The World’s Oldest Computer Was Found In A Shipwreck, And It Followed The Greek Lunar Calendar
Around 2,200 years ago, a device containing bronze gears was used to track the movements of the sun, moon, and planets.
The ancient device is known as the Antikythera mechanism, and it was found in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901. Some have referred to it as the world’s oldest computer.
Previously, experts believed that it followed the ancient Egyptian calendar. However, new research suggests that it adhered to the Greek lunar calendar instead.
The device is about the size of a shoebox. Dials on the outside were connected to internal gears, which allowed its users to analyze the cosmos with more accuracy than any other known device.
One part of the mechanism, the “calendar ring,” was used to track the days of the year through one hole per day. Since the ring is only partially preserved, it’s unclear exactly how many days it was supposed to track.
In 2020, a team of researchers studied new X-ray images of the device and conducted measurements and a mathematical analysis.
Afterward, they concluded that the mechanism did not cover an entire solar calendar year. It most likely went up to 354 days, as seen in a lunar calendar.
More recently, researchers from the University of Glasgow used statistical modeling methods to detect gravitational waves, which are produced by large celestial objects, such as black holes, colliding with each other.
The methods were originally developed for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
MatthewBird – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
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When the statistical techniques were applied to the mechanism, they were able to use the known holes to figure out the positioning of the missing holes.
Ultimately, they determined that the mechanism had 354 or 355 holes. So, it probably followed the 354-day lunar calendar that Greece used at the time rather than the 365-day Egyptian solar calendar.
“The precision of the holes’ positioning would have required highly accurate measurement techniques and an incredibly steady hand to punch them,” said Graham Woan, a co-author of the study and an astrophysics professor at the University of Glasgow.
“It’s a neat symmetry that we’ve adapted techniques we use to study the universe today to understand more about a mechanism that helped people keep track of the heavens nearly two millennia ago.”
Andrew Thoeni, a co-author of the 2020 paper, stated that he was happy about how more new research has supported their previous findings.
A replica of the ancient artifact was featured in the 2023 movie Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In the film, the device enabled the archaeologist to travel through time to change the course of history.
While the Antikythera mechanism does not have such spectacular capabilities, it has helped enhance scholars’ understanding of how the Greeks kept track of time and provided new insight into the complexity of ancient Greek craftsmanship.
The latest study was published in the Horological Journal.
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