Antikythera Mechanism shows evidence of lunar calendar

Thank you mate, so pleased you enjoyed it! I have a Bachelor of Engineering (Mech.) - Cheers :)

Clickspring

This looks to be your first paper, and you have first name! Congratulations, this is a huge accomplishment. If you don't mind me asking, what do you have a degree in? That is, if you have one. I couldn't stop smiling while I read that paper. :)

carlossant

Thank you Bjorn. At present I am working on the first episode back that will cover how the finding was discovered, and then subsequent episodes will cover the finding in detail - Cheers :)

Clickspring

Amazing!!! When will se further videos of the building. (I must be the million,t person asking this) anyway im enjoying every video you publish and are truely impressed by the quality of all that you make. Patron supporter forever. Take care.

Bjorn Andersen

Glad you enjoyed it mate :)

Clickspring

Cheers mate :)

Clickspring

So interesting! I'll have to corner my son into explaining the statistical methods employed, but the evidence supporting your position seems strong.

Scott Lindroth

Just read it, been a looong wait ;-) Thanks for passing this on Chris, really enjoyed the read, and I think a great contribuition. Just goes to show the value of multi-disciplinary efforts.

David Paterson

Me too :)

Clickspring

For sure Chris, that's the rough plan at this stage - Cheers :)

Clickspring

That was a fascinating read Chris and looking forward to the resumption of the project videso

Phillip Kieran

Not sure how it would be for a video but explaining the paper and what it means might help come back to the project videos for some people

Chris Sherwin

Thank you Gustav :)

Clickspring

Thank you Kevin!

Clickspring

Thank you Tim!

Clickspring

Cheers Rene :)

Clickspring

Wow. Congratulations on the find! I'm so glad you embarked on this journey

Gustav Landerholm

good work!

Kevin Colwell

That is a very impressive piece of work Chris. Well done!

Tim Ostley

When a Youtube series on (of all things) clock making turns into serious scientific research that changes our understanding of the ancient worlds of greece and egypt...

Rene Schickbauer

Thank you mate - I found the process very demanding, at times exasperating, but ultimately worthwhile. Very much ready to move on with the build :)

Clickspring

Thank you mate! Yes we have corresponded with most of the leading academics in the field at various points in the process - Cheers :)

Clickspring

Congrats Chris. I'll read through it soon. How did you find the academic process?

Gabe

Wonderful work Chris, and for a very prestigious journal! I’m curious if you’ve heard from Tony Freeth or Michael Wright? The quality of your work along with your background will get a lot of attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re approached to make a documentary. Congratulations!!

James Kalkanis

Thank you very much Thomas :)

Clickspring

Thank you Hermann, very much appreciate your encouragement :)

Clickspring

There is insufficient evidence in the wreckage to clarify, but it appears as though a single pin would suffice to register the calendar ring in each position - Cheers :)

Clickspring

Thanks Jason!

Clickspring

Cheers Mike!

Clickspring

Thank you mate - The project will spin back up after I complete a couple of TGT's - Cheers :)

Clickspring

Thank you Nikolai!

Clickspring

Cheers mate :)

Clickspring

Thank you mate!

Clickspring

Congratulations! Meticulous work, strong support for findings, plausible alternatives properly presented, and a great trigger for future progressive research into the mechanism. While a novice in this field, I do know good research when I read it. Well Done to you and your co-authors! T. McGinnis, Ph.D.

Thomas McGinnis

I've read your paper and I'm really impressed with it, how you detail every single piece of evidence for a lunar cycle in the Egyptian calendar is amazing. It will also have possibly a huge impact on the chronology of Egyptian history like you mention in the paper, albeit more humbly, but to think that your research MIGHT shift the timelines of known history is astounding, it's really amazing to see a small machinist in Australia have such a great impact, GOOD ON YOU

Hermann Björgvin

Chris's are top shelf! Your dad may enjoy This Old Tony too.

