Archaeologists Make Stunning Discoveries at the Antikythera Shipwreck

I've heard of this Antikythera device ever since I started coming to ATS but I didn't know much about it except that it's some kind of ancient machine. Now, I've come across an article which goes into detail about this device, and the mystery surrounding it.

Components of the ship, including multiple lead anchors over a metre long and a bronze rigging ring with fragments of wood still attached, prove that much of the ship survives. The finds are also scattered over a much larger area than the sponge divers realized, covering 300 meters of the seafloor. This together with the huge size of the anchors and recovered hull planks proves that the Antikythera ship was much larger than previously thought, perhaps up to 50 meters long.

"The evidence shows this is the largest ancient shipwreck ever discovered," says Foley. "It's the Titanic of the ancient world."

The archaeologists also recovered a beautiful intact table jug, part of an ornate bed leg, and most impressive of all, a 2-meter-long bronze spear buried just beneath the surface of the sand. Too large and heavy to have been used as a weapon, it must have belonged to a giant statue, perhaps a warrior or the goddess Athena, says Foley. In 1901, four giant marble horses were discovered on the wreck by the sponge divers, so these could have formed part of a complex of statues involving a warrior in a chariot that was pulled by the four horses.

Ancient machine? The more I read about the discoveries concerning ancient man, the more I think that ancient civilization had more advanced tech than what we have now but as with now; we destroyed ourselves in a great ancient war. I think the same thing happened on Mars but the outcome was somewhat different. Anyway, that's another thread...Check out this article about the Antikythera shipwreck and the excavation site under the Ocean that is more massive than originally thought. What says ATS?

io9.com...

It makes me wonder about what kind of vessel it was given that it is 50 meters long and had a debris field 300 meters in diameter. Normally, ships would stay in harbor until the weather was clear. Given that it was carrying stone statues, that seems to indicate that it was a cargo ship. Could something have slipped and punctured a hole in the wooden hull? Or was it attacked by pirates?

originally posted by: stormcell
It makes me wonder about what kind of vessel it was given that it is 50 meters long and had a debris field 300 meters in diameter. Normally, ships would stay in harbor until the weather was clear. Given that it was carrying stone statues, that seems to indicate that it was a cargo ship. Could something have slipped and punctured a hole in the wooden hull? Or was it attacked by pirates?

Interesting viewpoint. Maybe they were trying to make a quick escape with their valuables.....?

a reply to: lostbook

Wow thanks for the update op.
I can see this hip as basically an ancient titanic. With a giant complex statue center piece, of horses and gods.
A complex "computer" to help with time keeping and perhaps navigation.

And this would help make sense of why the Antikythera Mechanism truley was a lost piece of technology. Here is the scenario I see playing out.

A giant ship of grandeur created for the rich or elite. They employ the best minds of the times to help complete the task. Best ship builders and artist and inventors. So Mr. Antikythera ( for all intensive purposes) comes along and says "hey I can help you keep track of months and navigation with this cool invention I thought of"

So they give him his resources he keeps it super secret so only his employer has access to his tech. They launch the vessel, he travels along to operate the mechanism and perhaps calibrate it correctly. Everything goes well it work magnificently and then BOOM [ insert catastrophe ] . Inventor and invention lost to the sea.

Pretty much the equivalent of having all rocket scientist aboard the first successful rocket launch only to have it burn up on reentry.... No one left to carry on. Humans are brilliant, its often the most mundane things that are overlooked tho.

Anyway not trying to derail, just wanted to share my two cents.
-CJ

originally posted by: stormcell
It makes me wonder about what kind of vessel it was given that it is 50 meters long and had a debris field 300 meters in diameter. Normally, ships would stay in harbor until the weather was clear. Given that it was carrying stone statues, that seems to indicate that it was a cargo ship. Could something have slipped and punctured a hole in the wooden hull? Or was it attacked by pirates?

They've announced at some point they'd found a second ship a few hundred meters away. So it's still a very large ship, but the debris field may be a mixture of the two wrecks.

Thanks for sharing.

The Antikythera project has its own website showing some of the amazing artifacts previously found at the site, including the "The Antikythera Mechanism" with a video explaining the mechanism . Amazing to think that the machine (or computer) is more than 2,000 years old... Wonder what other great finds are waiting to be discovered...?

a reply to: lostbook

You think they had techology then that eceeds ours ?


They didnt find an ipad, just a very simple computer made with cogs and sprockers and such.

One of the cool things about this dive is this, i want one so much...

The wreck is in 55m of water and requires divers use rebreathers. Even so, their time on the bottom is limited to just three hours.

As a consequence, the expedition witnessed the first use of a new robotic Iron Man-like diving apparatus called the Exosuit. This enables its occupants to stay down for up to 50 hours, if necessary.

SOURCE

a reply to: Mianeye

Yeah, that exo-suit is way cool!

Exosuits go for a mere $600,000 and they take debit cards.

Exosuits

originally posted by: IntastellaBurst
a reply to: lostbook

You think they had techology then that eceeds ours ?

They didnt find an ipad, just a very simple computer made with cogs and sprockers and such.

No they didn't have an i-pad, and the fact that they (ancient cultures) were able to achieve the things they did is astounding. That being said, I think that our level of achievement has been reached before until the last time the Earth "recycled" itself only to start over.

