Does the antikythera mechanism change our understanding of the Classical World?

Answer 1

I believe it does. Throughout modern times thee has been until recently a tendency to underestimate the intelligence of our ancestors. An example of this would be the quack theories regarding the pyramids. There is an genre which is a part of the publishing industry which claims that the great achievements of our ancestors were impossible accomplishments because they were too ignorant to accomplish these things. Thus, the so called Ancient Aliens Theory. This is as I previously mentioned, often cited in relation to the pyramids. People claim that we don't know how they were built (which is an utter untruth), and thus they were built by aliens. THe fact is tht we know how they were built, who built them, how the work force was gathered , where they lived, what they ate, what physical ailments they had, and many other things. Archaeology has proven that the Egyptians used pi in their calculations regarding what the size of the bases of the buildings had to be, and the rest is simple. The pyramid shape was the best way to build a monumental building without using columns, flying buttresses, steel girders etc.It was all a matter of weight distribution. The Sumerians had learned the same thing, as well as the Indian people and the people of ancient America. It didn't take alien technology to build those structures.They rely on peoples' naivete to sell books. One such author is Erich van Daniken and his "Chariots of the gods" book. The Antikytheran device is an example of how astute our ancestors actually were.The Greeks were fascinated by mathematics, and this device was built to be essentially a hand held slide rule, or mechanical computation device, and its compleity is astounding. It is a wake up call to the people of our times regarding what we can accomplish, if we use our brains. So, the device is but one of a number of objects that indicate to us how capable intellectually our ancestors were. The same can be said of stonehenge. We know where the stones came from, how they were quarried, and how they were slowly transported to the work site. In the case of stonehenge and the pyramids/ziggurats they work took generations, or many many years to accomplish, but they did manage to do it. I think it says a lot about what mankind can do when it is driven by strong motives.