The Computer Made Before Jesus was Born (Antikythera)
When I look up at the stars, it makes me realize just how small Earth is compared to the universe as a whole, which reminds me how small I am in comparison to Earth. Knowing that Earth is just a speck of dust floating around in an orchestra of organized chaos known as the cosmos is grounding and humbling. If I looked up at the sky and knew nothing about how it works or what is out there, I would feel an undying curiosity and immense fear. For this reason, you can imagine why ancient civilizations were in pursuit of the ability to predict astrological events. With an increased understanding of the something, it tends to become less scary. For a brief moment near the beginning of our current era, the Greeks were in possession of the holy grail of cosmological understanding…but they lost it.
In the year 1901, a discovery was made that changed much of what we thought we knew about ancient humans. Lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Greece among the wreckage of a shipwreck was a metal device with thirty interlocking gears. The mechanical workings of this device were thought to be hundreds of years ahead of its time. The gears were made precisely with intricate details; the craftsmanship was so advanced that many people doubted that it was made so long ago. Scientists named the device after the island that it was found near – Antikythera. When it was discovered, nobody knew what the Antikythera was. Albert Rehm was the man to first realize that this wasn’t just a box full of gears; it is a calculating machine. Rehm used numbers inscribed in the box and applied his working knowledge of Greek and Babylonian astrology to theorize that the Greeks had made an analog computer. In 1974, a paper was published that quoted ancient Greeks discussing the plan to create a device that models the movement of planets. These plans were proposed by a Greek mathematician named Archimedes. It is now theorized that Archimedes did the groundwork for this device, which was carried out by someone else after his death.
With further investigation, scientists were able to deduce that this device was meant to model the world, predicting positions of planets and tracking the sun and moon. These capabilities of the Antikythera gave the Greeks an advanced understanding of astronomy compared to their peers at the time. Some of the information that made this device possible was known at the time but was thought to be contained to other corners of the world. That is why the existence of this device is so baffling to historians and scientists alike. For the Greeks to have made this machine, they would have needed to be more technologically advanced than we have assumed, and they may have been trading information with other parts of the world.
People have understandably been fascinated by this ancient mystery ever since it was discovered. Even people who study Ancient Greece say that the Antikythera isn’t similar to anything they have ever seen before. With each advancement to X-ray technology, scientists are learning more about the inner workings of the device. Imagine for a moment that this device was never lost to a shipwreck. Would analog computers have been commonplace much earlier? Would humans have been able to make the transition to digital sooner? I wonder if a more important discovery has ever been lost to time. Since information wasn’t spread across the world like it is today, the Antikythera was one of a kind, and I don’t think that anyone could replicate it once it was lost in the wreck.
Freeth, Tony. “An Ancient Greek Astronomical Calculation Machine Reveals New Secrets.” Scientific American, 27 Feb. 2023, www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-ancient-greek-astronomical-calculation-machine-reveals-new-secrets/.
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