1st Experimental High School of Thessaloniki "Manolis Andronikos"
Erasmus+ KA2 “Inventors and innovators: our heritage and our future”
The Antikythera Mechanism was found in 1900 in a shipwreck near
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the island of Antikythera. The ship, which sank in the 1st c. BC, was
The mechanism’s front and back plates were covered with incised inscriptions, which contained astronomical information and instructions for how to use the device. The astronomical text includes many terms: ΑΠΟΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΣΙΣ (reconstruction), ΑΠΟΣΤΑΣΙΣ (distance), ΑΠΟΣΤΗΜΑ (interval), ΔΙΑΣΤΗΜΑ (space), ΚΙΝΗΣΙΣ (movement), ΣΤΑΣΙΣ (stop), ΠΕΡΑΙΩΣΙΣ (completion), ΣΥΝΟΔΟΣ (synod), ΩΡΟΣΚΟΠΟΣ (ascendant), ΠΛΑΝΗΤΙΚΗ ΤΑΞΙΣ (planetary order)
the most important shipwreck in the area of the Mediterranean sea.
It offered, among a number of statues made of bronze and marble, the famous Antikythera Mechanism. The Mechanism, which is made of bronze and placed in a wooden box, was produced during the 2nd BC., and -despite its fragmentary preservation- it is the earliest preserved portable mechanical astronomical and calendar calculator and the earliest known modular mechanism in the world. This instrument is so extraordinary, that it must have been the product of many generations of development .
5. Representatives of the Greek government, the sponge divers and the crew of the military ship “Mykali”, off Antikythera (1900-1901)
3. Fragment A
4. Fragment A and X-rays radiograph
8. Back view and dials of the Antikythera Mechanism
Members of the working group: Paraskevi Floru, Konstandinos Karadukas, Alexandros Mironis, Alexandra Papadopoulou, Konstandinos Tsakiris Supervisor teacher: Vassiliki Gratziou
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7. 3D representation of the gearing inside the Antikythera Source of the photos 1-8 : Kaltsas N., Vlachogianni E., Bouyia, The Antikythera shipwreck ,
the ship, the treasures, the mechanism, Athens 2012, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism, National Archaeological Museum, 244 fig. 6 (1) , 243 fig. 3 (2), 233 fig. 1-2 (3-4), 25 fig. 5 (5), 83 fig. (6), 261 fig. 4 (7), 269 fig. 8 (8)