Sundial Calendar, the Byzantine “Antikythera Mechanism”

Byzantine portable sundial-calendar
Byzantine sundial-calendar reproduction in Thessaloniki Technology Museum, the original caption as per exhibit was: Portable sundial, Memphis, Roman Egypt, 4th century AD (modeled after original in Hermitage Museum) CC BY-SA 4.0

Referred to as the Byzantine “Antikythera Mechanism”, the portable sundial-calendar on display at the London Science Museum is fifteen centuries old and is proof that the Byzantines excelled in arithmetic and astrology.

Byzantine education was based on the study of the trivium and quadrivium, a program codified by the Romans. Its elements were inherited from late Ancient Greece.

The trivium was the study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The quadrivium was the study of arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry.

Educated Byzantines clearly distinguished between astronomy and astrology, the former being concerned with the theoretical study of celestial events, whereas the latter functioned as a practical art.

The Byzantine sundial-calendar

The Byzantine sundial-calendar in the London Science Museum consists of four surviving parts: the front sundial plate, suspension arm, Moon disc with gear, and arbor with ratchet and two well-formed gear wheels.

The handle measures 127 mm x 30 mm x 18 mm, while the gear wheel is 28 mm x 32 mm, and the plate is 3 mm x 135 mm.

Scientists agree that the rare artifact was created during the Byzantine Empire era between the years 400 and 600 AD by an unknown individual.

On the sundial plate, there are sixteen inscriptions in Greek, namely: Constantinople, Syene, Thebaid, Africa, Alexandria, Antioch, Rhodes, Athens, Sicily, Thessaloniki, Rome, Dalmatia, Doclea, Caesarea Sratonis, Palestine, and Ascalon.

The Byzantine owner of the device would have been able to use it as a sundial to tell the time in sixteen different locations across the Old World. The well-preserved artifact could be the first portable clock ever.

Furthermore, the owner would have been able to predict the positions of the Sun and Moon in the zodiac and the lunar phases.

Sundial Calendar and Antikythera Mechanism

The device, consisting of a sundial and geared mechanical calendar, is the second oldest known of its kind. The earliest known example is the Antikythera Mechanism.

antikythera mechanism fragment
The Antikythera Mechanism, currently housed at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Credit: ZDE/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

The Antikythera Mechanism was an Ancient Greek mechanical device used to calculate and display information pertinent to astronomical phenomena. Its construction is currently dated to 100 BC, give or take thirty years.

The elaborate device carried the first known set of scientific dials or scales, and its importance was acknowledged when radiographic images indicated that the remaining fragments contained thirty gear wheels.

No other geared mechanism of such complexity is known to have existed prior to the Antikythera Mechanism. Such mechanisms appeared in medieval cathedral clocks that were built a thousand years later.

Scientists dubbed it an ancient “computer,” and it is named after the island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea where it was discovered. It is now on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Telling time with a sundial

The clock, just like the Antikythera Mechanism, can “display” the time and day in sixteen different cities-regions of the then known world in Greek.

It is a masterpiece, based on deep knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and technological achievements, such as metalworking, automation, and gear construction.

The owner of the sundial is unknown, but it is likely it was an individual who was part of the priesthood and needed to know the time so as to properly schedule religious rituals.

The concept of an hour, comprised of sixty minutes and three thousand six hundred seconds, is a human invention. However, the Sun would have been instrumental in defining this.

As the Sun navigates across the sky, shadows cast by objects change in length and direction, and if an object is placed on the ground, the shadows can be used to chart the passage of day. By scratching lines into the earth, our ancestors could formulate an ‘hours’ system and begin to count the passing of daylight hours for the very first time.

Hence, the sundial is essentially a time-finder.

The oldest known sundial dates from the reign of Thutmose III, who ruled Egypt around 1500 BC.

It is a simple L-shaped piece of stone with hour lines along its upper surface. At dawn, it would have been aligned towards the rising Sun, and a bar mounted atop the short part of the L would have cast a shadow on the first hour line of the day.

As the Sun moved, the shadow also did along the hour lines until noon when the direction of the sundial was reversed and the same six hour lines were used to count out the afternoon hours.

