In 1900, Greek sponge divers discovered a sunken ship off the coast of the island of Antikythera. The ship was full of Greek treasures, including the remnants of a computer dubbed the Antikythera Mechanism. Scientists have been studying this geared device ever since. Their consensus is that this tooth-geared bronze astronomical computer is a machine of science and reason, most likely designed and built on the island of Rhodes under the supervision of Hipparchos, the great Greek astronomer of the second century BCE. The Antikythera device was a predictive computer of natural phenomena and human events.
Prologue
In 2007, I saw for the first time a few fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. I kept looking at them from all possible angles, trying to figure out their significance. I left the museum delighted and eager to learn more about this ancient yet modern-looking mechanism. “Imagine,” I kept telling myself, “my ancient ancestors designing such an astronomical computer with gears, the kind of gears we have in the twenty-first century in countless machines, including cars and airplanes?”
Once back in the United States, I read voraciously about this device. The articles and few books I could find dedicated to the Antikythera Mechanism examined primarily the modern decoding of the machine. But that, however interesting, did not satisfy me. I wanted to know how and why Greeks 2,200 years ago would embark on this epochal science adventure of building a machine capable of predicting both natural phenomena and human events, such as the Olympics. The result of my curiosity and research was writing my own book (Vallianatos 2021), in which I explained both the history of Greek science and technology and the modern history of decoding the computer. I worked on this book for several years, so my narrative covers a lot of ground from mythology, cosmology, philosophy, science, and politics to the building of the computer. Nothing like the Antikythera computer appeared in Europe before the eighteenth century.
Some of us, myself included, like to believe we see with the eyes of the Greeks. But is that possible? The Greeks were children of polytheism, and most of us (but not me) are children of monotheism. Yes, the Renaissance made us as much as the Greek books of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Aristarchos of Samos, Archimedes, Hipparchos, Ptolemy, and Galen made the Renaissance.
Greek Gods
The gods meant a lot to the Greeks, including those who made the Antikythera computer. Greek religion/piety for the gods, however, had no sacred texts, dogmas, or priestly class. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi was an outstanding policy institute with enormous power. The Lydian kings Gyges (c. 680–645 BCE) and Croesus (560–546 BCE) respected the integrity and truthfulness of the Greek oracles and gods. They brought so much gold and other precious gifts to the god Apollo at Delphi that the polis of Delphi gave citizenship to any Lydian who requested it. No Greek polis would start a home outside mainland Greece or undertake anything significant such as war without consulting Pythia, the priestess of Apollo at Delphi. In fact, even when Greek armies were facing their enemy, which could be other Greeks or foreigners, they first asked their diviners to look at the entrails of the sacrificial animal for good omens from the gods before they went into battle.
Laws and Reason
In addition, laws and reason governed the Greek gods and the cosmos. The English classical scholar Hugh Lloyd-Jones said that the Greeks set “the foundations of most of the chief arts of civilization” primarily because of their gods who gave them “the notion of a cosmos, a universe regulated by causal laws” (Lloyd-Jones 1983, 179). The American writer Henry Miller also saw the gods right in the Greeks’ great vision. “The gods,” he said, quite perceptively, “humanized the Greeks” (Miller 1941, 236).
The Greek cosmos was open to investigation. That is why the Greeks began asking questions, explaining natural phenomena with data and reasonable theories they formulated from their careful observation of the workings of the natural world. That was the beginning of science. Galen—Greek scholar, philosopher, and great physician of the second century—said that mortals have something in common with the gods, and that is reason (Galen, second century BCE).
Rise of Science
The gods, and the universe those gods represented, demanded that the Greeks understand their power, which meant an understanding of nature and the cause and effect of phenomena in the natural world and the universe. They knew, for example, that (1) Hephaistos, son of Hera, was fire—the all-devouring, all-taming, and all-haunting part of the universe. Hephaistos—the god whose craftsmanship sparked metallurgy in Lemnos and Caucasus—was the eternal artisan who brought light to mortals. This was the god who enabled humans to see the ether, the Sun, the stars, the Moon, and pure light through him. Hephaistos, the god of fire, was reason in the Cosmos and in the world of men and women (Orphic Hymn to Hephaistos 66 [Athanassakis 1977]); and (2) Nomos—a cosmic principle—was all about reason and order in the cosmos (Orphic Hymn to Nomos 64 [Athanassakis 1977]).
