Astronomy

This is one of my sundial replicas: an exact reproduction of the Oxford sundial.

Have a look at the artistic engravings at the rear side, made by an artist in the UK. They link a Roman city or province to a specific latitude (from 30 to 60 degrees).

The Antikythera mechanism is an anomaly in time.

Without this unique archeological find in a wreck at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, we would not know scientists from the 1st century BC already knew so much about the astronomical cycles, and certainly not they were able to create an analog computer with such a complexity.

Apart from vague descriptions by Cicero and the title of a lost manuscript from Archimedes, only heavily corroded bronze pieces of the Antikythera mechanism have been found.

The book 'A Portable Cosmos' by Alexander Jones reads like a technical thriller and describes how scientists made a hypothetical reconstruction based on the limited sources (= reverse engineering).

In the astrolabe, technology and aesthetics come together.

Feel free to have a look at our research on the astrolabe.

Diagrams with graphical calculations are used as didactical support.

Vitruvius describes in his 'De architectura' the construction of an analemna, which allows to design a sundial.

To construct an astrolabe, the ancients might have drawn a stereographic projection like on this leather plan.