Greek and Roman Portable Sundials

There are eight portable sundials of a single type, according to J.V. Field and M.T. Wright, who are science historians. Five are inscribed in Greek and three in Roman.

The Greek ones include the sundial part of a compound instrument that has been termed The Byzantine Sundial-Calendar. They all were created during the early centuries of the second millennium and may belong to the Roman era or early Byzantine Empire.

The dial is capable of continuous adjustment for latitude. These dials, like all Ancient Greek or Roman ones, were intended to indicate the time of day according to the system of ‘temporal,’ ‘seasonal,’ or unequal hours, whereby the period from sunrise to sunset each day is equally divided into twelve hours.

What is remarkable about this design in comparison to others from antiquity is that its design embodies an approximation.

The list of Greek sundials also contains a dial from Memphis, information about which has been very scarce thus far. Some authors even considered it lost.

However, this instrument is stored in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. There is now an opportunity to study it more closely.

 

Greek Parliament Debates Tempe Disaster as Cover-up Allegations Intensify

Tempe
Young students make a human chain depicting the 57 victims of the Tempe disaster during a recent protest. Credit: AMNA

The Greek Parliament will debate the findings of the Tempe railway disaster on Wednesday in what is expected to be a heated debate as allegations of cover-up by the government intensify.

The findings of a parliamentary committee investigating the case ended in each of the seven parliamentary parties drafting its own report.

Main opposition SYRIZA stressed in its report that the culprits must be found, no matter how high they are, PASOK pointed to an attempt by the government to cover up responsibility, the Communist Party called for political and criminal responsibilities to the transport ministers from 2010 until now, and the populist right Greek Solution demanded the impeachment of the ministers from 2012 onwards.

Government rejects accusations of cover-up at Tempe

The government spokesman has rejected allegations that there has been a cover-up of the incident, accusing opposition parties of “instrumentalizing the pain of the victims’ relatives.”

In a press briefing, Pavlos Marinakis also confirmed that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will not attend the debate on the findings on the rail disaster, which claimed the lives of 57 people, most of them young university students returning from a long weekend break.

Marinakis said that the government has “absolute respect for the pain, anger and indignation of the relatives of the victims,” adding that the justice system is continuing the investigation into the disaster, in the best possible way.

“We are waiting for the answers; we want light in a sober and objective way,” he added.

SYRIZA: Relatives resort to Europe

SYRIZA accused the prime minister of “blatantly ignoring the cry of anguish of the relatives of the Tempi victims as well as their complaints about the cover-up of the crime. It is therefore logical that he has chosen to avoid tomorrow’s debate in Parliament.”

Regrettably, the relatives of the victims of the railway accident in Tempe are forced to resort to Europe to find their rights, SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis said.

“Mitsotakis will avoid appearing in Parliament on Wednesday and choose to run away. From the very first moment, his only concern was to cover up the crime and the responsibilities of the members of his government,” Kasselakis added and called on the Prime Minister to reflect on his historical responsibility.

Parents of Tempe victims call for ministerial immunity to be lifted

The parents of victims of the 2023 Tempe railway disaster have filed a request in Parliament calling for the immunity from prosecution of two former transport ministers to be lifted.

Maria Karystianou and Pavlos Aslanidis, whose children were among the 57 victims of the deadly collision, called for former New Democracy minister and sitting MP Kostas Karamanlis and former SYRIZA minister Christos Spirtzis to be investigated over potential criminal liabilities.

Their application is based on the conclusion of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office investigation into the uncompleted contract for the signaling and telecontrol system on the railway and on the legal argument that EU law prevails over the Greek Constitution.

EPPO’s probe found indications of breach of duty and misappropriation of funds on the part of Spirtzis and Karamanlis, who served as the ministers of transport under different governments from 2016 and until the crash, and were ultimately responsible for ensuring that the contract was implemented.

A man injured in the Tempe train crash has also sued Karamanlis, adding to an already heavy dossier of charges.

Maria Karystianou blasts Greek government

On Monday, Maria Karystianou, who represents the families of the 57 victims of the train accident in Tempe, speaking at the European Parliament said that the Greek government “initiated a sequence of bad manipulations and methods, which insults the memory of our dead and the dignity of the victims who survived.”

