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