Indiana Jones: Dial of Destiny is a movie that focuses on the search for the Antikythera, an ancient machine. But what about its connection to Archimedes the famous mathematician?
*WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny* — Over the years, Indiana Jones has come into contact with a wide array of supernatural objects, from the Ark of the Covenant to the Holy Grail itself. These two objects have biblical origins, though the Antikythera’s is a more recent object.
How the Antikythera appears in Indiana Jones Dial of Destiny
The Antikythera makes its first appearance in the Dial of Destiny in the opening prologue that takes place in Germany, 1944, as a de-aged Harrison Ford and Toby Jones’s Basil Shaw steal the device from Jurgen Voller.
When we catch up with Indy in 1969, he has been keeping the device hidden – that is until Basil’s daughter and Jones’s goddaughter, Helena, comes looking for it.
We learn that the Antikythera has been broken into two parts and while Indy has one, the other remains hidden in Archimedes’ tomb, the Greek mathematician who the film claims invented the device.
When complete, the Antikythera gives the wielder a power, unlike anything we’ve seen in the Indiana Jones franchise before. This mechanism can predict the locations of fissures that occur naturally in time. When traversed by a human, it allows them to travel backwards through time.
Voller and his cronies are looking for the device themselves and hope to use it to correct Hitler’s mistakes and ensure that Germany never loses the Second World War.
Antikythera – Is it real or a myth?
Antikythera is indeed a real item, however there are differences between it and its movie counterpart. Most notably, the fact that the real device doesn’t allow a person to time travel.
The Antikythera is almost perfect in the movie, but the device in real life has been worn out and corroded over 2,000 years in the ocean.
According to The Dial Of Destiny, in 1900 sponge divers found the device after finding a wreck off the coasts of Antikythera.
The device is composed of 30+ gears. It’s thought to be the oldest example of an analog computing system.
Scientists believe that the device may have been used for eclipse prediction and to keep track of important events like ancient Olympic games.
Dial of Destiny says that Archimedes the Greek mathematician created the Antikythera, but it is believed the device was built in the second or first centuries BCE. This would be more than one hundred years after Archimedes’ death around 212 BCE.
However, owing to the complexity of the Antikythera, it’s believed that it was the evolution of several precursor devices, which may well have been the work of Archimedes.
Antikythera measures around the same size as a mantelpiece and historians have been baffled by its existence, as they thought that no such device had existed before the first mechanical clocks of the 13th Century.
Unlike the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail from past Indiana Jones films, the real Antikythera can be viewed by the public as it’s on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Archimedes: A brief history
Archimedes is a Greek mathematician and inventor. He lived between 297 BC until his death in 212 BC, 75 years after his birth.
Regarded as being one of history’s greatest minds, Archimedes devised a number of theories and devices that remain prominent today.
The most notable of which was his research into finding the volume and mass of an object through water displacement, famously taking to the streets naked and shouting “eureka,” as he was so excited by his discovery.
Archimedes, who was born in Syracuse and died there in Sicily, created many devices that helped in Syracuse’s defense and are listed in The Dial of Destiny.
A Roman soldier killed the inventor during the siege at Syracuse, 212 BCE.
Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny was released on DVD in the United States. Out now In theaters