Drew

Ha! If we ever find a second Antikythera Mechanism, we'll then get to see how close we really were.

Drew

Many home machinists use the Sherlines. My clockmaking mentor made his first clock (Bill Smith's skeleton clock) on a Sherline.

Drew

That's interesting. We very much think this finding supports Depuydt's more recent papers on the lunar calendar(s) possibly used in Egypt. We also think many Egyptologists will have a hard time reconciling with their long-help contrary views. We're for sure not saying we're correct, but this is the first new data contributed to that discussion in 50 years.

Drew

I'm just amazed. 354 or 360 is the answer, but to prove 365 is near impossible is a major advancement. Re-examination of the Calendar and Zodiac rings alignment should show which number it actually is. I'm going to read it for a third time but just in case, would those holes be used by a single pin?

Kevin Reardon

Congratulations! That's an enormous accomplishment!

jason black

Congratulations again for the acceptance! I finally got a chance to read the paper and the speculation on allowance for adjustment was extra interesting! I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the discussion around this once it's released!

Mike Michelizzi

I can appreciate how long this all took... well done for hanging in there. Have you been continuing with machining the replica in the meantime?

chris grainge

Wonderful work! Oh to be able to show it to the Antikythera Mechanism's designer! So much attention and care. Wish he or she would know...

Nikolai Kondrashov

Gday Chris n team, this is so absobloodylutely awesome congratulations. It feels great to be apart of this, even if it is in a very, very, very, very, did I say very small way. Keep up the great work n get the rest of the build up NOW, na just jesting... TFS G :)

Graeme Brumfitt

Wow, that’s awesome. Congratulations. I’m happy for the both of you!

Austin Michel

Awesome! Don't think I'll be able to fully comprehend the findings without it. Also, thanks for everything you do! Your videos were my first introduction to machining. Then I started watching other machinist Youtubers and eventually got a Sherline lathe and mill (all I have room for). I'm still very much a novice but I am loving every minute of it.

Eric Greenberg

Thank you mate :)

Clickspring

Yes certainly Eric, it will likely be the first one back for the series on YT :)

Clickspring

Cheers mate :)

Clickspring

Just wanted to add that the paper, explanations, and data are fully shown to let patrons, who are inclined, to question and verify the conclusions. The Antikythera mechanism community will question the accuracy of the measurements, efficacy of the methods, and definitely the results. The more you can dig, probe, and calculate, the more certain we can be with the findings!

Michael Dubno

Great detective work and an applied use of imagination. (Thinking outside the box)

Denis O'Kane

Do you think you might do a video at some point going over the paper? What you found, how you found it, what are the implications, etc?

Eric Greenberg

I have to admit, I understood almost none of that paper (not enough cardiac stuff lol), but it was a super interesting read, especially as it shows how much modern technology can help us understand the past. It was also pretty cool to have the Patreon shouted out in the acknowledgements

Aidan Jeffes

Yes, I noticed it when doing the initial CAD modelling for the project.

Clickspring

Cheers mate!

Clickspring

Did you discover this 365/354 anomaly when trying to layout the model? This paper on this could have far reaching effects on Egyptology

Greg Nixon

Amazing! Absolutely amazing!

Kevin Reardon

Thank you mate!

Clickspring

Cheers Kyle!

Clickspring

Thank you David :)

Clickspring

Thank you Jeremy :)

Clickspring

:)

Clickspring

Thank you mate :)

Clickspring

Thank you Franz!

Clickspring

Cheers Richard, me too :)

Clickspring

Ha ha! Will do mate :)

Clickspring

Thank you mate !

Clickspring

Cheers Dave :)

Clickspring

Thank you Francis!

Clickspring

Terrific to hear that David :)

Clickspring

Thanks Brian, very pleased you enjoyed it!

Clickspring

Cheers mate :)

Clickspring

Thank you Sean!

Clickspring

Wow, this paper might have more impact than what I would've expected! You should be proud of this work.

