Antikythera Mechanism Now Thought To Be Babylonian, Not Greek

The world famous ancient geared mechanism the Antikythera Mechanism may be centuries older than previously thought. Is it possible that the Babylonians really inspired the Greek thoughts on the shape of the cosmos.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bd92389d4ead.jpg[/atsimg]

www.archaeologydaily.com...

The ancient Greeks' vision of a geometrical Universe seemed to come out of nowhere. Could their ideas have come from the internal gearing of an ancient mechanism?

Two thousand years ago, a Greek mechanic set out to build a machine that would model the workings of the known Universe. The result was a complex clockwork mechanism that displayed the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets on precisely marked dials. By turning a handle, the creator could watch his tiny celestial bodies trace their undulating paths through the sky.

The mechanic's name is now lost. But his machine, dubbed the Antikythera mechanism, is by far the most technologically sophisticated artefact that survives from antiquity. Since a reconstruction of the device hit the headlines in 2006, it has revolutionized ideas about the technology of the ancient world, and has captured the public imagination as the apparent pinnacle of Greek scientific achievement.

Now, however, scientists delving into the astronomical theories encoded in this quintessentially Greek device have concluded that they are not Greek at all, but Babylonian - an empire predating this era by centuries. This finding is forcing historians to rethink a crucial period in the development of astronomy. It may well be that geared devices such as the Antikythera mechanism did not model the Greeks' geometric view of the cosmos after all. They inspired it.

I was kind of sceptical when I read your title, but the source is as credible as they come I guess, so... S&F

I would love to see a large perspex replica of this enigmatic device, so as to be able to marvel at its complexity; there must be a CGI movie of one somewhere, but a working device is something different.

Thanks for the link.

imo it is older than that.

there were more of these things too. ya think we found the only one?



tack on 10kyrs to our history and we might be close to the truth.

reply to post by myster0

I remember seeing a documentary about a guy who built a working model (Michael Wright).
I did a search and found these videos so I thought I would post them here for you.

reply to post by acrux


i will lift this statement from you OP linked text:

Two thousand years ago, a Greek mechanic set out to build a machine that would model the workings of the known Universe. The result was a complex clockwork mechanism that displayed the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets on precisely marked dials. By turning a handle, the creator could watch his tiny celestial bodies trace their undulating paths through the sky.

The mechanic's name is now lost. But his machine, dubbed the Antikythera mechanism, is by far the most technologically sophisticated artefact that survives from antiquity[...]

i would suggest that the 'Greek Mechanic' was none other than Hermes ..or precisely the entity that brought wonderful advancement & knowledge to Egypt itself...

See:

Hermes Trismegistus:
n. Mythology Hermes as identified with the Egyptian god Thoth, the legendary author of works on alchemy, astrology, and magic. [Medieval Latin] Hermēs Trismegistus ...
www.answers.com/topic/hermes-trismegistus


the fogs of time has obscured and confused the real history, an exceptional man who was a tousand years ahead of his contemporaries became the Egyptian Hermes/Toth and the Greek Hermes the 'mechanic'
and the basis for the legendary land of Atlantis...
We have had this relic of advanced technology but have failed to make the connections to the gods and myths of the past...

Hermes Trismegistus was the designer and engineer of this ancient relic---ImHO

Yes, this instrument has been featured before on ATS, perhaps several times. But it is an amazing device and needs to be thrust out there in history and astronomy books beyond Galileo's work, etc. With no telescopes capable of displaying the distant planets, one wonders how that device was even envisioned let alone built in ancient times.

Can we analyze the brass to determine its origin? Can we find machine marks on the parts to determine how it was created. Does it ability to predict long cycles provide a range of possible eras in which it was fashioned to represent? Doesn't this singular device tell us directly that our formal views on the past are woefully inaccurate and need to be openly placed on the table for (time) adjustments?

--You university students with the latest texts on astronomy, how do they represent this magnicifant tool? Is it flaunted as a new understand of old school dogma, or treated more as an item of curiosity and nothing more?

reply to post by Devino
Thank you for videos

It's Greek.

The article is about the theories concerning how the cocmos operates.

The device, they think, displays the (originally) Babylonian theory, rather than what is thought to have been the Greek theory at the time.

The device itself is Greek - no question about it.

Unless you believe that the Babylonians made it and then wrote in Greek all over it.


Harte

Originally posted by Harte
The device itself is Greek - no question about it.

Unless you believe that the Babylonians made it and then wrote in Greek all over it.

To be more specific, the second dial is inscribed with the Greek characters for the Zodiac, and another dial has the Greek characters for certain stars. Inscriptions matching the months of the Greek calender and the word "Olympia" have been found as well.

reply to post by Devino[/url]


Thanks, that was nice of you

Originally posted by St Udio
i would suggest that the 'Greek Mechanic' was none other than Hermes ..or precisely the entity that brought wonderful advancement & knowledge to Egypt itself...

You do realize that it's only 2,000 years old and dates to the time of Jesus and about 40 years after Julius Caesar, right?

The legend of Hermes is much older than that (by almost a thousand years) and the legend of Thoth is almost 3,000 years older than that. Hermes Tris-magus dates to around the time of the Ptolemys, if memory serves (300 BC.)

So... timeline doesn't work there.

reply to post by acrux


This link you gave us says that the mechanism's astronomical data was inspired by the babylonians and the mechanism is made in the island o f Rhodes wich is correct.
There was ancient civilazations before Greeks who was very advanced to astronomy and we all know that, Babylonians, Egyptians and many others.
The Greeks took the knowledge who already was there and spread it to the all known world and add their own knowledge and filoshophie
Until then it was a priviledge of the priests and the magisians and secret to the others.
There is thousands references to antikythera mechanism on internet, please read more than an article if you really want to know.
Please excuse my english, i hope you understand me.