Decoding the Heavens: A 2,000-Year-Old Computer--and the Century-Long Search to Discover Its Secrets

337 Pages·2009·2.17 MB·English

by  Jo Marchant

Decoding the
Heavens

Decoding the
Heavens
A 2,000-Year-Old Computer—
And the Century-Long Search
to Discover Its Secrets
Jo Marchant
DA CAPO PRESS
A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP
Copyright © 2009 by Jo Marchant
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from
the Library of Congress.
First Da Capo Press edition 2009
Reprinted by arrangement with William Heinemann
ISBN: 978-0-306-81742-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008939733
Published by Da Capo Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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To Ian

Contents
Prologue 1
1: I See Dead People 4
2: An Impossible Find 31
3:Treasures of War 59
4: Rewriting History 93
5: A Heroic Reconstruction 130
6:The Moon in a Box 159
7: Mechanic’s Workshop 187
8: The New Boys 212
9: A Stunning Idea 240
10: Old Man of Syracuse 261
Epilogue 297
Acknowledgements 301
Picture Credits 305
Sources and Further Reading 307
Index 319

Prologue
In a corner of the National Archaeological Museum
in Athens is something that doesn’t fit. It is nothing like
the classical Greek statues and vases that fill the rest of the
echoing hall. Three flat pieces of what looks like mouldy,
green cardboard are delicately suspended inside a glass case.
Within each piece, layers of what was once metal have
been squashed together and are now covered with corro-
sion products – from the whitish green of tin oxide to the
dark bluish green of copper chloride. They’ve been under
the sea for 2,000 years, and it shows.
Look closer though, and you’ll see something impossible.
Through the deposits, shadowy outlines are visible: engraved
letters, a large wheel and part of an encrusted but precisely
marked circular scale. Next to these strange items an X-ray
image shows what’s hidden inside. Beneath the ancient, calci-
fied surfaces, delicate cogwheels of all sizes are jostling for
space, their triangular teeth so perfectly formed it seems that
any second they might start clicking round. The design of
the mechanism is modern and immediately recognisable. It
looks just like the inside of an alarm clock.
This is the Antikythera mechanism. Its fragments are now
1