Balz Guenat

Very exciting Chris! Thank you for your persistence!

Kyle Robertson

I took an Egyptology class with Leo Depuydt on calendars and chronology as an undergrad, in which we discussed possible lunar calendars. So I was very excited when I read the abstract. Nice work.

David Sheffield

Awesome work! I'm very happy to have helped support this, even if indirectly. The videos are also fantastic, but I think this was well worth a lull in video output.

Jeremy

"C.B. particularly thanks Clickspring patrons ..." I guess, that's the closest I will come to a mention in a scientific paper :)

MrTridac

"In addition, C.B. particularly thanks Clickspring partons..." I wonder how many of us found that line. Seriously, congratulations on getting your paper accepted. Also, that line above means a lot to me, and propapbly to fellow patrons as well. Thank you so much for all the things you do.

Justus Dehegovit

Congratulations! I'm so happy that we can support you doing this amazing work (and don't even think about suspending the contribution in future research phases ;)).

Franz

Awesome news! Congratulations. Really looking forward to the rest of the series.

Richard Thompson

Thanks for the answer, guys. The manuscript very readable, in fact, it's remarkably easy to read and understand for people outside the field. And don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of properly written methods section that lets you replicate the experiments exactly. Too many papers provide just vague instructions and basic information that are not really useful in practice. But tables with the actual calculated dimensions of the Mechanism are, in its nature, a result rather than a method. And the values (and a lot of other information) have to be repeated in the results anyway. So I think if it was only in results, it could shorten the manuscript by several paragraphs without much work and any impact on the information value. Oh, and I wanted to appreciate the detailed explanation of statistics including a guide on how to interpret particular values. I really like that, anything more complicated than p value deserves it to make sure everyone understands what it means, even if they aren't well-versed in statistics.

Jan Valecka

Chris, I just wanted you to know: I made the mistake of watching all of your videos with my Dad. The good news is that he shared your Antikythera series with all of his professional colleagues (he's a land surveyor), who were reportedly very impressed, as most of them hadn't heard of this device. The bad news is that your videos completely spoiled my Dad on Youtube content - few creators measure up to your production and editing quality - so now I've been scrambling to find other craftsmen to show him. What I'm saying is: make more videos!

John P

Congrats! Read the whole thing, although skimmed the more statistic and mathematical details... 😖 Great work. What's the feeling of this probably being referenced by academics for centuries to come? 😉

Mirandur

Thanks Chris - now we now what you've been doing!

DaveC

Great work Chris (et al), thank you for the update on the paper lets hope it gets full recognition - convinced me!

Francis Milsom

Thank you Chris, it was a real thrill to read your paper, and to see the device being built!

David Few

Great work and a wonderful paper!

Brian Pollmann

Whahhhh!! So happy for you, I'm excited to read it!!

Brandon

Congrats Chris, et al. Have not read it fully yet, it will take some time to digest it all. But an initial look makes it clear why it has taken such a chunk of your time – there is some serious work in it! I look forward to the post-publication discussion, which is often the most interesting part of the process. Cheers Sean

Sean Kirby

Ta mate :)

Clickspring

Onya Chris.

Kahl'Zun

Thank you Marc :)

Clickspring

Cheers John!!

Clickspring

Bob, I can add some color here. I'm an amateur clockmaker and had seen some of Chris's YT videos. I noted a comment that he was having a hard time getting some data on the Mechanism and, having a doctorate and know how those circles run, offered to see if I could (using my "Dr.") get some access. We were successful and one thing led to another and now (many months later) we have a paper.—Drew

Drew

Jan, Yes, the paper you're reading is a strictly academically formatted paper (methods, results, discussion sections are typical). The HI paper will be split into two parts and we will tone down the methods. Chris and I wanted his Patrons to have access to the full scoop. — Drew

Drew

Thanks Bob, and yes, certainly - there is much to discuss about the process!

