Antikythera mechanism lives again

26. November 2008 20:09

As promised a while ago, here's a short video I made of Michael Wright demonstrating his reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism. I'm a journalist not a filmmaker, so please don't judge the quality too harshly! I hope though that this at least gives you a sense of what the Antikythera mechanism was, and what it could do. In all the research I did for Decoding the Heavens, nothing brought this incredible machine to life for me quite like sitting in Michael's workshop, sipping tea while watching those pointers dance gently round the zodiac...

 

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11/30/2008 7:45:43 PM #

       I have seen the video on the Nature website, in which Tony Freeth makes a great fuss about the supposed pioneering work of making a working reconstruction of the Antikythera Mechanism; but what’s it all about, since this video shows that Michael Wright has done it already? Surely Freeth must know about this work, so why doesn’t he mention it? This looks like a really superb piece of model-making, and Wright’s reconstruction with the motions of the planets really makes sense of the instrument.

Paul Snow United Kingdom

7/30/2009 9:26:00 PM #

this video shows that Michael Wright has done it already? Surely Freeth must know about this work, so why doesn’t he mention it? This looks like a really superb piece of model-making, and Wright’s reconstruction with the motions of the planets really makes sense of the instrument.  I cannot speak for what folk do or don't know about MTW's involvement with the Antikythera Mechanism, I can only say thatI was MT Wright's Museum Assistant during some of the early days of his work with Prof Bromley on this Artefact.  The idea for the use of X-ray tomography for an analysis of the mechanism was prompted by a discussion of the medical uses of the technique by members of his family.  At the time restrictions on the movement of the mechanism, and the costs and logistics involved in the use of more sophisticated x-ray equipment led Michael to make a rather natty device derived from simple physics which could be used with an affordable industrial X-ray unit.  I understand that getting the device through Greek customs proved interesting.  On the basis of what he achieved then I believe he was invited back for a second examination of the mechanism.  I well remember being shown an early version of the reconstruction made by Michael, who took great care only to use such metal working techniques as were known to be available at the time from which it was then believed the mechanism dated.  I was privilaged enough to see the early x-ray images from IIRC the first analysis MTW undertook. I attempted to reproduce some of them on 35mm slides for a talk MTW was to give.   I THINK that this must have been ca 1991 because I was moved to a new task in the museum about that time.  I always felt that Michael's work was never properly supported by the Science Museum, London, for whom we both then worked, to their loss.

Stephen C Evans United Kingdom