The Importance of the Antikythera Mechanism

Picking a topic to discuss has always been a hard thing for me to do due to the number of interests I have. The closest oversimplification I can make to encompass all of them in one short phrase is history and its moods across time. The very concept of being confined to the limitations of time and space (and everything that happens in between) fascinates me to no avail. I feel as if humanity has always been haunted and influenced by the past; always looking further while constantly peeking back. There's something powerful and poignantly important about the synthesis of both the past and present.

I guess this is why my mind generally likes to go back to the foundations of civilization and wonder about the people who built them. I'm not referring to the emperors or warriors, but the farmers and builders, the craftsmen and sculptors, the ones that truly saw the beauty of what the whole system was and is. This is the story of humanity that's worth exploring, this is where the truth is revealed. I have a dwindling amount of respect for the ones who were in charge, although there are exceptions. Most of them are the actual ones standing on the shoulders of giants, not the other way around.

To illustrate my point, I find no better argument right now than the Antikythera Mechanism. Discovered on the 17th of May, 1902, it is easily among the ranks of the most important artifacts ever discovered. It's an analog computer close to 2,500–3,000 years old. The mechanism was used to study and track stars while traveling across the seas. Needless to say, it was beyond valuable for sailors of the time, and even more so now. When carefully studied, its parts and structure may leave you befuddled over its intricacies and arrangements. It is nothing short of a technological monument that will continue to wonder for the rest of human history.

The device is a portal into the past; it gives us a glimpse at out ancestor's capabilities and knowledge. Its discovery, and the fascinating complexities of its usage and composition, are proof of mankind's ingenuity, of what the mind was capable of in a time where experts believed no such device could've existed. However, it is an even bigger indictment of just how blank and mysterious our past remains.

Artist rendition of what the Antikythera Mechanism would've looked like intact. Created by Jose Antonio PenasTo make matters more difficult, the machine poses more questions than answers. Perhaps none is more telling than who is its creator? Who built this magnificent monument of knowledge and ingenuity for all mankind? We will never know. Tragic, to think that we know the names of politicians, emperors, and warriors, but little to nothing on the men and women who allowed these people to conquer and expand. We know about the ones who gave orders, not those who followed or tended to their own needs undisturbed. They are, for all intents and purposes, erased from history, regulated to footnote. Something about it just doesn't feel right. We owe them everything, yet they remain a shadow.

It is on thoughts like these where I mourn the disappearance of the Library of Alexandria and the many texts whose answers would've provided much needed ground for understanding. The emptiness it creates is what forces us to confront the status quo in search for a better understanding, because the ones who do know the answer will bring comfort and pause for reflexion. My one and only glimmer for hope lies in the grand efforts by archeologist across the world using all their might to find these missing links. The night remains young in the eyes of the dreamers, I suppose. We must continue to explore, to give name and meaning to that which has been lost. It's the only honest way to move forward.