most modern equipment, a three-dimensional image of the object under study was made.
Using the latest computer technology, inscriptions containing the names of the planets were opened and read. Almost 2000 characters have been deciphered. Based on the study of the shape of the letters, it was established that the Antikythera mechanism was created in the 2nd century BC. The information obtained during the research allowed scientists to reconstruct the device.
The car was in a wooden box with two doors. Behind the first door was a shield that allowed observing the movement of the Sun and Moon against the background of the signs of the zodiac. The second door was on the back of the device. And behind the doors there were two shields, one of which was responsible for the interaction of the solar calendar with the lunar one, and the second predicted solar and lunar eclipses.
In the far part of the mechanism there should have been wheels (which disappeared) responsible for the movement of other planets, which can be learned from the inscriptions made on the object.
That is, it was a kind of ancient analog computer. Its users could set any date, and the device accurately showed the positions of the sun, moon, and five planets that were known to Greek astronomers. Lunar phases, solar eclipses - everything was predicted with accuracy
The genius of Archimedes?
But who, what genius could create this miracle of technology in ancient times? Initially, a hypothesis was put forward that the creator of the Antikythera mechanism was the great Archimedes - a man who was far ahead of his time and seemed to have appeared in Antiquity from the distant future (or no less distant and legendary past).
There is a record in Roman history of how he stunned the audience by demonstrating a "celestial globe" showing the movement of the planets, the Sun and the Moon, as well as predicting solar eclipses with lunar phases.
However, the Antikythera mechanism was made after the death of Archimedes. Although it is possible that it was this great mathematician and engineer who created the prototype, on the basis of which the world's first analog computer was made.
Currently, the island of Rhodes is considered to be the place of manufacture of the device. It was from there that the ship sailed that sank off Antikythera. Rhodes in those days was the center of Greek astronomy and mechanics. And the creator of this miracle of technology is considered to be Posidonius of Apamea, who, according to Cicero, was responsible for the invention of a device that indicates the movement of the Sun, Moon and other planets. It is possible that Greek sailors could have had several dozen such mechanisms, but only one has come down to us.
And it still remains a mystery how the ancients were able to create this miracle. They could not have such deep knowledge, especially in astronomy, and such technologies!
It is quite possible that in the hands of the ancient masters there was a device that had come down to them from ancient times, from the time of the legendary Atlantis, whose civilization was an order of magnitude higher than the modern one. And already on its basis they created the Antikythera mechanism.
Be that as it may, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the greatest explorer of the depths of our civilization, called this find a wealth that surpasses the Mona Lisa in its value. It is these restored artifacts that turn our minds around and completely change the picture of the world.
Nikolai SOSNIN
ancient world computer
Alternative descriptionsBoard for arithmetic calculations in Ancient Greece, Rome, then in Western Europe until the 18th century.
Architectural detail: slab over column
Upper part of the column capital
The board that was used in the old days for arithmetic calculations
The counting board of the ancients
prehistoric computer
Accounts of ancient accountants
Antique abacus
Pythagorean calculator
Greek abacus
ancient counting board
It is this subject that the first article of the "Mathematical Encyclopedic Dictionary" is devoted to.
Ancient abacus with quinary number system
The history of the computer begins with this calculating device
Antique computer
In architecture, the top of a column capital
Pilaster top plate
Board for arithmetic calculations in ancient Greece
stone age calculator
Greek accounts
Abacus from Ancient Greece
Counting board
Part of the capital of a column
ancient abacus
Computer's great-great-grandfather
Accounts of Archimedes
Ancient "arithmometer"
Calculator ancestor
Upper part of the capital
Antediluvian abacus
Knuckles of accountants
Board of ancient mathematicians
Board with pebbles
Greek "board"
Hellenic counting board
top of the column
Plate at the top of the capital
Ancient "calculator"
Plate above the column
The oldest abacus
Greek ancestor of the calculator
antique counting board
Ancient Greek pebbles loving count
Pythagorean Times Calculator
Antique counting board
Ancestor of stationery accounts
Top of the capital
In Russia - scores, and in Greece?
