A MODERN MODEL OF THE

ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM c. 200 BCE

Longer Eclipse Cycles(EVEN NUMBERS OF SYNODIC & DRACONIC MONTHS )

SAROS CYCLE

MAYA CYCLE = 46

TSOLKIN ROUNDS

Chinese cycle

Some Eclipses of Saros Series #136

Number Date Type Duration* Comments

1 1360 June 14 Partial [5%]

8 1486 Aug 29 Partial [99%] Last Partial

9 1504 Sept 8 Annular 31 seconds

15 1612 Nov 12 Hybrid 1 sec

21 1721 Jan 27 Total 1 min 7 secs First Total

31 1901 May 18 Total 6 min 29 secs

32 1919 May 29 Total 6 min 51 secs “Eddington’s

Eclipse”

33 1937 Jun 8 Total 7 min 4 secs

34 1955 Jun 20 Total 7 min 8 secs Longest Total

35 1973 Jun 30 Total 7 min 4 secs

36 1991 July 11 Total 6 min 53 secs “Yelapa eclipse”

37 2009 July 22 Total 6 min 39 secs

38 2027 Aug 2 Total 6 min 23 secs

39 2045 Aug 12 Total 6 min 6 secs

40 2063 Aug 24 Total 5 min 49 secs

41 2081 Sept 3 Total 5 min 33 secs

42 2099 Sept 14 Total 5 min 18 secs

64 2496 May 13 Total 1 min 2 secs Last Total

65 2514 May 25 Partial [95%] First Partial

71 2622 July 30 Partial [10 ½ %] Last Partial

* Duration of Totality in minutes and seconds. Where the eclipse is partial, instead of duration, the maximum

percentage of the Sun eclipsed is given inside square brackets.

THE SAROS: AN AMAZING BABYLONIAN-DISCOVERED

ECLIPSE PREDICTOR…STILL USED TODAY FOR ECLIPSES!

More than a hundred years ago an extraordinary

mechanism was found by sponge divers at the

bottom of the sea near the tiny island of Antikythera,

between Greece and Crete.

It astonished the whole international community of

experts on the ancient world.

Was it an astrolabe?

Was it an orrery or an astronomical clock?

Or something else?

The Antikythera Mechanism: dates from 200—100 BCE;

discovered in 1900 by a team of sponge divers off the south coast

of Greece (near the islet of Antikythera, midway between the

Peloponnese and Crete)

Speaking of its current location in Athens:

“It looks like something from another world – nothing like the classical statues and vases

that fill the rest of the echoing hall. Three flat pieces of what looks like green, flaky pastry

are supported by plastic cradles. Within each fragment, layers of something that was

once metal have been squashed together and are now covered in calcareous accretions

and various corrosions, from the whitish tin oxide to the dark bluish green of copper

chloride. This thing spent 2,000 years at the bottom of the sea before making it to the

National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and it shows.

“But it is the detail that takes my breath away. Beneath the powdery deposits, tiny

cramped writing is visible along with a spiral scale; there are traces of gear-wheels

edged with jagged teeth. Next to the fragments an X-ray shows some of the object’s

internal workings. It looks just like the inside of a wristwatch.

“The is the Antikythera Mechanism.”

Nature magazine Vol 444, 30 November 2006

• Day in lunar month and Solar Year

• Exact location of the Moon including the ellipticity of its orbit as originally

described by Hipparchos of Rhodes in c. 150 BCE

• Day number in the 76 year Callippic cycle (4 times the Year of Meton,

upon which the Jewish luni-solar calendar is based). Over this period the

Moon returns to the same phase on the same day of the year (This luni-

solar calendar was used throughout the eastern Mediterranean including

Greece and Sicily)

• Day in the Saros Cycle, the primary eclipse cycle of the Babylonians in

which 223 synodic periods (lunar phase cycles) is the same as 242

draconic months (time period for Moon to return to the same node in its

orbit). Because this period is 18.03 years Saros eclipses also repeat at

the same time of year.

• Suggestions of gears now lost that determined accurate planetary

positions.

