Abstract

The Antikythera Mechanism, so named after the Greek island in whose waters it was salvaged in 1901 from a shipwreck datable to ca. 60 BCE, is a remarkable geared device that was constructed in the 2nd or 1st century BCE to calculate and display various astronomical, calendrical and athletic time periods. No device of comparable technological complexity is known until 1,000 years later. In 2005, a group of researchers known as the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project (AMRP) examined the 82 fragments of this badly corroded and brittle device with two modern technologies called Micro-Focus X-Ray Computed Tomography (CT) and Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM, now more widely known as Reflectance Transformation Imaging or RTI). These technologies helped to unlock more secrets of this remarkable device. Using the CT Data gathered in 2005, in 2021 Iversen and a team at Case Western Reserve University created the first HoloLens 3D image of the Mechanism. This talk will give a general overview of the discovery of the Mechanism, the history of the scholarship on it, and its many functions, followed by an opportunity to view it in 3D using the HoloLens technology.

14:00-15:00: Public Lecture by Paul Iversen

15:20-17:30: HoloLens demonstration by Paul Iversen, Anna Clare Faxon, and Tianxiang Gao 

Biography

Paul Iversen regularly teaches upper level Greek, Greek Civilization, Greek History, Archaeological and Epigraphical Field School (in Greece), a departmental seminar on Alexander the Great, and Latin Comedy at Case Western Reserve University. His research interests and publications are in the areas of Greek and Latin Epigraphy, ancient astronomy, and Hellenistic History, Culture and Society. He is currently working on two book projects. The first is a new edition and commentary to all the inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism, while the second is a new Inscriptiones Graecae volume covering all the Greek inscriptions of the Corinthia.