Clickspring

Thank you mate, and thank you also for the typo pickup - I will correct that in due course. Thanks also for your comments on the methods section - ordinarily it might be separated out into a separate document, with key elements incorporated into the main document, and in previous drafts that's pretty much what we had. However several iterations through the review process have resulted in it becoming integral to the main document, as well as a little 'heavy' as we addressed various questions. In all liklihood this will be made a little more readable when we reformat for the HJ space requirements - Cheers :)

Clickspring

Reino, thanks for the notes. You should be an academic reviewer! I agree, null-hypothesis tests can be abused and p-hacking is probably more common than we'd like. The TOST, while using two tests, is really meant to deal with the common error of "accepting a null" as meaning no difference. Both are inappropriate. I have not done a lot of Bayesian work but two things, I think, would make it difficult here. First, we don't have any probabilities to plug into Bayes' formula and, while we could estimate them, that could be problematic especially for 2) most reviewers are not familiar with how to assess Bayesian work and an editor would have a difficult time finding someone with that and other knowledge sets required to review this article (it was hard enough as it is—a pretty esoteric area). On the measurements, the resolution of the images is 0.05 mm (50 microns). The problem we had was less about pixelation and more about the state of the device/images. Some holes are clouded and, as noted in the article, there are many cracks crossing the hole line. We measured this thing every which way, but found that measuring the largest solid area gave us the most supportable and consistent results. When we compare this two to other papers, all three teams (using very different methods) end with center points very close together. All that said, we posted the data for examples just like yours. I encourage you to use the data and explore the Bayesian approach. I would love to hear about those results. —Drew

Drew

Thank you mate!

Clickspring

A damn fine addition to the body of scientific knowledge in the world. This ticks two of my favorite things, archeology and horology. A sound congratulations to you Chris and thanks very much for sharing it with us.

Marc Banks

Congratulations on the paper!!! Thank you for sharing it with all of us.

John Gentzel

Chris, congratulations on the paper being accepted! Would you consider making a video about the publishing process you're going through along with how you "met" your co-authors? I'd be interested in that, including the "tweaking" of the images to get better scans that you could use for the measurements, etc. I'm only on page 6 of your paper right not and will definitely finish reading it! So far, I've understood it, even though I'm not a Horologist and definitely not an Egyptologist. I look forward to your upcoming videos where, I'm sure, you will answer many of my (and others here) questions.

Bob Vines

Congratulations! It's a very interesting paper. The moving ring indexed by holes for skipping months and small adjustments is really clever, and the precision of 0,2 mm is crazy. Is the extra long methods section common in the field? If it was me, I would just move a lot of it (including fig. 2 and all the tables) to the results section. I'm not saying it's a problem, just find it a bit unusual and maybe redundant, plus I sometimes just skim the methods and here I'd miss a lot if I did it. Incidentally, what is the black line in fig. 2? I didn't get it, I got the points, of course, but not the line, and couldn't find it in the text. And just a tiny correction, it seems you merged fig.4 and fig. 5 to one figure at some point, but "see Figs. 4 and 5" remained at the bottom of page 15, although fig. 5 no longer exists. Anyway, great work! I'm looking forward to see it all in action in your videos.

Jan Valecka

Published by the BHI is a big deal, Chris.. I'm absolutely delighted for you and extremely proud of you that you reached publication, not in just any old publication, but The Journal of the British Horological Institute, Pull yourself a nice beer, my antipodean friend, for you have earned it.

Gordon Burns

Thank you Derek, me too!

Clickspring

Ha ha! Very pleased you're enjoying them mate, and yes I will be back on the main AM build series as soon as I wrap up a couple of TGT's. Regarding your queries and suggestions above, I will let my co-author Drew respond; statistical analysis is more in his wheelhouse, so he is better equipped to answer you - Cheers :)

Clickspring

Fantastic, can’t wait.