Mythic Models for Science
Mythology and the gods connected to science and technology (Prometheus, Atlas, Athena, and Hephaistos) provided models for craftsmanship and techne, which became the infrastructure of science and technology. Theoretical ideas were tested. For example, I studied zoology at the University of Illinois, but that whole science was abstract. The moment I read Aristotle’s zoological works, I understood animals at a much deeper ecological and social level; Aristotle made sense of zoology for me.
Aristotle and Alexander the Great: From Theory to Objective Knowledge
Science received a boost from Aristotle, who tutored Alexander the Great. The young conqueror of Persia materialized Aristotle’s universe: poleis (city-states) full of schools and libraries, with scientists studying and understanding the phenomena of the cosmos and society. This took deep roots in Egypt because its first king was a general of Alexander and a student of Aristotle. This was Ptolemy I the Savor (323–283 BCE) who founded the Mouseion (temple of the Muses, goddesses of learning) and the great Library of Alexandria. The Mouseion and the Library opened their doors to the best minds of the Greek world, triggering a golden age of Greek science, lasting from the fourth to the first centuries BCE.
Lucio Russo, Italian mathematician and historian of science, concluded that from the late fourth to the late second century BCE, the Greek-speaking countries brought into being “an explosion of objective knowledge about the external world” (Russo 2003, 1).
The Antikythera astronomical computer came out of that explosion of light and Enlightenment. It stood on the shoulders of philosophers and scientists such as Eudoxos, Aristotle, Euclid, Aristarchos of Samos, Apollonios of Perga, Ktesibios, Archimedes, Hipparchos, Poseidonios, and Geminos. Its complex interlocking gears were one of the many groundbreaking contributions of Ancient Greek culture and form the basis of much modern technology.
Archimedes Moved the World
The scientist who set the foundations of science in the Alexandrian Era in the third century BCE was Archimedes. He was a genius who advanced the philosophy of another earlier genius named Pythagoras, who insisted on the understanding of the natural world and the cosmos in the application of mathematics. Archimedes invented a variety of machines and fields of science such as hydrostatics, combinatorics, and mathematical physics. His writings were essential for the rebirth and evolution of science in modern times (Paipetis and Ceccarelli 2010). Since the Renaissance, scientists have been looking up to Archimedes. He is the “model and ideal” they try to “follow and attain” (Dugas 1958, 18).
Archimedes wrote a book called Spheres, now lost. He probably described the making of mechanical universes such as can be achieved with the Antikythera Mechanism. So, Archimedes is the closest father of the Antikythera device, though the Romans assassinated him in 212 BCE, a few decades before the construction of the computer.
Hipparchos
The real scientific father of the Antikythera machine is Hipparchos, the greatest Greek astronomer of the second century. He had a laboratory in Rhodes, where the mechanism came into being. He developed his own astronomical data but also used data from the Babylonians. He invented plane trigonometry and mathematical astronomy. He theorized that the Moon moves around Earth in an elliptical orbit. He succeeded in reproducing this movement in the Antikythera computer. He took two gears and put one over the other, connecting them with a pin-and-slot mechanism. The lower gear moved in a steady speed while the upper gear moved faster and slower imitating the Moon, speeding when close to Earth and slowing down when far from Earth. This added to the accuracy and scientific technology of the Antikythera astronomical computer.
Studying the Antikythera Mechanism: Derek de Solla Price
Many scientists studied the Antikythera Mechanism. I found Derek de Solla Price the most insightful and philosophical. He was a physicist and historian of science from Yale. He spent sixteen years trying to understand the world’s first computer. His 1974 report, Gears from the Greeks, made clear that Western scientists and scholars must reeducate themselves about the Greeks: updating and harmonizing their views in accord with the findings from the study of the Antikythera Mechanism.