Karystianou noted the government through the Parliament provides the competent minister at the time and current MP Kostas Karamanlis full immunity.

“It doesn’t even refer him to face justice,” she said. Karamanlis resigned after the accident at Tempe in February 2023 that claimed the lives of 53 young people. However, he was re-elected in the general elections of June 2023.

“This blatantly violates fundamental principles of the Rule of Law,” Karystianou said and added that there is a collapse of trust in relation to the proper functioning of the institutions in Greece.”

Related: Greek Railway Disaster Expert Speaks of Crucial Omissions in Tempe Probe

How the Greek War of Independence Inspired Philhellenes Around the World

Greek War of Independence
“The Reception of Lord Byron at Missolonghi” by Theodoros Vryzakis. Credit: Public Domain

The 1821 Greek War of Independence erupted into the world of the early nineteenth century as Europe was being shaken to its roots by riots in many nations which threatened its monarchies.

The Greek Revolution was a cause for concern for the elites, since it threatened Europe’s social and political balance.

However, it was greeted with enthusiasm by many ordinary people across Europe and the US, which is undoubtedly partly to do with the Greek origin of so much of the West’s classical heritage.

The uprising quickly become a cause célèbre in the Western world, giving rise to an impressive wave of what came to be known as “philhellenism,” or the love of Greece and its history.

Some wealthy Americans and western European aristocrats, such as the renowned poet Lord Byron and later the physician Samuel Howe, actually took up arms and joined the Greek revolutionaries in the Greek War of Independence.

“We are all Greeks” Philhellenes join the fight in the Greek War of Independence

Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the major English Romantic poets, perfectly captured the overall mood in his poem “Hellas.” “We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion [sic], our art have their roots in Greece. But for Greece … we might still have been savages and idolators.… The Modern Greek is the descendant of those glorious beings.”

The Ottoman massacres of Greeks at Chios in 1822 inspired Eugène Delacroix’s famous painting “Massacre of Chios;” other philhellenic works by Delacroix were inspired by a number of Lord Byron’s poems. Byron, the most celebrated philhellene of all, gave his name, his prestige, his wealth — and ultimately his life — to the cause.

Greek War of Independence
“The Massacre at Chios,” Eugene Delacroix, 1824. Credit: Public Domain

In the summer of 1821, large numbers of young men from all over Europe began to gather in the French port of Marseilles to book passage to Greece and join the Greek War of Independence.

The French philhellene Jean-François-Maxime Raybaud wrote when he heard of the Revolution, in March of 1821, “I learnt with a thrill that Greece was shaking off her chains.” By July of that year, he had boarded a ship bound for Greece.

Between the summer of 1821 and the end of 1822, when the French began to inspect ships leaving Marseilles for philhellenes and record their numbers, some 360 volunteers had made their way to Greece.

In Germany, Italy and France, many clergymen and university professors gave speeches acknowledging that all of Europe owed a huge debt to ancient Greece.

A young medical student in Mannheim wrote that hearing his professor lecture on the need for Greek freedom went through him like an electric shock, inspiring him to drop his studies and head to Greece. At the same time, a Danish student wrote: “How could a man inclined to fight for freedom and justice find a better place than next to the oppressed Greeks?”

From the United States came the doctor Samuel Gridley Howe and the soldier George Jarvis to fight alongside the Greek people in the Greek War of Independence.

Philhellenes in the US

The classicist Edward Everett, a professor of Greek at Harvard, was active in championing the Greek cause in the United States.

In November of 1821, he published an appeal from Adhamantios Korais, which read “To the Citizens of the United States, it is your land that Liberty has fixed her abode, so you will not assuredly imitate the culpable indifference or rather the long ingratitude of the Europeans.”

Korais went on to call for direct American intervention in the armed struggle in several American newspapers.

In 1821, the “Greek Committee” in Charleston, South Carolina sent the Greek people 50 barrels of salted meat, while the Greek Committee in Springfield, Massachusetts sent supplies of salted meat, sugar, fish and flour. In New York City, a charity ball hosted by that city’s Greek Committee raised the then-princely sum of $8,000.

In Nafplio, the first capital of modern Greece, a monument to honor the philhellenes who died fighting in the war listed 274 names, with one hundred from Germany, forty each from France and Italy, and the rest from Britain, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, Portugal and Denmark.

