Ancient minds

Have you ever wondered how people from ancient civilizations figured out the wondrous things in nature and time? The Egyptians, Mayans and Greeks were exceptionally advanced.

The secrets of an ancient Greek ‘computer’ were revealed when the 2,100-year-old Antikythera Mechanism was pulled from a shipwreck, around 60 B.C., off the Greek island of Antikythera, near Crete. According to history.com, the Antikythera Mechanism is regarded as the world’s first analog computer, and is the most technologically advanced instrument known from antiquity. With its complex system of interlocking bronze precision gears, the device charted the movements of the sun, moon and planets. The Greek, hand-powered device also predicted eclipses, tracked the moon’s phases and displayed the dates of the ancient Olympics.

I also marvel at the ancient, sophisticated civilizations of North, South and Central America. The ancient Mayans studied the skies for thousands of years before modern astronomical observatories. More than 2,000 years ago, they created a complex calendar system to organize the events of their world and developed sophisticated mathematics, inventing the zero. They used this knowledge and observations to time their ceremonies and agricultural cycles. They built pyramids to track the stars and predict seasons.