Who is the creator?
Today historians have every reason to assume that the ship came from the island of Rhodes. The famous ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician and philosopher Hipparchus of Nicea lived here in the 2nd century BC. Most likely, he was the author of the mysterious anti-kira mechanism - although, perhaps, an unusual artifact was invented and created by an unknown nugget from the Greek province.
Strange wreckage
Although the values were lifted from the ship at the end of 1901, for a long time no one had any idea about the existence of the mechanism. Archaeologists were interested in brighter objects: marble statues, a lot of jewelry and other artifacts migrated from the board to the museum. Only on May 17, 1902, the archaeologist Valerios Stais realized that the fragments that fell into his hands were parts of one mechanism.
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Half a century of oblivion
But another half century passed before scientists figured out the true purpose of the mechanism. The English historian Derek John de Solla Price carried out detailed studies of the remains of the artifact and suggested that this mechanism is an ancient computing device. By that time, the dating of the mechanism had been established exactly: the expedition of Jacques-Yves Cousteau discovered coins on the same ship, according to which the mechanism was created in 85 BC. And now try to imagine the surprise of the scientific community, which realized that people used a primitive, but still mechanical numbering device a good hundred years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Price's work
In 1959, the American physicist Robert Price made an X-ray of the mechanism and recreated its scheme. The most complex structure of gears allowed ancient navigators to simulate the movements of the luminaries and even calculate the lunar phases. Price's reconstruction used differential transmission - it was previously thought that it was only invented in the 16th century.
Wright's reconstruction
British scientist Michael Wright, a specialist in mechanical devices at the London Science Museum, has conducted a new study. But it was only in 2002 that Wright was able to recreate a complete reconstruction: it turned out that the Antikyker mechanism allows modeling not only the movements of the Sun and Moon, but also Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Final verdict
In 2016, scientists presented the results of their many years of research. On the remaining 82 fragments of the device, it was possible to decipher 2000 letters, including 500 words. Yet the description, according to scientists, could take 20,000 characters. They told about the purpose of the device, in particular, about determining the dates of 42 astronomical phenomena. In addition, the functions of prediction were laid in it, in particular, the color and size of the solar eclipse, and from it the strength of the winds at sea, were determined (the Greeks inherited this belief from the Babylonians). The device itself was made at 35 parallel, probably on the island of Rhodes.