Free Republic

Ooparts ? What are Ooparts? That stands for Out of Place Artifacts. Things that show up where they shouldn't, a piece of gold chain found in a coal seam, what appears to be a sparkplug embedded in rock that is thousands of years old and what appears to be a bullet hole in the skull of a mastodon. These things are ooparts. A Gold Thread Workmen quarrying stone near the River Tweed below Rutherford, Scotland in 1844, found a piece of gold thread embedded in the rock of the quarry eight feet below ground level. A small piece of the...

Medieval calculator up for grabsUK museum seeks cash to keep a rare astrolabe in public hands. Philip Ball The British Museum needs £350,000 to secure this astrolabe. The fate of a fourteenth-century pocket calculator is hanging in the balance between museum ownership and private sale. The device is a brass astrolabe quadrant that opens a new window on the mathematical and astronomical literacy of the Middle Ages, experts say. It can tell the time from the position of the Sun, calculate the heights of tall objects, and work out the date of Easter. Found in 2005, the instrument has captivated...

The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the first analog computer, was recovered more than a century ago in the wreckage of a ship that sank off the tiny island of Antikythera, north of Crete. Earlier research showed that the device was probably built between 140 and 100 B.C. Only now, applying high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography, have experts been able to decipher inscriptions and reconstruct functions of the bronze gears on the mechanism. The latest research has revealed details of dials on the instrument's back side, including the names of all 12 months of an ancient calendar. In the...

The secrets of the worlds oldest calculating machine are revealed today, showing that it had dials to mark the timing of eclipses and the Olympic games. Ever since the spectacular bronze device was salvaged from a shipwreck after its discovery in 1900 many have speculated about the uses of the mechanical calculator which was constructed long before the birth of Christ and was one of the wonders of the ancient world. The dictionary sized crumbly lump containing corroded fragments of what is now known to be a marvellous hand cranked machine is known as the 'Antikythera Mechanism' because it was...

Science journalist and author Jo Marchant will discuss the century-long quest to understand the purpose of a mysterious Greek artifact buried beneath the sea for 2,000 years.

Look at an ancient coin under ordinary light and the chances are that its features, worn down by its passage from hand to hand, will be hard to make out. Point a spotlight at it, though, so that the face of the coin is illuminated from an acute angle, and the resulting shadows will emphasise any minor details. This is the basic principle behind a novel technique that is helping archaeologists reveal previously invisible clues hidden in the worn or damaged surfaces of any objects they uncover. From wall paintings in Herculaneum to Scandinavian stone tools to rock art...

A little more than a century ago, in the year 1900, some Aegean sponge divers stopped on the barren Greek islet of Antikythera, between Crete and Greece, to seek shelter from a fierce storm. After things had calmed, they continued diving in the relatively shallow waters nearby and happened upon an ancient Roman shipwreck that contained confiscated Greek treasures of bronze and marble statues, jewelry, glassware and even a bronze throne. Also among the artifacts was what appeared to be a corroded lump of rock that, for some unknown reason, was dumped into a crate during the 10-month salvage recovery...

The ancient Antikythera Mechanism doesn't just challenge our assumptions about technology transfer over the ages — it gives us fresh insights into history itself.