Imaging the Antikythera Mechanism
Tom Malzbender |
In 1900, a party of sponge divers
chanced on the wreck of a Roman merchant vessel
between Crete and mainland Greece. It was found
to contain numerous ancient Greek treasures,
among them a mysterious lump of clay that split
open to reveal `mathematical gears' as it dried
out. This object is now known as the Antikythera
Mechanism, one of the most enlightening
artifacts in terms of revealing the advanced
nature of ancient Greek science and technology.
In 2005 we traveled to the National
Archeological Museum in Athens to apply our
Reflectance Imaging methods to the mechanism in
the hopes of revealing ancient writing on the
device. We were successful, and along with the
results of Microfocus CT imaging, epigraphers
were able to decipher 3000 characters compared
with the original 800 known. This lead to an
understanding that the device was a mechanical,
astronomical computer capable of predicting
solar and lunar eclipses along with other
celestial events. This talk will overview both
the imaging methods as well as what they reveal
about the Antikythera Mechanism.
Thursday, June 13, 2013 |