Figure 8. — Antikythera Ma- 

 chine, Detail from Figure 6, 

 showing gearing. {Plwlo courtesy 

 of National Museum, Athens.) 



purpose of the gears was to provide the correct angular 

 ratios to move the sun and jjlanets at their appropriate 

 relative speeds. 



Thus, if the evidence of the Antikythera macliine is 

 to be taken at its face vakie, we have, already in classi- 

 cal times, the use of astronomical devices as compli- 

 cated as any clock. In any case, the material supplied 



by the works ascribed to Archimedes, Hero, and 

 \"itruvius, and the more certain evidence of the ana- 

 phoric clocks is sufficient to show that there was a 

 strong classical tradition of such machines, a tradition 

 that inspired, c\en if it did not directly influence, 

 later developments in Islam and Europe on the one 

 side, and. just possibK . Ohina on the other. 



Note added in proof: 



Since the above lines were written, I have been 

 privileged to make a full examination of the frag- 

 ments in the National Museum in Athens. As a 

 result we can read much more inscription and make 

 out many more details of the mechanism. The 

 cleaning and disentangling of the fragments by the 

 museum stall has proceeded to the stage where one 

 can assert much more positively that the device 



was an astronomical computer for sidereal, solar, 

 lunar, and possibly also planetary phenomena. (See 

 my article in xhc Scientific American, June 1959, vol. 

 200, No. 6, pp. 60-67). Relevant to the present study, 

 it must also be noted at this point that the machine 

 is now shown to be strongly related to the geared 

 astrolabe of al-Birun and thereby the Hellenistic, 

 Islamic, and European developments are drawn 

 together even more tightly. 



Let us now turn our attention to those civilizations 

 which were intermediari&s, geographically and cul- 

 turally, between Greece and medieval Europe, and 

 between both of these and China. From India there 

 are only two references, very closely related and 



appearing in the best known astronomical texts in 

 connection with descriptions of the armillary sphere 

 and celestial globe. These te.Kts are both quite 

 garbled, but so far as one may understand them, it 

 seems that the Vfpc& of spheres and globes mentioned 



94 



BULLETIN 218: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