Despite the indifference of the scientific community, Price wrote that the Antikythera Mechanism was a “singular artifact” and “astronomical or calendrical calculator” that turned out to be “the most enigmatic, most complicated piece of scientific machinery known from antiquity. … [Moreover, the Antikythera Mechanism is] one of the most important pieces of evidence for the understanding of ancient Greek science and technology.” He explained why: The complex gearing of the Antikythera Mechanism shows a more precise picture of the level of Greco-Roman “mechanical proficiency” than that coming out of the surviving textual evidence: “This singular artifact,” he said of the Antikythera Mechanism, “the oldest existing relic of scientific technology, and the only complicated mechanical device we have from antiquity, quite changes our ideas about the Greeks and makes visible a more continuous historical evolution of one of the most important main lines [of science and technology] that lead to our civilization” (Price 1974, 5, 13).
The blunt language of Price and his insistence that the Greeks had developed advanced technology did not sit well with several researchers also working on the Antikythera Mechanism. They accused Price of inaccurate assessment of the ancient device. However, other scientists who studied the Antikythera Mechanism in 2005 supported Price and also concluded it was a computer of scientific technology.
Decoding, 2005
Despite the unwillingness of those with power to take Greek history seriously, during the first decade of the twenty-first century, about twenty scientists from England, Greece, Germany, and the United States became receptive to the Antikythera Mechanism and, possibly, to ancient Greek thought. One of those scientists is Xenophon Moussas, professor emeritus of space physics at the University of Athens. He and I became friends. He sent me dozens of photos of the 2005 decoding of the Antikythera Mechanism in the basement of the Archaeological Museum in Athens. His work has been of incalculable value in our understanding of the device, which he described as “the epitome of Greek philosophy, techne, and science.” He even said the Antikythera Mechanism was “a miracle of science, technology and philosophy.”
Indeed, this Greek computer was a complicated astronomical device that worked on the basis of theories of physics and astronomy. These theories, Moussas says, mirrored exact mathematics, reproducing natural phenomena such as the movements of the planets in relation to Earth. In addition, Moussas argues that such theories followed the “theory and practice of Pythagoras that the cosmos and nature can only be described by mathematics or, more correctly, by appropriate geometrical constructions using circles, including epicycles. Geometrical constructions with circles are easily made into gears moving dials on panels” (Moussas 2012, 15–43, 103).
Scientific Marvel of Hellenic Civilization
Thus, the Antikythera Mechanism was the culmination of mythology, cosmology, politics, and science among the Greeks. The Library of Alexandria and its sibling institution, the Mouseion, captured that intensive quest for knowledge and its application for the wellbeing of the Greek world. The classical scholar Edward Alexander Parsons, who studied the history of the Alexandrian Library, called it the “glory of the Hellenic world.” He is right. The Alexandrian Library was the glory of the Greeks. He said, “The Alexandrian Library was not only the largest and most important collection of Greek books that ever existed, but, in the days of its greatest glory, it was the greatest library in the entire world before the invention of printing” (Parsons 1952, 203).
The Antikythera computer was the supreme product of the Alexandrian Library and the philosophy and civilization that the Library represented. That was an age based on knowledge, and the Greeks of that age sponsored and invented modern-like science and technology, sowing the roots of our world.
The Greeks used this computer like a calendar for regulating their agricultural, athletic, and religious responsibilities and work. The Antikythera machine was part of their efforts to read the heavens, and its most important function was predicting solar and lunar eclipses. The Sun and the Moon were very important to the Greeks. Between the two, they had day and night, time, and the seasons. Seeing those celestial bodies disappear was frightening, so predicting those disappearances was fundamental. The Antikythera device also predicted the positions in the sky of the planets, large stars, and constellations; it harmonized their divine and social worlds.
Because of this predictive function, the Antikythera device served as a vital tool for astronomers, farmers, priests, and athletes of the ancient Greek world. It was an instrument of heavens and Earth. It was a creation born out of the ancient Greeks’ love and teaching of astronomy and dedication to the practical application of science for farmers, craftsmen, mariners, and those devoted to the worship of the ancient gods through seasonal celebrations, the Panhellenic games, and sacrifices. In many ways, it brought together the temporal and divine spheres of the Greeks. The Greeks had to know the seasons, when to plow the land, and when to sow and harvest the crops. They also needed to know when to offer their sacrifices to the gods at the time the gods expected the sacrifices. The Antikythera Mechanism was designed to give them that knowledge, so it was not just a plaything for rich folk. It was the workhorse of evolving technology and knowledge about the heavens connecting the Greeks to nature, their culture, and the gods.
