Ancient Olympic Calculator Discovered

55 Comments

Dkrainey, on 07/30/2008, -1/+36How come they keep finding ancient Olympics related stuff right around Olympic time this year? Its ancient viral marketing. Those Greeks were smart.
bwjacket, on 07/30/2008, -1/+32BY THE BEARD OF ZEUS!!!!!
Dumbledorito, on 07/30/2008, -3/+15Has anyone tried to install Linux on it?
masterkenobi, on 07/30/2008, -0/+10"Either way, the mechanism has yet to give up all its secrets."

Did they call Dr. Daniel Jackson yet?
theviceroy, on 07/30/2008, -0/+7the Greek version of those LCD count-down keychains.
attackpanda, on 07/30/2008, -0/+6...China currently investigating how to censor it.
nephari, on 07/30/2008, -0/+6The title is a little misleading -- it should be more like "Device discovered 1000 years ago, now revealed to be linked to the Olympics... conveniently publicized a week before the current Olympics."
skunks, on 07/30/2008, -0/+5Why do UFO nuts always come out of the woodwork with their "too advanced for humans" garbage when something like this becomes news? Humans built the pyramids, humans made the crystal skull, and humans built this "computer", which is actually more a timekeeping device.

As Occam put it (and Occam was human, too, believe it or not) "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." There's no need to create huge, improbable conspiracy theories to explain the fact that ancient humans were intelligent creatures.
rz8472, on 07/30/2008, -0/+4No, the Ancient Greeks were the smartest, most advanced civilization in the ancient world, as evidenced by this and (earlier) the Antithykera Device. That's not to say that the Romans weren't advanced themselves, but much of their knowledge was derivative from the Greeks - for example, there isn't one famous Roman mathematician. However, we see the Romans as the bastion of ancient civilization today because while Greece was divided into a loose and relatively weak collection of independent city-states, Rome was a far more aggressive and militaristic power, and it's always the victors who get to define how history is framed.
inactive, on 07/30/2008, -2/+6Its always refreshing to hear about people who lived hundreds of years ago, inventing technologies and sciences that puzzle us nowadays.
inactive, on 07/30/2008, -0/+3Only Ron Paul.
danibobanny, on 07/30/2008, -0/+3Yeah, who knows how much more advanced we'd be if they'd been allowed to continue their research unimpeded? We'd be celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Mars colonies, or something :)
Dkrainey, on 07/30/2008, -0/+3They are so smart because they have the same brain structure we have.They are us! I hate it when people say ancient civs must have recieved their technologies from aliens. They got it the same way we have what we have now.
richmomz, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2So? It's significance was not discovered until recently when someone decided (mostly on a whim) to x-ray what appeared to be an uninteresting lump of bronze and sea slime and realized it was one of the most important inventions in history, shattering our notions about the technological and scientific level of sophistication of the ancient Greeks.
frostbyt, on 07/30/2008, -1/+3I put in 100 seconds and it goes from 100 to 59. It pisses me off. I want 100 seconds and all I get is 59. What's the deal.
Checkerd, on 07/30/2008, -2/+4GREAT ODEN'S RAVEN!!!!!
MiDri, on 07/30/2008, -0/+2Greek and Atlantian technology is more Dr. Mckay's cup of tea.
Aliwalla, on 07/30/2008, -0/+2Were they just waiting to release this as advertisement for the Beijing games???
richmomz, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2I'm pretty sure this would be way beyond his level of sophistication (and that of most other people for that matter).
tehknotte, on 07/30/2008, -0/+2excuse me, his microwave...
BXRWXR, on 07/30/2008, -3/+4You know you can just bury things, you don't have to regale us with your reasons why.

