Figure Caption: This figure shows the complexity of the gearing of the Antikythera Mechanism. Gears in black are seen in the x-ray evidence; gears in red are conjectured in order to complete the model.
History of the Antikythera Mechanism Investigations
The interior workings of the Antikythera Mechanism began to be understood beginning in the 1950s, with the investigations of Derek de Solla Price. In 1970, Price worked with Charalambos Karakalos, who completed an x-ray study about 1970. Karakalos undertook conventional x-rays and Gamma radiographs, and Price interpreted the mass as the remains of a wooden framed box containing at least 30 interlocking gears. Price's report, Gears from the Greeks, was published in 1974. He believed the mechanism calculated the lunar month by using epicyclic gearing to subtract the rotation of the sun from that of the sidereal month.
Since Price's study, several reconstructions of the mechanism have been attempted. In 1989, Michael T. Wright and Allan G. Bromley began a reassessment of the mechanism, using new better-detailed radiographs and linear tomography, which provided some three-dimensional information. After Bromley's death in 2000, Wright continued the work alone, carefully examining the pieces and digitizing the radiographs for computer analysis. In 2005, Wright completed a working model, showing it had least 41 interlocking gears. Wright proposed that the lower back dial showed four 'draconitic' months, a proposition that was overturned by the later work of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. He suggested that Hipparchos' theory of the sun might have been incorporated into the mechanism.
Sources
Antikythera Mechanism Research Project
Price, Derek de Solla. 1974. Gears from the Greeks--A calendar computer from ca. 80 BC. Reprinted by Science History Publications: New York (1975).