Tommy Jobson

By the way, have you approached the AHS? This might be just right for their journal. It doesn’t get any more antiquarian anyway!

Tommy Jobson

Thank you David :)

Clickspring

Yes to both :)

Clickspring

Cheers mate!

Clickspring

Thank you Evan :)

Clickspring

Awesome mate! I have to finish off a couple of TGT's on the gear cutters, and then I'm back into it :)

Clickspring

Thank you mate!

Clickspring

So very pleased you enjoyed it mate :)

Clickspring

Excellent paper, it was a fascinating read. Thanks for doing the research and sharing it with us and the academic community. I can't wait for the build videos to resume!

Derek Meisenhelder

I am a huge fan of course. Some things stuck out at mean when reading your article with a statisticians mind. Page 4: "evidence rejecting the null hypothesis of 365 days and supporting equivalency of a 354-day calendar." Did you conduct a Bayesian comparison instead? Null hypothesis testing has greatly lost favor methodologically. "two one-sided t-test (TOST) equivalency procedure" This seems a bit too simplistic. Using Bayesian inference to estimate the probabilistic difference between the two possible states (364 & 365) as well as 363, and 365 you can get a sweeping probability between the most likely pin count instead of NULL testing. For the same reasons, Fig2's sweeping based on significance sub-optimal. Page5: "could confound measurement" In what way? Perhaps at least the larger sections from S5 to S7 should be tested. One could argue that leaving those out are biases your results, not confounding it. You can perform the same procedure as above to actually dial in the confidence of the best fit target pin number. If they are shooting at something like 370, they are obviously bent to hell, and can be safely left out. HOWEVER, if they are something much larger then that fact can actually help your hypothesis. Also, your hole centering method of course works, but I think there might be some really good mass algorithms (used in photoshop no less) that could be used instead of your repeated pixelated pin point method. I think your results rest very heavily on the precision of those measurements, and it might be better for pixel weight smoothing algorithms to take a crack at it. For the next person to do I guess. Overall, I agree with your results. lol And I love your videos, and want you to come back to us!!

Reino

Congratulations very interesting read great work .

David Mitchem

Also, am I right in thinking that you'll be continuing the build at some point, and using a 354-pin construction for the calendar wheel and the extrapolated day pointer from your figure 4? :)

Yonatan Zunger

Wow. Chris, I'm impressed! This is a really interesting paper, and the argument seems compelling. This kind of "calendar converter" seems like such a natural function for the Mechanism, given the context.

Yonatan Zunger

Congratulations on getting the paper accepted, it's always a great feeling to see all that hard work pay off!

Evan Crawford

Thank you Stuart!

Clickspring

It has been my favourite part of the process :)

Clickspring

Cheers mate :)

Clickspring

This is just crazy! Only this afternoon did I finish binge-watching your build series and was talking to my dad earlier wondering what you had found and when we would find out, that coupled with having my interest spiked and having watched every documentary I can find on youtube on the subject. My copy of Gears from the Greeks arrived today, then this email! Telepathy?! This is fantastic stuff. I can't wait to read your article as published in the HJ. When will the build start again? All the best Tommy

Tommy Jobson

Fantastic work!

Benjamin Marn

Wow, just Wow! Congratulations on getting the paper accepted. I am not a horologist of any type, or a mathematician, or Egyptologist. almost all my knowledge of horology comes from watching ClickSpring. But that aside - the language and presentation in your paper were fully accessible to me. I believe I understood everything. That and the respectful nature in which you refer to previous and future scholarly efforts by others is masterful. But - what else should I have expected from you, a master craftsman, who shares all of this with us random internet people, and with such humility and grace.

Steve Waters

Tremendous! Congratulations!

Stuart

Awesome.. it is wonderful to try and live in the mind of an ancestor and wonder if they are thinking just like you are.

veritanuda

Thank you Kerry :)

Clickspring

Thanks Tim :)

Clickspring

Thank you mate, terrific to hear that :)

Clickspring

Thank you Michael!

