Το πλανητάριο του Αρχιμήδη
Documentario: IL PLANETARIO DI ARCHIMEDE RITROVATO (στα ιταλικά):
ΔΙΑΒΑΣΤΕ επίσης:
THE RECOVERED ARCHIMEDES PLANETARIUM
In this exhibition THE RECOVERED ARCHIMEDES PLANETARIUM we show a single
archaeological find, furthermore of small dimension: a fragment of a brassy
small wheel with curve profile teeth’s, found in the Olbia subsoil during an
archaeological excavation of the old City Market, most probably part of a much
more complex cog-wheel mechanism.
As you can see, it’s really a small object but it represents a detection
of great importance for the ancient history of science, and for this reason it
may well be defined a revolutionary discovery. The analysis of the wheel teeth
curved profile allowed to throw an unexpected burst of light on the results
reached by the ancient scientific thought, thus proving to be in some ways more
advanced than previously thought.
With the help of panels and videos, the exhibition takes the visitor on
the whole path that has allowed, thanks to a multidisciplinary study of
mechanics and mathematics, history and archaeology, to state that the cog-wheel
can be ascribed to Archimedes of Syracuse, the greatest scientist of antiquity,
the Planetarium builder.
The Planetarium of Archimedes had to be a complex mechanism able to
simulate and/or calculate the motion of several celestial bodies, as it can be
inferred from ancient writers and from the comparison with the sole object
somewhat similar yet known, the famous "Antikythera Mechanism", which
however was less scientifically advanced than the Planetarium.
Under the visitors eyes, every step of the investigation process,
linking scientific data and historical events from the conquest of Syracuse
(212 BC) to the battle of Pydna (168 BC), the ancient knowledge of the cosmos
to the activity of the lost Library Alexandria, from the writings of Cicero to
biographies of the owners of the Planetarium, whose last owner, Marcus Claudius
Marcellus, made a stop in Olbia (BC 152 or 148) in one of his last trip, when
the planetarium was broken and ended in the Olbia subsoil where the
Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage retrieved it in 2006.
The archaeological find presented not only is the unique object known so
far due to the great Archimedes, but it is one of the most significant of the
entire history of ancient science.
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