Antediluvian accounts of the ancient Greeks
Abacus for Pythagorean calculations
Computer of Daedalus and Icarus
An analogue of the accounts of the ancient Greeks
The oldest abacus
Ancestor of the computer
Prototype of accounts
Accounts from the time of Pythagoras
A distant ancestor of the calculator
Antique "calculator"
Accounts from the time of Daedalus and Icarus
Accounts of ancient times
Ancient counting "device"
The counting board in antiquity
Archaic counting board
Accounts of our ancestors
Accounts in the old days
. Arithmometer of Archimedes
Antique abacus
Ancient Greek abacus
Roman counting board
ancient abacus
The top plate of the capital of the column, pilasters
Pythagorean calculator
This device was built around 80 BC. and was found on the island of Andikithera in 1901. It was called the Antikythera Mechanism.
Then this event was immediately presented as "the oldest computer in the world." What does he do?
Some researchers believed that this is some kind of item used by ancient astronomers. But in fact, it is something more: it calculates the position of the Sun, Moon and planets of the solar system.
The computer must contain a data input device, a processor that processes them, and outputs the processed data at the output. It is these actions that the Antikufer device performs.
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| The scheme of the ancient computer |
The Antikythera Mechanism has puzzled and intrigued historians and scientists since its discovery. science and technology since its discovery. Since 1951, Derek de Solla Price, Jr., from the British Institute of the History of Science, has taken up his research. In June 1959 he wrote an article on the "Ancient Greek Computer" in Scientific American. In it, Derek theorized that the Antikythera Mechanism was a device for calculating the movements of stars and planets. What made the device a real analog computer that would have made the device the first known analog computer. Prior to this, the functions of the mechanism were not clear, although it was immediately found out that it was used as some kind of astronomical device.
In 1971 Derek, at that time the first Avalon Professor of History at the University of Wales, joined forces with Karlampos Caracal, Professor of Nuclear Physics at the Greek National Center for Scientific Research "DEMOKRITOS". Caracalos conducted a gamma-ray analysis of the mechanism, and also took a number of x-rays, which showed important information about the internal structure of the mechanism. In 1974 Dered wrote the article "Greek Mechanisms: The Antikythera Mechanism - A Calendar Computer Created Around 80 BC" in which he provided a model of how the mechanism could function.
The device uses a differential gear (we note right away that it was invented only in the 16th century), and is incomparable in terms of miniaturization and the complexity of its parts. Which are comparable only with products of the XVIII century. The mechanism consists of more than 30 differential gears, with teeth forming equilateral triangles. Those who used this mechanism before entered the date with a lever (now the mechanism would be a little behind due to changing orbits) and calculated the position of the Sun, Moon or other astronomical objects. The use of differential gears allowed the mechanism to add or subtract angular velocities. The differential was used to calculate the synodic lunar cycle by subtracting the effects of displacement caused by the Sun's gravity. It seems that the mechanism was based on heliocentric rules, instead of the geocentric model of the universe that dominated then (and still after one and a half thousand years), supported by Aristotle and others.
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Perhaps the Antikythera Mechanism was not unique. Cicero, who lived in the 1st century BC, mentions an instrument "recently constructed by our friend Posidonius, which reproduces exactly the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the five planets." (Cicero was a student of Posidonius). Similar devices are mentioned in other ancient sources. It also adds to the idea that the ancient Greeks had sophisticated mechanical technology that was later passed on to the Muslim world, where similar but simpler devices were created in the medieval period. At the beginning of the 9th century, Kitab al-Khiyal ("The Book of Invented Devices"), on behalf of the Caliph of Baghdad, described hundreds of mechanical devices created from Greek texts that were preserved in monasteries. Later, this knowledge was combined with the knowledge of European watchmakers.
