Unfortunately, the very difficult task of cleaning the fragments is slow, and no publication has yet given sufficient detail for an adequate explanation of this object. One can only say that although the problems of restoration and mechanical analysis are peculiarly great, this must stand as the most important scientific artifact preserved from antiquity.
Some technical details can be gleaned however. The shape of the gear teeth appears to be almost exactly equilateral triangles in all cases (fig. [8]), and square shanks may be seen at the centers of some of the wheels. No wheel is quite complete enough for a count of gear teeth, but a provisional reconstruction by Theophanidis (fig. [9]) has shown that the appearances are consistent with the theory that the purpose of the gears was to provide the correct angular ratios to move the sun and planets at their appropriate relative speeds.
Figure 8.—Antikythera Machine, Detail From Figure 6, showing gearing. (Photo courtesy of National Museum, Athens.)
Thus, if the evidence of the Antikythera machine is to be taken at its face value, we have, already in classical times, the use of astronomical devices as complicated as any clock. In any case, the material supplied by the works ascribed to Archimedes, Hero, and Vitruvius, and the more certain evidence of the anaphoric clocks is sufficient to show that there was a strong classical tradition of such machines, a tradition that inspired, even if it did not directly influence, later developments in Islam and Europe on the one side, and, just possibly, China on the other.
| Note added in proof: Since the above lines were written, I have been privileged to make a full examination of the fragments in the National Museum in Athens. As a result we can read much more inscription and make out many more details of the mechanism. The cleaning and disentangling of the fragments by the museum staff has proceeded to the stage where one can assert much more positively that the device was an astronomical computer for sidereal, solar, lunar, and possibly also planetary phenomena. (See my article in the Scientific American, June 1959, vol. 200, No. 6, pp. 60-67.) Relevant to the present study, it must also be noted at this point that the machine is now shown to be strongly related to the geared astrolabe of al-Biruni and thereby the Hellenistic, Islamic, and European developments are drawn together even more tightly. |
Let us now turn our attention to those civilizations which were intermediaries, geographically and culturally, between Greece and medieval Europe, and between both of these and China. From India there are only two references, very closely related and appearing in the best known astronomical texts in connection with descriptions of the armillary sphere and celestial globe. These texts are both quite garbled, but so far as one may understand them, it seems that the types of spheres and globes mentioned are more akin to those current in China than in the West. The relevant portions of text are as follows (italics supplied):
The circle of the horizon is midway of the sphere. As covered with a casing and as left uncovered, it is the sphere surrounded by Lokāloka [the mountain range which formed the boundary of the universe in puranic geography]. By the application of water is made ascertainment of the revolution of time. One may construct a sphere-instrument combined with quicksilver: this is a mystery; if plainly described, it would be generally intelligible in the world. Therefore let the supreme sphere be constructed according to the instruction of the preceptor [guru]. In each successive age this construction, having become lost, is, by the Sun's favour, again revealed to some one or other, at his pleasure. So also, one should construct instruments in order to ascertain time. When quite alone, one should apply quicksilver to the wonder-causing instrument. By the gnomon, staff, arc, wheel, instruments for taking the shadow of various kinds.... By water-instruments, the vessel, by the peacock, man, monkey, and by stringed sand-receptacles one may determine time accurately. Quicksilver-holes, water, and cords, and oil and water, mercury and sand are used in these: these applications, too, are difficult.
Sūrya Siddhānta, xiii, 15-22,
E. Burgess' translation, New Haven, 1860.