This vessel seems quite large, at least when compared to the majority of vessels that abounded at the time. Plutarch described ships containing at least 15 banks of oars, which is quite large. There was an ancient ship called the Leontifera, which was over 100 meters, and may have been up to 150 meters in length. Athanaeus, in the Deipnosophists,wrote about a ship that had 40 levels of rowers, which is quite impressive. The Egyptians also had massive ships that were over 300 feet long. I just want to establish that the size of the ship was something that was not unheard of.

The first idea I got upon reading the article is that they were transporting this statue. As for the Antikythera device, I think it is safe to say that it was a one of a kind machine. I highly doubt such complex mechanisms were being utilized in numbers over a handful, precisely because such knowledge would be highly specialized. It would have taken an ancient genius to build such a device. Now some say that such a device would have to have been created by a well-known genius of the time, and I do not believe this to be the case. There could very well have been brilliant men who were not written about. What the new finds might suggest is that certain individuals who worked for powerful people, probably in the government, were riding along with the statue to help establish it at a certain location. There would have been engineers of some nature, and perhaps the device belonged to one of them. The genius who created it likely would not have parted with it willingly, and I think that the creator himself was likely aboard the vessel, and was to help with the business at hand, where his genius was needed. Something of that nature anyway. And it seems to me that we should have heard about such a notable genius perishing in a shipwreck, if indeed the crew died, which probably was not the case. But it still seems like it would be a notable event for an ancient historian to record, saying that at least the statue was lost, but it is hard to say. Perhaps these new finds will actually help identify the ship from ancient writing that have thus far been overlooked.

originally posted by: lostbook
That being said, I think that our level of achievement has been reached before until the last time the Earth "recycled" itself only to start over.

Howdy Lostbook

That is not an uncommon belief, however all presently held scientific data shows that the idea of such recycling is not supported. A civilization like ourselves creates a massive and easily detected ecological and archaeological footprint. You can go for special circumstances - a new age civ that left no traces but even that requires extreme social actions that no human cultures has ever done. You can also try the 'it was destroyed' but that again runs into the problem that such destruction in itself would leaves traces.

originally posted by: Hanslune

originally posted by: lostbook
That being said, I think that our level of achievement has been reached before until the last time the Earth "recycled" itself only to start over.

Howdy Lostbook

That is not an uncommon belief, however all presently held scientific data shows that the idea of such recycling is not supported. A civilization like ourselves creates a massive and easily detected ecological and archaeological footprint. You can go for special circumstances - a new age civ that left no traces but even that requires extreme social actions that no human cultures has ever done. You can also try the 'it was destroyed' but that again runs into the problem that such destruction in itself would leaves traces.

The approach that whatever super advanced civ existed then went poof can be made that the tectonic plates recycled all evidence back into lava.
The ultimate unprovable pile of BS.

Well, that's not so big a ship......shifting cargo could take her down in a storm perhaps.....?
I would say the antikatheria device came out of the captains cabin......
But im no exbert

originally posted by: Hanslune

originally posted by: lostbook
That being said, I think that our level of achievement has been reached before until the last time the Earth "recycled" itself only to start over.

Howdy Lostbook

That is not an uncommon belief, however all presently held scientific data shows that the idea of such recycling is not supported. A civilization like ourselves creates a massive and easily detected ecological and archaeological footprint. You can go for special circumstances - a new age civ that left no traces but even that requires extreme social actions that no human cultures has ever done. You can also try the 'it was destroyed' but that again runs into the problem that such destruction in itself would leaves traces.

Thanks for that...Yeah, I entertain the idea that another world existed before ours but it was destroyed by man or by natural causes. Those who survived now live among the stars and it is "they" who now watch and observe the humans on Earth now. I guess it's more of a "what if" idea.

Not to topic drift in my own thread, I just wanted to point this out as it relates to the tech of the Antikythera device.

a reply to: lostbook

The tech involved with the device is very impressive for the time however it has a number of mathematically and practical flaws. The greatest is that represents a geocentric view - which is not critical for what it was designed to do.

originally posted by: TinfoilTP

The approach that whatever super advanced civ existed then went poof can be made that the tectonic plates recycled all evidence back into lava. The ultimate unprovable pile of BS.

Of course that involves a great deal of time. For recycling worlds you can make a more believable theory by invoking a non human civilization - the farther you go back and the smaller you make it the greater chance we would not have detected it.

If a early mammal or late dinosaur went thru a spurt of evolution due to environmental pressures and made it to intelligence - lets say 45 million years ago and they created a civilization which lasted only (from first tool use to high tech in say 10 millions years) this might be undetectable if they followed an odd (from our point of view) social order.

How a civilization can remain undetected
1. have very few 'people' - but this will tend to limit your technological advancement
2. don't make fires
3. don't make pottery or bake clay
4. don't modifiy the environment in any way
5. don't domesticate animals or plants
6. don't eat shell fish (the middens are easy to spot)
7. don't bury people, destroy bodies at death and disperse the bones - crush the teeth
8. absolutely no use of stone for tools, do not modify ivory, bone or shells either
9. never disturb the earth (by driving in a stake)
10. don't hunt animals and if you do widely disperse their remains
11. move constantly to avoid a build-up of waste, both human and food remains
12. don't live near a lake or other place where sediments, pollen and pollutants gather

There if you do all that you'll be fairly undetectable

The gears and cogs needed to create this device are impressive. It would have required a jig of some sort to cut each tooth of the gearing correctly. Making the calculations for the design would take some very hard work. Let alone gathering the data needed for the calculation.
This would not come from a backwards civilization. It's a great mystery. The results of their search might shake things up again.
I wish them luck and the ability to tell us what they find..

There is a nice video of it here:

www.dagbladet.no...

-MM