All capabilities of the device are still unknown. Several researchers believe that the Antikythera Mechanism could be used to track celestial bodies to calculate auspicious days from an astrological point of view. Price testified that this mechanism may have been put on public display, possibly in the Rhodes Museum. This island was famous for its displays of mechanisms.
Just in case, let's remember what an “analogue computer” is: it is a device that represents numerical values with some kind of physical objects or entities.
This is exactly what the Antikufer device does. So it's just a computer. A computer that is 2000 years old.
The first analog counting device known to our civilization before that was invented by Blaise Pascal only in 1652 (France).
Based on the materials of the magazine "QJ"
This device is from 80 BC. was found at the bottom of the sea, aboard an ancient Greek ship and is considered the most ancient computer. Upon careful examination of the oldest computer on the planet Earth, the famous Antikythera Mechanism, scientists found that it is still working.
The device, made by the ancient Greeks 2,000 years ago, was discovered among the wreckage of a sunken Roman freighter off the coast of the island of Ankithera and named after the place of discovery. As researchers recently found out, this device was used to calculate the solar and lunar cycles. In addition, scientists believe that with its help the ancient Greeks calculated the movement of the planets known to them then: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. One of the members of the working group, prof. Ivan Seiradakis of the Aristotle University of Thessalonica stressed that this is a unique instrument that is "as important to technology as the Acropolis is to architecture." However, not everyone agrees with the group's view of the purpose of the ancient mechanism.
The discovery of the device dates back to 1902, when archaeologist Valerios Stais noticed among the artifacts recovered from the sunken ship, a strange design of rusty gears. After that, more fragments were discovered, and scientists managed to restore the mechanism completely. There are 30 elements in the Antikythera Mechanism. Researchers believe that the structure was enclosed in an unpreserved wooden casing, as well as a lever with which the computer was powered. The origin of the instrument is still a mystery, but X-ray inscriptions have dated it to 150-100 B.C. before the new era. And this means that the device was developed by the Greeks long before similar mechanisms appeared in other regions. Moreover, in terms of technical characteristics, it surpasses everything created over the next 1000 years.
For many years, the Antikythera Mechanism has become a kind of puzzle for historians and archaeologists. Scattered fragments did not allow us to guess how it looked originally. Everyone collected it in their own way and, therefore, interpreted its purpose in their own way.
X-ray of the mechanism
But the latest X-ray data seems to be the most precise way to determine the device's functionality. On the front panel of an ancient computer, images were found representing the Greek zodiac cycle and the Egyptian calendar, arranged in concentric circles. On the back there are inscriptions telling about the solar and lunar cycles, in particular, fixing solar and lunar eclipses. Prior to this discovery, the use of an eclipse predictor was only a hypothesis.
Unfortunately, a more detailed study of the principles of operation of the device is complicated by the unknown initial number of rings and gears and a crow, the researchers got the whole device or only a part of it. But a number of conclusions can be drawn.
Drawing of the mechanism obtained on the basis of x-rays
For example, the Moon passes some parts of its orbit faster due to the elliptical shape of the latter. To take into account this unevenness and avoid mistakes, the developer of the ancient mechanism used the so-called planetary gear, in which the outer gear rotates around the central one. The rotation periods of the gears are calculated in such a way that they sort through all the available options. "When you see this, all that remains is to open your mouth in amazement," the head of the group, prof. Mike Edmunds.
In the process of fluoroscopy, the team of scientists was also able to read most of the inscriptions on the surface of the mechanism. This information suggests that the Antikythera Mechanism also described the motion of the planets.
A ten-year project designed to lift the veil of secrecy over one of the most famous scientific mysteries of the last century has yielded unusual results. Many lovers of the unsolved mysteries of antiquity have probably heard about the Antikythera Mechanism, an unusual contraption raised from the bottom of the sea in 1901.
Antikythera Mechanism Research Project
The mechanical device was found near the Greek island of Antikythera, after which it got its name.
The find was a mechanism of at least 30 bronze gears placed in a wooden case.
