COMMANDER RALPH'S MAGIC TIME PORTAL TO SUNKEN SHIPS AND THE MYSTERIOUS COMPUTER OUT OF TIME AND PLACE

Where am I? Well follow Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee......

While you follow me on our adventure, ponder this...............

What's 13 in (33 cm) high,
6.7 in (17 cm) wide, and 3.5 in(9 cm)thick?

So what's so special about this ancient computer?

Why is this important, you ask?

Ok......here's the story.................

A long time ago, in fact more than 2000 years ago....where the Aegean Sea
meets the Mediterranean, lies the island of Antikythera, about 18 miles north
of Crete. Currents in that area make shipping treacherous...and one ship bound
for ancient Rome never made it.

The ship that sank there was a giant cargo vessel measuring nearly
500 feet long! Now that was a big ship! It came to rest about 200
feet below the surface, where it stayed for more than 2,000 years,
guarding a most precious secret.

Then nearly 2000 years later in October 1900, there was a severe
storm and a team of sponge divers, led by Captain Dimitrios Kondos,
decided to wait out the storm which was hampering their sail
back from Africa.

While they were there they began diving for sponges off the island's
coastline. Although in years past divers worked naked, by 1900 divers
usually wore standard diving dresses � canvas suits and
copper helmets � which allowed them to dive deeper and to
stay submerged longer.

Where did they wait? On the island of Antikythera.

The first to lay eyes on the shipwreck 60 metres down was Elias Stadiatos,
who quickly signaled to be pulled to the surface. He described the scene as a
heap of rotting corpses and horses lying on the sea bed.

Well, thinking his diver had gone mad from too much carbon dioxide in his
helmet, Kondos himself dove into the water. Was he in for a surprise! He soon
returned with a bronze arm of a statue. Until they could safely leave the
island, the divers dislodged as many small artifacts as they could carry.

Together with the Greek Education Ministry and Hellenic Navy, the sponge
divers salvaged numerous artifacts from the waters. By the end of 1902,
divers had recovered statues of a philosopher's head, a young boy, a discus
thrower, the bronze Antikythera Ephebe of ca. 340 BC (now in the National
Archaeological Museum of Athens), a Hercules, a marble bull and a bronze
lyre. Many other small and common artifacts were also found.

When diving to search the area of the wreck, he noticed that one of the pieces
of rock near him had a gear wheel embedded in it. It would soon be identified
as the Antikythera mechanism; originally thought to be one of the first forms
of a mechanised clock, it is now considered to be the World's Oldest known
Analog Computer!

But on May 17, 1902,
archaeologist Valerios Stais made the most celebrated find.

To begin with, using the latest technology, scientists have conducted detailed
scans of the device, and have found that it dates to around 150 to 100 BC, and
had 37 gears, including a differential gear!

Consider this.... the device uses a differential gear, which was previously
believed to have been invented in the 16th century. The level of miniaturisation
and complexity of its parts is comparable to that of 18th century clocks. In
fact, no other civilisation is believed to have created anything as complex for
another 1,000 years!

The device was a complex and very accurate astronomical computer that could
predict the positions of the sun, moon and planets, and even forecast lunar
eclipses.

It was capable of modeling the orbits of Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter.
Which means that this would have required an advanced understanding of both
mechanics and astronomy.

In fact, Mike Edmunds, a physicist at Cardiff University in Wales, is reported
as saying. �The astronomy is exactly right � In terms of historic and scarcity
value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona
Lisa.�

The mechanism was encased in a box with doors in front and back,
covered with inscriptions -- a sort of instruction manual.

If someone needed to know when eclipses would occur, and this related to the
rising and setting of stars and related them to dates and religious
experiences, the mechanism would directly help. You would simply turn the
handle and have a date on the front.

It was inscribed with a text of over 3,000 characters, most of
which have only recently been deciphered, and prove that it was
the computer user manual, which describes how to set up the

Inside the front door were pointers indicating the date and the
position of the sun, moon and zodiac, while opening the back door
revealed the relationship between calendar years and lunar months,
and a mechanism to predict eclipses.

instrument, how to use it for observations, with references to the Sun, the
motion of the planets (stationary points), Aphrodite (Venus), Hermes
(Mercury), and eclipses.

The mechanism has three main dials, one on the front, and two on the back.

The front dial is marked with the divisions of the Egyptian calendar, or the
Sothic year, and inside this there is a second dial marked with the Greek signs
of the Zodiac. This second dial can be moved to adjust, with respect to the
Sothic dial, to compensate for leap years.

Leap Years?.......Hmmmmm.....The plot thickens......Why?

Well.... the Julian calendar, the first calendar of the region to contain leap
years, was not invented until about 50 B.C., up to a century after the device
was said to have been built!

The front dial also 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.

The mechanism explores the relationship between lunar months -- the time it
takes for the moon to cycle through its phases, say, full moon to
full moon -- and calendar years. The gears had to be cut precisely
to reflect this complex relationship; 19 calendar years equal 235
lunar months.

By turning the gear mechanism, a person could check what the sky would have
looked like on a date in the past, or how it would appear in the future!

In order to understand the importance of this device, it's important to be
aware of the scientific and cultural status of that period. Remember, this
device was manufactured around 150 B.C.

1. The theory of gravity was not discovered, so the reason why the heavenly
bodies moved was not understood.

2. The theory of planetary motion was not complete.

3. The only means to transmit knowledge was either speech or hand written
manuscripts.

The Antikythera Mechanism is an extraordinary result of the application of
various sciencse in action: Mathematics, Geometry, Astronomy and Mechanics.
Not only the complexity but also the astonishing accuracy of the construction
shows that it was not constructed by chance......but was a product of evolution
and could have been based on an elder mechanism, maybe from some proving
ground that constructed similar mechanisms.

So what does that tell you?

That we must adjust our thinking as to the accomplishments achieved by
ancient civilisations.......

The great accuracy in the cut of the cogwheels shows the high abilities of the
metal working of the first century BC. It has been claimed that the "Uranian
Sphere" or the "Uranian Pole" of Archimedes was its ancestor.

Who built the device, and for what purpose? Why did the technology behind it
disappear for the next thousand years? What does the device tell us about
ancient Greek culture? And does the marvelous construction, and the precise
knowledge of the movement of the sun and moon and Earth that it implies, tell
us how the ancients grappled with ideas about determinism and human destiny?

There are many questions left unanswered.....such as:

Scientists are hoping that one day they may find another of these devices
better preserved......Or was this just an accident waiting to happen...giving
scientists a glimpse of an ancient past unknown?

Only time will tell....

Remember.....always look to the past, for your future is written there.......

And YOU thought the computer you bought last month was old?

The Greeks of Rhodes were way ahead of you!

Research continues into this marvelous device by The Antikythera Research
Project which is a joint programme between Cardiff University, Athens
University, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the National Archaeological
Museum of Athens, X-Tek Systems UK and Hewlett-Packard USA, funded by
the Leverhulme Foundation.

Now have I got a surprise for YOU!

Maybe you'll be the next adventurer to discover
new and important things about this device.....SOoooooooooooooo.......