Possible Piece of Antikythera Mechanism Identified

News November 13, 2018

SHARE:

ANTIKYTHERA, GREECE—Haaretz reports that a bronze object that may be an additional piece of the Antikythera Mechanism or a similar device was recovered from the site of a shipwreck in the Aegean Sea last year. The Anitkythera Mechanism, discovered by sponge divers in 1901, is a 2,200-year-old complicated system of cogwheels thought to have been used to calculate the movements of the sun, moon, and planets, and predict eclipses and equinoxes. An X-ray of the newly recovered bronze disc, which measures about three inches in diameter, has four metal arms, and holes for pins, shows that it bears an image of a bull. Scholars think the disc may have been a gear in the device that predicted the location of the zodiac constellation of Taurus. For more on the Antikythera shipwreck, go to “Bronze Beauty.”

  • Features September/October 2018

    Shipping Stone

    A wreck off the Sicilian coast offers a rare look into the world of Byzantine commerce

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Marzamemi Maritime Heritage Project)
  • Letter from Brooklyn September/October 2018

    New York City’s Dirtiest Beach

    Long-lost clues to the lives of forgotten New Yorkers are emerging from the sands at Dead Horse Bay

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Jason Urbanus)
  • Artifacts September/October 2018

    Base of a Qingbai-Glazed Molded Box

    Read Article
    (© The Field Museum, cat. no. 344404. Photographer Gedi Jakovickas)
  • Digs & Discoveries September/October 2018

    Ice Age Necropolis

    Read Article
    (Archives of the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio della Liguria - Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage)