Ancient Greek world, c. 2nd–1st century BCE
The sky,
in bronze.
Before the circuit, there was the tooth. An extraordinary assembly of bronze gears translated the movements of the heavens into something a hand could turn.
A new lunar cycleTurn 0 / schematic demonstration
A shipwreck kept the secret.
Recovered near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, the surviving fragments revealed a device designed to model astronomical cycles. Its complexity changed our understanding of ancient mechanical knowledge.
One turn. Many relationships.
Meshing teeth make a precise relationship between two rotations. In the original mechanism, connected gear trains brought solar and lunar cycles into a compact, readable display.
Material: bronzeMethod: tooth-count ratiosDisplay: cyclical time