The Antikythera Device

[JoeTheJuggler]

To be fair to Erich Von Daniken, he was the first popular writer I knew of to write about the Antikythera Device. In fact if you had read him, you could have heard of the device forty some years ago, like wot I did.

I read Chariots of the Gods back in the '70s. Luckily, I suppose, I don't remember his treatment of the Antikythera Device. (I did not read his subsequent books. I'd had enough with just the one. So if it was in one of those books, then it wasn't my faulty memory to blame.)

Anyway, as I said, it would present problems for him. The ETs for one thing wouldn't have had to limit their anachronistic technology to bronze, nor would they show a geocentric model of the universe, and so on.

But again, Von Daniken's reasoning was largely circular. He started with the idea that humans of these ancient civilizations couldn't possibly have produced the things they did, and then he used that to reason (using the term loosely) that ETs must have helped them.

 

[Soapy Sam]

http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/

If you haven't watched Wally Wallington before, do. Himself a builder, Wally got curious about how you could build a megalithic monument without cranes or power tools. So he did some research and experimentation. Turns out it's not as hard as you might think.
You need time, patience and a firm understanding of levers and counterweights.

He's not saying "Here's how they moved big stones in the past", but he demonstrates how they might- by doing it himself. As anyone knows who moves heavy things every day, getting the balance points right is crucial. With counterweights and a bit of thought, you can shift some startlingly big objects with manpower alone.

 

[Foster Zygote]

http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/

If you haven't watched Wally Wallington before, do. Himself a builder, Wally got curious about how you could build a megalithic monument without cranes or power tools. So he did some research and experimentation. Turns out it's not as hard as you might think.
You need time, patience and a firm understanding of levers and counterweights.

He's not saying "Here's how they moved big stones in the past", but he demonstrates how they might- by doing it himself. As anyone knows who moves heavy things every day, getting the balance points right is crucial. With counterweights and a bit of thought, you can shift some startlingly big objects with manpower alone.

I saw an interesting piece on Nova recently about how the moai of Rapa Nui may well have been moved from their quarry sites to their standing locations. It seems likely that teams of workers using ropes alternately pulled from either side to "walk" the moai along roads to their final sites.



It took a lot of trial and error to figure out how to make it work, and a lot of practice to get the technique right, but they eventually manage to make the statues "walk", just as the Rapa Nui themselves had claimed when asked by early European explorers how the statues had been moved. Imagine what people with generations of experience could have done.

 

[Belz...]

As I recall, the Hellenistic Greeks also had a steam impulse engine with which to move statues around. It makes me wonder is the institution of slavery kept them from exploiting this technology or if they simply lacked an energy source.

The greeks had automatic doors for some temples.

 

[Dinwar]

I don't think their lack of exploitation of these devices had to do with slavery. They simply didn't know what they had. The ones who made them thought of them as neat little gadgets, while the rest of the people probably didn't have a very good handle on what was going on (how well do you really understand the inner workings of a modern automatic door, or of a cell phone?).

 

[dafydd]

The greeks had automatic doors for some temples.

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/HeronAlexandria2.htm

 

[Belz...]

That's why the Romans liked them so much. They were pretty much the instigators of western civilization.

 

[BenBurch]

I don't think their lack of exploitation of these devices had to do with slavery. They simply didn't know what they had. The ones who made them thought of them as neat little gadgets, while the rest of the people probably didn't have a very good handle on what was going on (how well do you really understand the inner workings of a modern automatic door, or of a cell phone?).

And I am wondering if the builder of the device wasn't an autistic savant? Such that he could not communicate to others how to do what he was doing?

 

[Muldur]

We went from the stone age to the atom age in what...~6,000 years? Since biologically identifiable HSS (us) are some 100,000+ years old, we could have climbed the technological ladder over a dozen times and fallen off again. I think that is a very good alternate theory to alien intervention to explain the sophisticated nature of ancient technology. They were building on the crumbs of what was left from the previous go-round.

 

[Foster Zygote]

We went from the stone age to the atom age in what...~6,000 years? Since biologically identifiable HSS (us) are some 100,000+ years old, we could have climbed the technological ladder over a dozen times and fallen off again. I think that is a very good alternate theory to alien intervention to explain the sophisticated nature of ancient technology. They were building on the crumbs of what was left from the previous go-round.

It's hard not to wonder where we'd by today had the scientific revolution begun by the Ionians had flourished, rather than being suppressed.

 

[Craig B]

The greeks had automatic doors for some temples.

And slot machines that dispensed holy water when a coin was inserted, also by Hero. See http://io9.com/5901156/the-first-ever-vending-machine-stopped-people-from-stealing-holy-water. Temples and theatres (deus ex machina) had better machines than workshops had in those days.