Influence of Christianity on the Computer’s Demise
The Antikythera computer disappeared most likely because Christianity nearly wiped out the Greeks and their civilization. With the burning of the great Library of Alexandria, the shutting down of schools and of the Olympics, and the destruction of the temples, adherents of this new religion drove the rich world of Greek philosophy, science, and technology—such as the Antikythera Mechanism—into the shadows. Existing copies of the device were melted down, and parchment manuscripts became scarce or lost or palimpsests left to be discovered hundreds of years later by scholars. The British scholar Charles Freeman accused Christianity of bringing the dark ages to Europe, when for more than a thousand years serious mathematical and scientific thinking became extinct (Freeman 2004, 340).
Return to the Greeks
The distinguished American academic Allan Bloom urged America educators to return to the Greeks because the Greeks taught wisdom. They were also “the models for modern achievement” (Bloom 1987, 369). Another American, historian, and Librarian of Congress, Daniel Boorstin, reminds us about the need to be in constant touch with the Greeks. The Greeks, he said, represent the best and the greatest the world had to offer. “We are disciples of all of them,” he said. “They all have become our contemporaries” (Boorstin 1998, 21). Herbert Golder, professor of classics at Boston University, put it best: “Greek genius is at the root of great achievement. It is also a great wisdom which is at the essence of our most profound understanding of what it means to be human. And its wisdom and it’s a legacy that is in jeopardy today” (Golder 2011, 6).
Scientists continue to study the Antikythera computer because it was a practical and sophisticated machine for the public good. It predicted phenomena of nature and important athletic celebrations such as the Olympics, combining them into useful and enlightening revelations of wisdom for a better society and more reliable science. The Antikythera computer is a tool for inquiry, promoting the good and the beautiful. It captures the fifth century BCE Athenian poet Euripides saying in a fragment that those learning how to engage in inquiry deserve blessings because they don’t intend to harm their community. Instead, those with the passion of inquiry benefit all of us with their studies of the order and structure of the immortal and ageless nature (Euripides fifth century BCE).
Note
The information on the near modernity of the Antikythera computer comes from Freeth et al. 2006, 587–591; Freeth et al. 2008, 614–617; and Price 1974, 1–70.
References
Athanassakis, Apostolos (ed.). 1977. The Orphic Hymns: Text, Translation and Notes. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press.
Bloom, Allan. 1987. The Closing of the American Mind. London, UK: Penguin Books.
Boorstin, Daniel J. 1998. The Seekers: The Story of Man’s Continuing Quest to Understand His World. New York, NY: Random House.
Dugas, Rene. 1958. Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century. Neuchatel, Switzerland: Griffon.
Euripides. Fifth century BCE. Fragments. Antiope. Uncertain Fragment 910.
Freeman, Charles. 2004. The Closing of the Western Mind. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Freeth, T. et al. 2006. Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism. Nature 444(November 30): 587–591.
———. 2008. Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism. Nature 454(July 31): 614–617.
Galen. An Exhortation to Study the Arts 21.
Golder, Herbert. 2011. The Greek invention of the human. Arion 18(3)(Winter).
Lloyd-Jones, Hugh. 1983 The Justice of Zeus. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Miller, Henry. 1941 The Colossus of Maroussi. New York, NY: New Directions Books.
Moussas, Xenophon. 2012. The Mechanism of Antikythera (in Greek). Athens, Greece: Union of Greek Physicists.
Paipetis, Stephanos A., and Marco Ceccarelli (eds.). 2010. The Genius of Archimedes–23 Centuries of Influence on Mathematics, Science and Engineering. New York, NY: Springer.
Parsons, Edward Alexander. 1952. The Alexandrian Library: Glory of the Hellenic World. Amsterdam: The Elsevier Press.
Price, Derek de Solla. 1974. Gears from the Greeks. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 64(7)(November).
Russo, Lucio. 2003. The Forgotten Revolution: How Science was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn. Tr. Silvio Levy. Berlin, Germany: Springer.
Vallianatos, Evaggelos G. 2021. The Antikythera Mechanism: The Story Behind the Genius of the Greek Computer and Its Demise. Irvine, CA: Universal Publishers.