Eshan Maitra
There have been countless theories about this mysterious clock like sophisticated machine. For past century it has always intrigued the curious minds. The remains that was left of it, was discovered by divers off the Greek island of Antikythera, from a shipwreck 150 feet under the surface of ocea, in 1900. It was named after the island, “Antikythera Mechanism”. Even archaeologists have failed to pinpoint its true origin and researchers have yet to learn a lot about the magnificent clockwork device.
At first it was misled as a simple clock, but further decades of researching, later digital scanning finally revealed its complex mechanism. Lastly it was looked upon by another modern group of researchers with x-rays and fine-tuned scanning technology. Mike Edmunds, one of the researcher mentioned, it wasn’t in “the realm of executive toys,” but a much more serious tool. The team was successful in sorting 82 pieces and gained a richly detailed understanding of the artifact’s true nature. The most modern sophisticated digital scanning revealed valuable ancient Greek inscriptions to decipher the mysteries about it. Researcher Alexander Jones told the Associated Press, “These very small texts are a very big thing for us,. It’s a lot of detail for us because it comes from a period from which we know very little about Greek astronomy and essentially nothing about the technology, except what we gather from here.”
After a century of researches by many groups, they finally concluded, “Antikythera Mechanism is a kind of philosopher’s guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world’s oldest mechanical computer.” The machine had the ability to track the movements of the sun and the Moon and their positions within the Zodiac. Also positions of the only five known planets visible to the Greeks – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Moreover, the Mechanism even predicted solar eclipses.
Though, all still are still surprised at how a sophisticated and advanced technological innovation like this managed to exist in ancient Greek back in 200BC. This is believed to be at least thousands of years ahead of its time! Archeologists and the researcher team are still searching the ocean bed for its remaining pieces. Who knows? This might even lead us to the evidence of our past encounters with the aliens.