Smith, Greg dot com

I've written and spoken before about my contention that previous societies were far more sophisticated -- even in terms of technology -- than our early 21st century popular culture recognizes. Far too many of us learn about history by watching Hollywood movies. Or we are influenced by the (idiotic) notion that if an ancient society built something that we think would require more sophistication than the kind of people that we've seen in movies had -- well they must have been assisted by aliens. Or something.

Bear in mind that the Romans knew how to make clear glass and their construction cranes could lift more than 7 ton loads, powered by a treadmill (how do you think they built the Coliseum or those aqueducts?). Look, I heard someone make the point recently that Roman engineering and organizational management was so sophisticated that Europe didn't match it until the 15th or 16th century.

As I've said before, one of the ways that technology develops is mass communications which allows larger pools of people to learn about and improve on each others ideas. The Middle Ages were not "dark ages" because the Church suppressed learning (that's a Hollywood and anti-Christian bias) but because communications broke down in a time of political and economic upheaval. And also because of an "energy constraint" problem -- but I'm working on another post to explain what I mean by that.

As evidence of the intellectual sophistication and technical potential of the ancient world, take a look at the thing below. Any idea what it is? I guarantee you'll be shocked by what it is and when it was made. And no, aliens didn't build it, so just get that thought out of your head now...

The thing above is known as the Antikythera Mechanism. It's called that because it was discovered in in a sunken ship off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, in 1901. Subsequent investigation, particularly in 2006, dated it to about 150–100 BC, and hypothesised that it was on board a ship that sank en route from the Greek island of Rhodes to Rome. Jacques-Yves Cousteau visited the wreck for the last time in 1978, but found no more remains of the Antikythera Mechanism.

No one has ever discovered a machine of this sophistication that was produced until at least a thousand years later. How valuable is it as an archeological specimen? Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University who led the study of the mechanism said: "This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely carefully." He added: "...in terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa."

Does that mean that it was a one-off creation a thousand years ahead of its time? I think that strains credulity. A more reasonable view was that it was a very rare and thus expensive piece of technology during its time, but certainly not impossible or unknown. Someone made it and was using it. And it wasn't aliens. As to not finding other examples: it was rare, it was fragile and it was expensive. Stuff like that gets stolen, sinks on ships, buried in earthquake, hauled off in the sack of a city and broken by some soldier who doesn't understand it, etc.

What it is?

The mechanism is the oldest known complex scientific calculator. It contains many gears, and is regarded essentially as an analog computer. It appears to be constructed upon theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek astronomers and it is estimated that it was made around 150 to 100 BC. All the instructions of the mechanism are written in Greek. One hypothesis is that the device was constructed at an academy founded by the ancient Stoic philosopher Posidonius on the Greek island of Rhodes, which at the time was known as a centre of astronomy and mechanical engineering, and that perhaps the astronomer Hipparchus was the engineer who designed it since it contains a lunar mechanism which uses Hipparchus' theory for the motion of the Moon. Investigators have suggested that the ship could have been carrying it to Rome, together with other treasure looted from the island to support a triumphal parade being staged by Julius Caesar. However, the most recent findings of The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, as published in the July 30, 2008 edition of Nature also suggest that the concept for the mechanism originated in the colonies of Corinth in Sicily, which implies a connection with Archimedes.

What does it do?

The device is remarkable for the level of miniaturization and for the complexity of its parts, which is comparable to that of 18th century clocks. It has over 30 gears [perhaps]... as many as 72 gears, with teeth formed through equilateral triangles.

When a date was entered via a crank (now lost), the mechanism calculated the position of the Sun, Moon, or other astronomical information such as the location of other planets.

The mechanism has three main dials, one on the front, and two on the back. The front dial has two concentric scales. The outer ring is marked off with the days of the 365-day Egyptian calendar, or the Sothic year... Inside this, there is a second dial marked with the Greek signs of the Zodiac and divided into degrees. The calendar dial can be moved to adjust, to compensate for the effect of the extra quarter day in the year (there are almost 365.25 days per year) by turning the scale backwards one day every four years...

The front dial probably carried at least three hands, one showing the date, and two others showing the positions of the Sun and the Moon. The Moon indicator is adjusted to show the first anomaly of the Moon's orbit.

There is reference in the inscriptions for the planets Mars and Venus, and it would have certainly been within the capabilities of the maker of this mechanism to include gearing to show their positions. There is some speculation that the mechanism may have had indicators for all the five planets known to the Greeks...

Finally, the front dial includes a parapegma, a precursor to the modern day Almanac, which was used to mark the rising and setting of specific stars. Each star is thought to be identified by Greek characters which cross reference details inscribed on the mechanism.

Made by Greeks between 150 and 100 AD. Comparable in complexity of design and construction with 18th century clocks.

Ancient, classical and medieval peoples had IQ's just as high as ours and the the same intellectual prowess. As I said, what they lacked was a means for the ideas and inventions of Clever Guy A to be transmitted to Smart Dude B who improves on it, followed by Ingenious Fellow C copying their work and taking it to new levels and so on. That took a certain amount of population density, mass communications and (in the case of machines and mega-engineering) more power (that "power constraint" thing I teased you about earlier).

Anyway, here's a pretty interesting video about the Antikythera Mechanism. By the way, the original is in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, but you can see reconstructions on display at the American Computer Museum in Bozeman, Montana and the Children's Museum of Manhattan in New York if you ever happen to be in those parts.