Clickspring

Thank you Zachary :)

Clickspring

Yes indeed :)

Clickspring

Thank you Maurice :)

Clickspring

Thanks for suggesting Wesley :)

Clickspring

Very exciting progress!

Dallin Durham

Thank you mate!

Clickspring

Awesome work... the paper is quite compelling. How exciting!

Kerry Benton

Congratulations! Very interesting read. Can't wait to see where this leads (and to see more of your recreation! possibly the most accurate recreation ever?)

Tim Mullen

Congrats Chris! I'm more into machining than horology but your enthusiasm for the subject is totally contagious--I find myself exploring horology more and more (including reading/understanding this paper). Nicely done.

LeoMakes

Congratulations! You have added significant fuel to the fire!

"This finding displaces a century-long presumption of a 365-day solar calendar on the Antikythera Mechanism with a 354-day lunar calendar and may inform a fundamental question of the number and type of calendars used in Ancient Egypt." - absolutely incredible! I'm so excited to read the final paper, and congratulations on this awesome discovery.

Zachary Neely

Chris, was scanning the congrats, and I am looking forward to the whys, how, and what fore's that have led you down this path. And the updated build, exciting times ahead. Ralph

Ralph McCoy

Congratulations.

Maurice Lucas

Thank you Matt :)

Clickspring

Look into publishing with The Horological Times with AWCI (AMERICAN WATCHMAKERS AND CLOCKMAKERS INSTITUTE). They would love to have an article on such a thing. They also do pay :).

Wesley Simmons

This is awesome news Chris, I'm glad to know your paper was accepted and it's so bad ass that you discovered something new about this ancient tech!

David Wells

Ha ha! Cheers mate :)

Clickspring

It might be good to cover this in detail in the first video back in the series - but it pretty much jumped out on the first morning of CAD modelling the machine that something was not correct about the assumptions of the calendar.

Clickspring

This is utterly wonderful news. I wish I had the time to read it but I'm always up to my eyes in balancing work and family life amongst my many interests. Perhaps I will download it to my phone and peruse on holiday. I envy your many talents but having a paper published must be a dream come true. The closest I'll ever get to that is having my apparently unique heart published in the British Medical Journal. I've still not found time to read (let alone understand) that! Anyway ... congratulations. I hope this brings insight for many and thank you for taking the time to share it with us.

Matt

So, maybe a Nobel in your future. Sir Chris B. nice ring to it Ralph

Ralph McCoy

So cool! It's a long paper and I haven't had a chance to read it in depth, could you summarize how/when you started to notice that this was something worth looking into? Congrats again!

Tyler Moore

Thank you :)

Clickspring

All will be discussed in the rest of the series :)

Clickspring

This is fantastic! I'm excited to see this news!

Rusty Mundorf

Congratulations! Looking forward to the final article!

Jay Holmes

Yes, although it will take me a little while to spin the project back up :)

Clickspring

I have a couple of TGT's on gear cutters to wrap first, then I will be back onto the AM build

Clickspring

Yes good to have it out the door :)

Clickspring

How cool is that! Great find!

Dan Martin

Thank you!

Clickspring

Thank you mate :)

Clickspring

Congratulations. Going to read through this all in detail tomorrow or Sunday. In the meantime, I wondered if you had to reproduce any of your existing build, or build a prototype to test your theories.?

Thom Swift

Amazing!

K1LXU

Congrats! Does this mean we can now get more updates about the Antikythera Mechanism?

Christopher Boggs

Fantastic news, congratulations! When do you think you'll be able to resume the videos on the project?

Michael Kobb

Great news Chris, you must be so relieved! 🥳 Well done. 👍 I'll have a read.

Matt

Congrats! I've been really looking forward to seeing what y'all discovered, it's great to hear that the paper got accepted.

Shame Boy

Congratulations!

SkaveRat

That is awesome news.

Clyde Balcom