The Antikythera mechanism. Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Marsyas assumed (based on copyright claims). / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5
1 Jul 2024 · Antikythera, Greece
Antikythera mechanism calendar ring had 354 holes
Glasgow researchers applied gravitational-wave statistics to the hole spacing. They found 354 holes, which suggests a lunar calendar rather than a solar one.
Why it matters: It refines the world’s oldest known analogue computer.
Xavier Landreau, Guillaume Piton and Sayed Hemeda used satellite imagery, 19th-century maps and watershed mapping. They argue that two 600–700 m structures across Wadi Dahshur, west of the Red Pyramid, long read as stone-transport ramps, are dams, one with a duckbill-shaped spillway, linked to a roughly 1 km diversion channel passing close to the pyramid.
Researchers analysed 138 dispersed blocks from a dismantled sector, using geometric silhouettes and computational matching, to propose how the early Inca walls fitted together.
An ambient-noise survey at 37 points inside and around Khufu’s pyramid found uniform resonance frequencies and design features that reduce seismic amplification.