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Posted on Wednesday, August 23 - 2006

It looks like a heap of rubbish, feels like flaky pastry and has been linked to aliens. For decades, scientists have puzzled over the complex collection of cogs, wheels and dials seen as the most sophisticated object from antiquity, writes Helena Smith. But 102 years after the discovery of the calcium-encrusted bronze mechanism on the ocean floor, hidden inscriptions show that it is the world's oldest computer, used to map the motions of the sun, moon and planets. 'We're very close to unlocking the secrets,' says Xenophon Moussas,an astrophysicist with a Anglo-Greek team researching the device. 'It's like a puzzle concerning astronomical and mathematical knowledge.'Known as the Antikythera mechanism and made before the birth of Christ, the instrument was found by sponge divers amid the wreckage of a cargo ship that sunk off the tiny island of Antikythera in 80BC.

To date, no other appears to have survived. 'Bronze objects like these would have been recycled, but being in deep water it was out of reach of the scrap-man and we had the luck to discover it,' said Michael Wright, a former curator at London's Science Museum. He said the apparatus was the best proof yet of how technologically advanced the ancients were. 'The skill with which it was made shows a level of instrument-making not surpassed until the Renaissance. It really is the first hard evidence of their interest in mechanical gadgets, ability to make them and the preparedness of somebody to pay forthem.' For years scholars had surmised that the object was an astronomical showpiece, navigational instrument or rich man's toy. The Roman Cicero described the device as being for 'after-dinner entertainment'. But many experts say it could change how the history of science is written. 'In many ways, it was the first analogue computer,' said Professor Theodosios Tassios of the National Technical University of Athens. 'It will change the way we look at the ancients' technological achievements.'

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Ancient indian spaceport discovered?

Copyright © Pravda.RuA giant figure that resembles the Roman numeral VI composed of wide trenches was discovered near the Havda village in the Kutch district of the western Indian state of Gujarat. It has evoked the curiosity of archaeologists because such signs have mostly been observed so far in Peru. Each arm of this feature is a trench that is about two meters wide, twometers deep and more than 100 meters long.Ancient scriptures claim that this area often received UFO’s fr...

What is the Antikythera mechanism ?

In October, 2005, a truck pulled up outside the National Archeological Museum in Athens, and workers began unloading an eight-ton X-ray machine that its designer, X-Tek Systems of Great Britain, had dubbed the Bladerunner. Standing just inside the National Museum’s basement was Tony Freeth, a sixty-year-old British mathematician and filmmaker, watching as workers in white T-shirts wrestled the Range Rover-size machine through the door and up the ramp into the museum. Freeth was a member of the A...

Did an Ancient Language of Universal Symbols Exist?

Copyright © The Daily GalaxyOver the last several years, similar petroglyphs have been identified on as many as five continents. They all date from roughly the same time-period. In the late 20th century, archaeologists discovered a collection of symbols carved in stone as petroglyphs in the Negev desert of Israel that appeared to be writing. Dating of these symbols showed that they were made over an extended period time, beginning around 1700 BC.This strange collection of symbols wa...

Ancient computer surprises scientists

A computer in antiquity would seem to be an anachronism, like Athena ordering takeout on her cellphone. But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C.The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes calledthe world’s...

Ancient Nuclear Weapons!

By Colin Mulligan Is it really possible that the Ancient Indians had the capacity to deploy devastating nuclear weapons against their enemies? Moreover is it really possible, as many Ufologists claim, that awesomely powerful nuclear weapons were actually given to the ancient Indian warriors by extraterrestrials, highly advanced spacemen from other planets? well passages from ancient Indian national epics certainly Appear to be evidence of such astonishing claims. It i...

Ancient Egyptian Alchemy

© Crystalinks The ancient Egyptians had many advanced scientific technologies, with much being found in picture form and in three-dimensional models throughout Egypt. Themes reflecting scientific knowledge and achievement can be found throughout the world in various ancient civilizations. These teachings seemed to center on electromagnetic energies. Scenes depict scientists of that timeline able to work in fields of alchemy, biology, chemistry, dentistry, anesthesiology, air f...

Ancient technology

Anthony North: In the early years of the 20th century an artifact was recovered from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. Dated to about 80BC, it was considered a mere artifact. However in 1971 research on the Antikythera Mechanism showed it to have an intricate arrangement of gears, dials and graded plates. One theory is that it was a computing device to work out the movement of the Sun and planets. If this idea is true, then the ancients had a degree of technology way above previou...

High-Tech Wars Described in Ancient Texts!

By John Burrows Sanskrit texts are filled with references to gods who fought battles in the sky using Vimanas equipped with weapons as deadly as any we can deploy in these more enlightened times. Sanskrit texts are filled with references to gods who fought battles in the sky using Vimanas equipped with weapons as deadly as any we can deploy in these more enlightened times. For example, there is a passage in the Ramayana which reads: "The Puspaka car that resembles the Sun ...

Skeleton Shows Ancient Brain Surgery

Archaeologists have unearthed the skull of a young woman in northern Greece who is believed to have undergone head surgery in the third century, Greek news media reported Wednesday. A Greek team discovered the skeleton at an ancient cemetery in Veria, with the skull including an injury that led them to conclude the surgery had been performed. "We think that there was a complex surgical intervention that only an experienced doctor could have performed," said IoannisGraikos, the ...

An Ancient Greek 'Computer'

by Derek J. de Solla Price From June 1959 Scientific American p.60-7 In 1901 divers working off the isle of Antikythera found the remains of a clocklike mechanism 2,000 years old.  The mechanism now appears to have been a device for calculating the motions of stars and planets among the treasures of the Greek National Archaeological Museum in Athens are the remains of the most complex scientific object that has been preserved from antiquity. Corroded and crumblin...


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