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Why does nobody talk about how the Antikythera mechanism used lunar calendars instead of solar ones...
I read a paper from the 2023 Athens conference that showed the gear ratios actually match the Metonic cycle to predict eclipses, which made me realize the Greeks had way more complex astronomy than I ever gave them credit for, has anyone else seen that study?
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parkerb758d ago
The 2023 paper by Bitsakis and colleagues really changed how I look at the thing. What got me though is how the gear for the Metonic cycle at 235 months ties into the Saros cycle gear at 223 months. Does that mean they were actually using the lunar calendar to predict solar eclipses too, or just lunar ones? I remember reading somewhere the mechanism had a dial for the Olympic games but nobody talks about how that connected to the lunar tracking. Just seems like there's a whole layer of complexity we haven't figured out yet.
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carter.julia7d ago
That connection between the Metonic and Saros cycles really suggests they were mapping out both solar and lunar eclipses together.
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