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Athens News Agency: News in English, 11-04-06
CONTENTS
[01] Researcher cites ancient Minoan-era 'computer'
[01] Researcher cites ancient Minoan-era 'computer'
(ANA-MPA) -- The Minoan civilisation on pre-Classical Crete discovered
the first rudimentary analog computer in mankind's history, according
to researcher Minas Tsikritsis, an academic who specialises in ancient
Aegean writing systems.
Tsikritsis, who also hails from Crete -- where the Bronze Age Minoan
civilization flourished from approximately 2700 BC to 1500 century BC
-- maintains that the Minoan Age object discovered in 1898 in
Paleokastro site, in the Sitia district of western Crete, preceded the
heralded "Antikythera Mechanism" by 1,400 years, and was the first
analog and "portable computer" in history.
"While searching in the Archaeological Museum of Iraklion for Minoan
Age findings with astronomical images on them we came across a
stone-made matrix unearthed in the region of Paleokastro, Sitia. In the
past, archaeologists had expressed the view that the carved symbols on
its surface are related with the Sun and the Moon," Tsikritsis said.
The Cretan researcher and university professor told ANA-MPA that after
the relief image of a spoked disc on the right side of the matrix was
analysed it was established that it served as a cast to build a
mechanism that functioned as an analog computer to calculate solar and
lunar eclipses. The mechanism was also used as sundial and as an
instrument calculating the geographical latitude. (ANA-MPA)
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