 

[Dinwar]

And I am wondering if the builder of the device wasn't an autistic savant? Such that he could not communicate to others how to do what he was doing?

We know that in the case of the steam engines and the like that they weren't--Archemedies was one of them, and he was able to communicate well enough that kings asked for him (remember, this was a time when disabilities were often considered punishments, or at least worthy of mockery). And I doubt this is a viable explanation in any case. If I knew of an autistic savant that was making really cool and useful devices, I'd either hire him to make whatever he wanted (patronage) and hire a second person to reverse-engineer it (or at least watch), or I'd simply hire someone to steal the thing and then reverse engineer it.

I think that is a very good alternate theory to alien intervention to explain the sophisticated nature of ancient technology.

Problem is, these mechanisms really weren't that sophisticated. They were ingenious, sure, by they amounted to novel applications of technologies the culture had. They don't represent great advances in metalurgy or chemistry or the like; all the tools, techniques, and knowledge necessary to build the vending magines, automatic doors, calculators, etc. were already there.

And while it's certainly true that some civilizations have collapsed and others used their technology for a long time (Medieval Europeans continued using Roman aquaducts long after they stopped building them, for example), it's simply not true that there was a world-wide loss of technological knowledge. It's a neat idea, and I can certainly see the appeal, but unfortunately the archaeological facts don't support it. Ancient Greece quite clearly represents an advancement, not merely a rediscovery.

It's hard not to wonder where we'd by today had the scientific revolution begun by the Ionians had flourished, rather than being suppressed.

Problem is, the Greeks weren't trying to build science. They had their own goals and intentions. Our society is not the inevitable end result of rational thought, and even the most scientific Greeks were saddled with paradigms that simply forbad them from considering notions we now consider perfectly normal. Read Aristotle's work on physics sometime to see what I mean. It's riddled with what to us are obvious errors--but they're only obvious because we work under a different paradigm.

And it wasn't until long after the Greeks that experimentation and observation were added to the scientific method. Aristotle's main problem was that he didn't go out and find the data--which was no problem at all for him, since he was doing philosophy, not science. It's only our modern views that differentiate between the two (erroniously, quite frequently; science is a subset of epistemology, which is a subset of philosophy; Aristotle, and the Greeks in general, failed to appreciate the necessities of that subset, is all).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

And I am wondering if the builder of the device wasn't an autistic savant? Such that he could not communicate to others how to do what he was doing?

Seems like an unnecessarily complex explanation.

There's some historical evidence that Archimedes made a device like this (Cicero mentions that Archimedes had 2 devices like this), and there's a similar, though much simpler, surviving bronze device.

Also, the designer of the Antikythera Device had to have been educated and relied on a vast history of astronomical observations. I doubt an autistic savant would have received an education, and no matter how great his innate genius, those hundreds of years of observations would therefore be unavailable to him. And the device did have labels in Greek and conventionally used symbols. Someone who lacked language skills probably couldn't have done that part.

So not only does this hypothesis break the principle of parsimony, it actually creates more unanswered questions than what it seeks to answer.

I think one of the points Dinwar is making is that just having a technology doesn't mean the culture would recognize how to exploit that technology in other ways that seem obvious to us after the fact.

 

[Dinwar]

I think one of the points Dinwar is making is that just having a technology doesn't mean the culture would recognize how to exploit that technology in other ways that seem obvious to us after the fact.

Exactly. As many technological advances come from figuring out novel applications of existing technology as come about from creating new technology in the first place.

For example: Contrary to popular belief, Henery Ford did not create the moving assembly line. He merely popularized it. The way I learned it, he got the idea from watching an existing moving assembly line at a pork processing plant. Automation was also utilized in glass bottle manufacturing long before it was used in other fields. In each case the actual technological achievement was fairly minor in scope; it wasn't until someone else popularized the idea that it had any real social impact (well, that anyone cared about--the bottle thing had a profound impact on child labor, but not on the economy as a whole).

 

[Muldur]

And while it's certainly true that some civilizations have collapsed and others used their technology for a long time (Medieval Europeans continued using Roman aquaducts long after they stopped building them, for example), it's simply not true that there was a world-wide loss of technological knowledge. It's a neat idea, and I can certainly see the appeal, but unfortunately the archaeological facts don't support it. Ancient Greece quite clearly represents an advancement, not merely a rediscovery.

Several Greek sources (esp Solon) cite Egypt as the root source for their scientific/technical advances and the Egyptian sources cited claim their knowledge was in fact handed down from an even EARLIER civilization. In addition, we now know from geological evidence that the Sphinx was carved at least TEN thousand years ago, much further back than previously thought.