Because frankly we don't care.
LordVance, on 07/30/2008, -2/+3It doesn't? It goes from 1:00 to 0:59, not 100 to 59
danibobanny, on 07/30/2008, -0/+1This actually *is* the Antikythera device. They made a replica of it, since the original's parts were all corroded, to try to figure out what it was supposed to be used for. Every so often there's a new theory; this one just happens to be conveniently timed with the Olympics.
groo68, on 07/30/2008, -1/+2so put in 140, or 99.
rynvndrp, on 07/30/2008, -1/+2Its not a new discovery, this device (the Antithykera) was found in the 40's. Whats new is that they figured out what it was used for, or another use it had. Highly misleading title as a second device would be incredibly useful as to figuring out what the Greeks were capable of.
dhughes, on 07/30/2008, -1/+2 Way back in ancient Greece it must have seemed like ages between games, four years isn't much but when the average life of a man was (I've heard) 30 years a four year span must have seemed like 20 years.
richmomz, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1Whoever invented this thing definately put the "geek" in "Greek." :p
Jaryd2006, on 07/30/2008, -0/+1Uh....Id rather leave Earth before its destroyed if you dont mind.....
Stevethegreat, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1Yeah digg me down uneducated morons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgias

It was typical for a man to live in his 70s, in ancient Greece, read Plato's Apology, Socrates in his 70s think he's old but his students still weep him as if he died prematurely (he could surely live up to a decade more).
R0CKY, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1The title isn't just misleading, it's plain wrong. As the article states, it was actually "found" 107 years ago.
inactive, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1China produced more groundbreaking techs than the greeks, and because chinas civilization continued unimpeded for the most part, their techs were not lost but passed onto later civs in some form or another. Until the 17th century tech direction wast east>>>west then things reversed when britain underwent the industrial revolution.
samdsays, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1man, crazy computer greeks.
columbusgeek, on 07/30/2008, -0/+1I was expecting to see a image of some tan spartan in a robe counting on his fingers. Alas, all I got was a dead server.
bosssmiley, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1BY THE SACRED JOCKSTRAP OF ROBERT W. HOWARD!

/Thrud the Barbarian
dhughes, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1 It's possible although I have no way to prove it but I wouldn't doubt a person living in Greece or Rome and living a healthy (safe) life with good clean water, healthy food (Mediterranean diet is supposedly very healthy), lots of activity outdoors and a good family life could live to an old age.

I'd say the main reason for the often quoted age of 30 was due to the constant wars, city states of Greece and Rome certainly were not the most peaceful places to live for most of their history.
mapls, on 03/05/2009, -0/+0cool.
The spammy part of my comment : http://weightwatchers-recipes.info/americanized-ch ...
ZER0JACK, on 07/30/2008, -1/+1Viral Marketing.
firesphotons, on 07/30/2008, -1/+1Quick, somebody get that thing to McCain headquarters, he's in dire need of technology he can understand.
Stevethegreat, on 07/30/2008, -1/+1Gorgias (an ancient Greek) lived to his 100-110 (just saying).

Infant mortality was the reason why average lifepan was reduced to 25 years, if they lived to be 10 years old people would typically continue living up to their 60s or 70s (like today).
tehknotte, on 07/30/2008, -1/+1no u
roguehat, on 03/13/2009, -0/+0The greeks invented the calculator!!!!!!!! LOL

______________________________________________

http://squidoo.com/truth_about_hypnosis
davewashere, on 07/30/2008, -2/+1They needed to invent a device to tell them when the 4 years was up and it was time to have the Olympics again? Ancient Greeks were idiots.
duckley, on 07/31/2008, -2/+1FOUND OVER 100 YEARS AGO.
abdo, on 07/30/2008, -2/+1And were you there in 1901?
wunksta, on 07/30/2008, -3/+1KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS!!!!
Itspeople, on 07/30/2008, -2/+0Uncle Jonathan's corn-cob pipe!
HeWillKillu, on 07/30/2008, -4/+2little by little we find things that intrigue us about the past, but if you notice that we always seem to find technology that was way ahead of the civilization's time??? well ask yourself, how could they have been so smart? i can't wait till we find solid prof of a past alien existence, even though we'd never know cause the media would probably cover it up anyway. but anyway, do some research ppl, ask questions, don't take everything for face value. We're definitely not alone in this universe, why is it so hard for some ppl to fathom the fact that our ancestors can easily have come from another planet, just as we plan to leave Earth after it's destroyed?
If you're interested, check this out, and keep searching for more clues, there's plenty out there. Please, no nasty comments, I don't care if u believe or not, neither does anyone else, but of course if u have a valid point be my guest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaY9k4-W0cc&feature ...
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PGPirate, on 07/30/2008, -3/+0dude, it was a joke, a bad one though
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