Antikythera Mechanism : New-ish findings

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BHI-Antikythera-Mechanism-Evidence-of-a-Lunar-Calendar.pdf

https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/hackers-discovery-changes-understanding-of-the-antikythera-mechanism/

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

As a benchmark … Here is a confidently presented replica from 15 years ago:

https://youtu.be/4eUibFQKJqI?feature=shared

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We are still unsure of the hole-count and many other details

… so every re-creation, however impressive it may be, is based on assumptions

The mystery persists.

MichaelG.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

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We are still unsure of the hole-count and many other details

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MichaelG.

A future archaeologist studying the physical remains of Britain’s WW2 stop-lines might be equally baffled as to their purpose.

Expecting a Nazi invasion to follow the fall of France and Dunkirk, a series of defensive lines were urgently built across the UK.  About 6000 pill-boxes, of which about 4000 have since been removed, were positioned inside the UK as ‘force multipliers’.  The boxes are broadly aligned with natural and man-made obstacles such as canals and railway embankments, that make it difficult for an invader to move quickly.  As installed, the pill-boxes only provided the core of a defensive system to be greatly extended if they were threatened.  They roughly outline the shape of something much bigger.  Had push come to shove, the pill-boxes would have been supported by a much larger trench system, with barbed wire, minefields, artillery positions, aircraft and much else.  The system was never developed because the Nazis judged invasion to be impossible unless the Royal Navy were eliminated, which was only possible if the RAF was knocked out first.

Today only some of the pill-boxes remain and it’s not particularly clear why on earth they were built.   Housing and other developments have altered the lay of the land: a perfect kill-zone in 1940, is now a shopping centre.   On top of that, some of the remaining evidence is downright confusing!  Although surveyed and positioned by Royal Engineers, the pill-boxes were installed in a rush by local building firms who installed a few of them facing in the wrong direction, making no sense at all.  Incompetence and mistakes are always a possibility!

Archaeological evidence is what it is.   Difficult to work back to the original intent once the context is lost, and not many examples have survived.

The Antikythera mechanism is only part of the problem.   Dating the Antikythera wreck was itself difficult, because the ship (Greek), was carrying antiques suggesting about 400BC.   Not so, further excavation found Roman coins, putting the wreck between 80 and 50BC.

No one knows where the ship was going, or why, or who owned the cargo.    We only know how it was sunk, probably swamped in a storm, what it was carrying (in part only), and roughly when the sinking occurred.

It’s a wonderful puzzle!

Dave

 

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