In episode 440 astrologers Chris Brennan and Sam Ogden discuss the Antikythera Mechanism, which is a complex mechanical device that was recovered from an ancient shipwreck, and how it may have been used for astrology.
The Antikythera Mechanism was discovered in the year 1901 by a group of sponge divers who found an ancient shipwreck near a Greek island named Antikythera.
They had found a Greek merchant ship that sank around the year 60 BCE, and divers were able to recover a number of ancient statues, pottery, as well as a corroded mechanical device with lots of gears.
Over the past century a series of researchers have slowly reconstructed the device, and recently advanced X-ray scans have allowed scholars to look inside to see how it worked.
We now know that it was a complex astronomical device that depicted the movements of the cosmos, and it was also a sort of mechanical calculator or computer that could compute positions of the planets in the past or future, predict when eclipses would occur, and more.
The discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism is important because it is far more advanced than what was previously thought possible in terms of technology around the 1st century BCE, and similar devices were not reinvented in Europe until after 13th century.
For our purposes as astrologers the most interesting piece is how the Antikythera Mechanism ties in with the history of ancient astrology, and that there is in fact some evidence the device was used for astrological purposes, as well as that there was at least one astrologer who is said to have owned a similar device.
In this episode we situate the device within the context of the history of astrology, talk about its possible astrological uses, and also discuss how the mechanism may helps us to reconstruct the origins of Hellenistic astrology as a result of the planetary order depicted on the device.
This episode is available in both audio and video versions below.
Sam's Website
http://www.brothermoonhealing.com
Sources and Further Reading
Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World, Oxford University Press, 2017.
Tony Freeth and Alexander Jones, "The Cosmos in the Antikythera Mechanism," ISAW Papers 4 (February, 2012).
Tony Freeth, D. Huggon, A. Decanalis, et al, "A Model of the Cosmos in the ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism," in Scientific Reports, 11, 5821 (2021).
Tony Freeth, “Wonder of the Ancient World,” in Scientific American Magazine, Vol. 326, No. 1 (January 2022), p. 24.
Timestamps
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:17 Antikythera Mechanism overview
00:06:39 Alexander Jones’ book on the device
00:10:59 Discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism
00:19:54 Chart for the discovery
00:27:54 Reconstructing the device
00:30:40 Dating the shipwreck and Mechanism
00:34:00 Geography: Antikythera, Rhodes, and Epirus
00:40:00 Transmission of Mesopotamian astrology
00:44:58 Archimedes
00:50:45 Planetary order dating
00:54:53 Order of the Seven Zoned Sphere
01:04:53 Planets and other dials on the device
01:15:15 How astrologers may have used the device
01:31:25 Astrologer’s boards
01:48:42 Dimensionality in the cosmos
01:53:00 Ascent and descent of the soul through the spheres
01:57:00 Thema Mundi depicted on the Antikythera Mechanism?
02:19:38 Geminos and the Thema Mundi
02:24:13 Eclipse prediction
02:41:15 Posidonius and astrologers with devices
03:05:50 Astrologers in Rhodes: Thrasyllus and Critodemus
03:15:45 Sphere-making tradition
03:20:20 Loss of this technology; rise of astrolabes
03:27:36 Balbillus
03:28:26 Researchers of the Antikythera Mechanism
03:30:27 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
03:31:09 Planets moving clockwise in the Mechanism
03:32:39 Trade secrets
03:35:13 Origins of Hellenistic astrology
03:37:33 Stoicism, fate, astrology, and Mechanisms