Greek War of Independence
Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips, oil on canvas, circa 1835. Source: Public Domain

Lord Byron fought for the cause of Greek freedom

But of course the biggest casualty of the war among all the philhellenes of the world was that of Lord Byron, who is celebrated in Greece as a national hero.

He raised money for the Greek War of Independence by selling his English estate, which raised some £11,250 pounds sterling, all of which he planned to spend on the Greek cause.

In today’s money, Byron would have been a millionaire many times over, and the news that a fabulously wealthy British aristocrat known for his generosity had arrived in Greece made Byron the object of much solicitation in a desperately poor country like Greece.

Lord Byron
Sculpture of Lord Byron in Athens. Credit: Public Domain

He joined forces with Greek rebel leaders fighting the Ottomans in the Greek War of Independence near Missolonghi.

In 1824 he planned to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, despite his lack of military experience.

However, before the expedition could sail, on February 15, 1824, the warrior poet fell ill and died in Missolonghi on April 19.

Close to the center of Athens, outside the National Garden, is a statue depicting Greece in the form of a woman crowning Lord Byron.

The statue is by the French sculptors Henri-Michel Chapu and Alexandre Falguière. Since 2008, the anniversary of Byron’s death, April 19th, has been honored throughout the nation of Greece as “Byron Day.”

Ancient Tunnel Complex From Bar Kokhba Revolt Discovered in Israel

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Tunnel Bar Kokhba Israel
Archaeologists uncovered a hidden tunnel complex dating back to the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Romans in Israel. Credit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities Authority

A recent dig at Huqoq near the Sea of Galilee in Israel involving students, locals, and soldiers, uncovered new things about Jewish history, such s when people prepared shelters for the revolt against the Romans led by Bar Kokhba in 132 to 136 CE.

During the dig, it was found that the people of Huqoq adapted their water cistern, originally made in the Second Temple period, into a hiding place. They did this as part of getting ready for the First Revolt in 66 CE and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132 CE. When danger loomed, they even made a tunnel from a mikveh, breaking a wall for escape routes, as reported by an Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) spokesperson.

These tunnels allowed sneaking around under houses in tight spaces. This underground system, the biggest found in Galilee, had about eight hiding spots.

The connecting tunnels were dug at right angles, making it hard for the heavily armed Roman soldiers to chase them. The excavation also turned up lots of broken clay and glass dishes, a fancy ring (though the gem itself wasn’t there), and other discoveries.

Synagogue uncovered near hiding complex

Huqoq has a rich Jewish history dating back around 2,000 years to the Early Roman period. The Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds talk about Rabbi Pinhas and Rabbi Hezekiah, wise men who lived in the area during the third and fourth centuries CE.

Near the hiding complex, there’s a hill where a synagogue from the Byzantine period is located. That synagogue also has some really special mosaics. The excavation of this synagogue started in 2011 and was led by Professor Jodi Magness and her team from North Carolina University.

The hiding complex system at Huqoq is an important site set to be developed in Galilee. It will show the public how the Jewish community defended itself during revolts, according to the IAA spokesperson.

“We turned the excavation in the hiding complex into a community excavation as part of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s vision of connecting the public to its heritage,” says Dr. Einat Ambar-Armon, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority Archeological-Educational Center in the Northern Region.

Ancient tunnel complex from Bar Kokhba revolt discovered in Israel

The discovery of the hiding complex adds to a substantial debate among experts. They’re arguing whether the Bar Kokhba revolt reached Galilee or stayed in Judea and Central Israel.

Uri Berger of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Professor Yinon Shivtiel of the Zefat Academic College believe the inner parts of the hiding complex were made at the start of the Second Revolt.

They believe some features were used even during the First Revolt. They’re not entirely sure if the complex was used for hiding and escaping during the Second Revolt, but they think it was set up for that purpose. There is hope future excavations will provide additional clues.

Intermittent Fasting Linked to Higher Risk of Cardiovascular Death, Study Claims

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intermittent fasting is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular death.
Researchers found in a new study that intermittent fasting is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular death. Credit: Quick Spice / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

New research from the American Heart Association’s recent event in Chicago suggests that how long we eat each day could impact our heart health. Scientists looked at data from more than 20,000 adults in the United States.