>> See Nature Magazine Volume 444/30 November 2006

New analysis by Tony Freeth (U Cardiff, Wales) and collaborators used surface

imaging and high resolution X-ray tomography to determine that the Antikythera

Mechanism had at least 30 bronze gears, all with triangular teeth ranging in

number from 15 to 223. The purposes of these gears includes:

INSTRUCTION MANUAL engraved on

inside mechanism’s “back door”

HIGHLIGHTED PORTIONS OF TEXT :

At left: “76 years, 19 years” for Calippic and Metonic calendar cycles.

At right: “223” for the Saros cycle and “on the spiral subdivisions 235”

confirming the calendrical use of one of the two back dials.

EXAMPLES OF ECLIPSE DETAILS ON

BACK SIDE OF MECHANISM

• 18 sets of “GLYPHS” which were inscribed within some of the 223

divisions of the spiral dial. Each "glyph" consists of 4 to 10 characters.

• Nearly all the glyphs contain S (lunar eclipse, from SELHNH, Moon) or

H (solar eclipse, from HLIOS, Sun). Some glyphs contain both lunar and

solar eclipse.

• In each case the hour (after sunrise for Solar Eclipses, or sunset for

Lunar Eclipses) is given.

• The lower back dial displayed the 223 synodic months of the Saros

cycle, with a subsidiary dial displaying the Triple Saros or Exeligmos

cycle.

• By using these dials in combination, it would have been possible to use

the mechanism to predict the time (hour, day, month, & year) of both lunar

and solar eclipses.

ANNULAR

ECLIPSE of MAY

2012 is a member

of SAROS

ECLIPSE SERIES

#128 WHICH

STARTED WITH A

PARTIAL ECLIPSE

ON NOV 16, 1705

AND WILL

CONCLUDE WITH

A PARTIAL

ECLIPSE ON

NOV 1st 2282.

WHAT THE ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM

MAY HAVE LOOKED LIKE NEW !

What Richard Feynmann (Nobel Laureate in

Physics) had to say about the Antikythera

Mechanism

Yesterday morning I went to the archeological museum. . .

. Also, it was slightly boring because we have seen so

much of that stuff before. Except for one thing: among all

those art objects there was one thing so entirely different

and strange that it is nearly impossible. It was recovered

from the sea in 1900 and is some kind of machine with

gear trains, very much like the inside of a modern wind-up

alarm clock. The teeth are very regular and many wheels

are fitted closely together. There are graduated circles

and Greek inscriptions. I wonder if it is some kind of fake.

• Day in lunar month and Solar Year

• Exact location of the Moon AND Sun including the ellipticity of its orbit as originally described by Hipparchos of Rhodes in c. 150 BCE

• Day number in the 76 year Callipic cycle (4 times the Year of Meton, upon which the Jewish luni-solar calendar is based). Over this period the Moon returns to the same phase on the same day of the year

• Day in the Saros Cycle, the primary eclipse cycle of the Babylonians in which 223 synodic periods (lunar phase cycles) is the same as 242 draconic

• Suggestions of gears now lost that determined accurate planetary positions.

>> See Nature Magazine Volume 444/30 November 2006

New analysis by Tony Freeth, Mike Edmunds (U Cardiff, Wales) and

collaborators used surface imaging and high resolution X-ray tomography

to determine that the Antikythera Mechanism had at least 30 bronze gears,

all with triangular teeth ranging in number from 15 to 223. The purposes

of these gears includes:

Prague Orloj

1410 CE

Prague

Czechoslovakia

City Hall

Padova Italy Town Clock

circa 1344 CE

“Here we are, arguably the most intellectual, clever species ever to have

lived – so how is it that we can destroy the only planet we have?

What happened? Perhaps there’s a disconnect between this clever brain

and the human heart. If you separate them, you get the intellect alone

creating terrible technology.

Of course, we can also use our intellect to find solutions. Those solutions

can be either good or bad. It depends on us, not the technology. It’s a

tool.”

Jane Goodall, primatologist in Rolling Stone, November, 2007.