The mechanism was brought to the surface completely, but then divided into three fragments, which are currently divided into 82 parts, which are stored in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Four fragments of the device include gears, the largest of which has a diameter of 140 mm and 223 teeth. Some of the parts of the mechanism have inscriptions, which are difficult to read due to the thick layer of oxides. For decades, scientists could not comprehend the purpose of the mysterious device, and only in the last half century, new methods of analysis have made it possible to learn more about it.
Brett Seymour/WHOI
It is established that it was collected in the II century BC and it is the most complex mechanism of the ancient world that has come down to our days. Nothing comparable in complexity has been manufactured by mankind for at least another thousand years.
The Antikythera mechanism is commonly referred to as the first computer because this analog device could simulate complex astronomical cycles.
Until 2005, the mechanism was studied using X-ray analysis, but in 2005 a large-scale international Antikythera Mechanism Research Project was launched to study and reconstruct the mysterious device. It was then that scientists from different countries began to apply more advanced physical methods. Until recently, scientists have focused on the purpose of the individual gears of the mechanism. The latest study published in the journal Almagest and the day before were made public at a special meeting in Athens, was devoted to deciphering the inscriptions present on every remaining intact surface. "It's like discovering a brand new manuscript," says Mike Edmunds, professor of astrophysics at Cardiff University.
It is known that the ancient Greek device had a handle that could be rotated in both directions - in the "future" and "past". Instead of hours and minutes, the hands on the front dial indicated the position of the Sun, Moon and planets in the sky, about which Gazeta.Ru. This dial had two concentric scales showing the month and signs of the zodiac, so that the sun's hand indicated the date and its position in the sky at the same time. And two other spiral dials on the back of the device worked like a calendar and predicted eclipses. The surface between these dials contained a text of 3400 characters, which the scientists were engaged in deciphering. By the way, according to the estimates of the author of the study, Alexander Jones from the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, there were up to 20 thousand symbols on the mechanism.
The letters on the device are small (each - no more than a millimeter) and often hidden under a thick layer of corrosion, so reading the almost lost text is barely possible thanks to CT scans. The text on the platforms adjacent to the dials describes the appearance and setting of the constellations on different dates during the year, which led scientists to conclude that they have a complex stellar calendar, or parapegma, which predicts the onset of such astronomical events as the solstice and equinox.
And the description of these events helped scientists solve the main mystery of the device - the place of its origin. They found that the astronomer who created it lived at a latitude of 35 degrees. This excludes Egypt and northern Greece and produces the only possible solution −
the island of Rhodes, from where the device was most likely sent by ship to the north of the country.
In addition, the signatures turned out to be made by two different people - this was given out by the analysis of the handwriting, so the device could not have been made by a single master. Having deciphered the inscriptions on the back wall, scientists realized that they describe the upcoming eclipses. Scientists were surprised that they talk about the color and size of the Sun or Moon during an eclipse, and even about the wind during each of them. Today it is known that it is impossible to predict the color nature of these phenomena in advance, and this does not make any scientific sense.
However, in ancient Greece, such signs were taken seriously, they predicted the weather and even the fate of individuals and states. The Greeks inherited these beliefs from the Babylonians, whose astronomical priests peered into the heavens for bad omens. The texts engraved on the Antikythera Mechanism went further - instead of predicting fate based on signs such as the color of an eclipse and the direction of the wind,
they themselves predicted them before they were observed.
It was in keeping with the general ancient Greek trend of "replacing astronomy with calculation and prediction," explains Jones.
The astrological nature of the texts surprised scientists a lot, since the rest of the mechanism's functions are purely astronomical, with the exception of the calendar, which uses the colloquial names of the months and shows the onset of sporting events, including the Olympic Games. "The Antikythera Mechanism reproduces Hellenistic cosmology, in which astronomy, meteorology and divination by the stars were intertwined together," the scientists say.
At the last conference, the statement was again made that the century-old find can rightfully be considered the oldest known computer.
