Researcher Cites Ancient Minoan-era Computer:
This Minoan object preceded the heralded Antikythera Mechanism. If we take the definition of a computer as being a device that can compute, even at the most basic level, then this computer meets the bottom line of the definition.
A stone-made matrix has carved symbols on the surface of this computer related with the Sun and the Moon, serving 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. In this sense, it predates the astrolabe, an instrument of some antiquity (i.e. since Minoan times).
Researcher Cites Ancient Minoan-era Computer:
Researcher Minas Tsikritsis who 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.
Source: Athens News Agency [April 06, 2011]
For the definition of the astrolabe, see
Persian models dating as far back as the eleventh century have been found, and Chaucer wrote a Treatise on it in the late 1300s. But different models of astrolabes date as far back as somewhere around 400 BCE, when Theodora of Alexandra wrote a detailed treatise on the astrolabe. Historically, many different versions of the astrolabe have arisen since then. For a full account of astrolabes, consult Wikipedia: Astrolabe. But the whole point is that the Minoan computer predates even the earliest of these (vide supra), by at least 1,000 years!
By the Elizabethan era it consisted of a large brass ring fitted with an alidade or sighting rule:
Notice the astonishing resemblance between the Minoan computer and the astrolabe from 1608 above.
***
For the amazing Antikythera Mechanism, see the next post.