Did the Greek discover/re-discover many things? Certainly. We STILL don't know how "Greek fire" was truly made, for example, and Archimedes' "death ray" (actually focused sunlight) was truly inspired. The Romans were very inventive as well. Roman concrete, for example is nearly as good as natural stone, and holds up for 1000s of years as opposed to the weak concrete we have today.

 

[Kid Eager]

Several Greek sources (esp Solon) cite Egypt as the root source for their scientific/technical advances and the Egyptian sources cited claim their knowledge was in fact handed down from an even EARLIER civilization. In addition, we now know from geological evidence that the Sphinx was carved at least TEN thousand years ago, much further back than previously thought.

Did the Greek discover/re-discover many things? Certainly. We STILL don't know how "Greek fire" was truly made, for example, and Archimedes' "death ray" (actually focused sunlight) was truly inspired. The Romans were very inventive as well. Roman concrete, for example is nearly as good as natural stone, and holds up for 1000s of years as opposed to the weak concrete we have today.

Heavy sigh. It has been *claimed* that the Sphinx is older than the 2500-ish bc date, instead being 5-7,000 bc, on account of what is rationalised as water weathering. This claim is not supported by most credible authorities, as the characteristics of the weathering also match salt exfoliation, which is present and doesn't require the greater age to be introduced to explain where the eroding water came from.

 

[Dinwar]

Several Greek sources (esp Solon) cite Egypt as the root source for their scientific/technical advances and the Egyptian sources cited claim their knowledge was in fact handed down from an even EARLIER civilization.

Much of my understanding of paleontology comes from earlier sources. That does not deminish my contributions. "We stand on the shoulders of giants", to paraphrase what may be science's greatest description.

Or, to put it another way: Romans got most of their technology from other cultures. The gladius was a Spanish design, for example. That said, Rome was still more advanced than the civilizations it conquered because 1) the combination of technologies allowed for significant advancement, and 2) they took what they were given and added to it.

In other words, you basically just said "Greece and Egypt cited their sources." One can hardly call avoidence of plagerism a bad thing.

In addition, we now know from geological evidence that the Sphinx was carved at least TEN thousand years ago, much further back than previously thought.

I'd love to see the evidence. I've seen ALEGED evidence, but it's mostly based on a cartoonishly bad understanding of arid erosional processes.

Did the Greek discover/re-discover many things?

Equivocating between these two is begging the question of this entire thread. Discovery and rediscovery are two very different things.

 

[azzthom]

Several Greek sources (esp Solon) cite Egypt as the root source for their scientific/technical advances and the Egyptian sources cited claim their knowledge was in fact handed down from an even EARLIER civilization. In addition, we now know from geological evidence that the Sphinx was carved at least TEN thousand years ago, much further back than previously thought.

Did the Greek discover/re-discover many things? Certainly. We STILL don't know how "Greek fire" was truly made, for example, and Archimedes' "death ray" (actually focused sunlight) was truly inspired. The Romans were very inventive as well. Roman concrete, for example is nearly as good as natural stone, and holds up for 1000s of years as opposed to the weak concrete we have today.

IIRC, the "evidence" that the Sphinx is 10,000 years old consists of two points:-
1. The alignment of the pyramids allegedly mirroring Orion's belt 10,000 years ago which, supposedly, was 'The Age of Leo'.
2. An expert seeing a partially obscured picture of the Sphinx (so it looked like a piece of rock) and being asked to identify the cause of the visible erosion. He said "Water". This sounds fairly impressive until you realise it's a first impression based on a photograph of what looks like natural limestone/sandstone.

Roman concrete was, and indeed is, very good though.

 

[Dinwar]

2. An expert seeing a partially obscured picture of the Sphinx (so it looked like a piece of rock) and being asked to identify the cause of the visible erosion. He said "Water". This sounds fairly impressive until you realise it's a first impression based on a photograph of what looks like natural limestone/sandstone.

This is the line I'm most familiar with. Some aspects of the Sphinx's erosion do in fact appear to be due to water. However, again, that ignores arid lands erosion. Salt wedging is a powerful force that can weaken material quite dramatically, so the hardness of the material eroded away was almost certainly less than the hardness of the material in general. And water is simply more violent in deserts than in more well-watered areas. There's nothing to constrain it, so it tends to cause a lot of erosion extremely quickly. I've seen roads go from drivable to impossible to use thanks to a single rainstorm.

Then there's another fact: People overestimate the strength and stability of stone. It's actually not uncommon to see stone erode quite dramatically, even stone used for construction. I've seen tombstones and sculptures and such that, when new (in photographs), look pristine but in person look like lumps of rock. Rocks can wear away very quickly.

 

[Hans]

The sphinx enclosure is located at the terminus of a wadi that drains the higher plateau. The place (plateau) was once level and tiled - run off would have been funneled into the sphinx's complex.


Also as noted earlier ..... The device depicts a geocentric viewpoint