They found that those who ate within a shorter time frame of less than 8 hours a day, following a plan called time-restricted eating (intermittent fasting), had a higher risk of dying from heart disease compared to those who spread their meals over 12 to 16 hours a day.

What is time-restricted eating?

Time-restricted eating, a form of intermittent fasting, means you eat only during certain hours of the day. This could be anywhere from 4 to 12 hours out of a 24-hour period.

Many people who practice this kind of eating stick to what’s called a 16:8 schedule. That means they eat all their meals within an 8-hour window and then fast for the other 16 hours each day, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).

In previous studies, researchers discovered that time-restricted eating can have some positive effects on our heart and metabolic health. It can help keep blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels in check.

“Restricting daily eating time to a short period, such as 8 hours per day, has gained popularity in recent years as a way to lose weight and improve heart health,” said senior study author Victor Wenze Zhong. “However, the long-term health effects of time-restricted eating, including risk of death from any cause or cardiovascular disease, are unknown.”

Intermittent fasting linked to higher risk of cardiovascular death

The new study focused on exploring how sticking to an eight-hour time-restricted eating plan could affect our health over a long period. To do this, researchers looked at details about what people ate from the yearly 2003-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES).

They compared this information with data on people who passed away in the U.S. from 2003 to December 2019, gathered from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Death Index database.

The study discovered that people who ate all their meals in less than eight hours each day faced a much higher risk of dying from heart problems—91 percent higher. This risk was also found among those dealing with heart disease or cancer.

Even for those already with heart issues, sticking to an eating window of at least eight but less than ten hours daily meant a 66 percent increased risk of dying from heart-related problems.

Moreover, while time-restricted eating didn’t lower the overall risk of dying from anything, eating within a span of over sixteen hours each day was linked to a lower risk of dying from cancer for people already diagnosed with the disease.

These 7 Countries Are the Only Ones That Meet WHO Air Quality Standard

Only seven countries are meeting an inertnational air quality standard set by the World Health Organization, according to a new report.
Only seven countries meet the international air quality standard set by the World Health Organization, according to a new report. Credit: United Nations Photo. CC BY 2.0/flickr

According to a new report, only seven countries meet the international air quality standard, while dangerous levels of air pollution are on the rise in certain areas due to both an uptick in economic activity and the toxic impact of wildfire smoke.

Of 134 countries and regions surveyed in the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report by IQAir, just seven—Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Australia, Iceland, Mauritius, and New Zealand—meet the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline limit for miniscule airborne particles called PM2.5 let off by cars, trucks, and industrial processes.

Worst countries in terms of air quality

The highest emitter was Bangladesh, which was responsible for 79.9 micrograms per meter cubed—more than fifteen times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline. Bangladesh is closely followed by Pakistan (73.7 micrograms), India (54.4 micrograms), Tajikistan (49.0 micrograms), and Burkina Faso with 46.6 micrograms.

The report states that Africa remains the most underrepresented continent with a third of the population still lacking access to air quality data. Additionally, climate conditions and transboundary haze were major factors in Southeast Asia, where PM2.5 concentrations rose in nearly every country.

Furthermore, the findings show that the region of Central and South Asia was home to the top ten most polluted cities in the worldwith Begusarai, India being the most polluted metropolitan area of 2023. India was home to the four most polluted cities in the world.

The most polluted major US city, according to the report, was Columbus, Ohio, while Beloit, Wisconsin was identified as the most polluted city in the country overall. Las Vegas, Nevada was the cleanest major city in the US.

While the number of countries and regions with air quality monitoring has steadily increased over the past six years, there remain significant gaps in government-operated regulatory instrumentation in many parts of the world. Low-cost air quality monitors, sponsored and hosted by citizen scientists, researchers, community advocates, and local organizations, have proven to be valuable tools to reduce gaps in air monitoring networks across the world.

“A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a universal human right. In many parts of the world the lack of air quality data delays decisive action and perpetuates unnecessary human suffering. Air quality data saves lives. Where air quality is reported, action is taken, and air quality improves,” states Frank Hammes, Global CEO, IQAir.

Where does Greece stand in the air quality report?

Panoramic view of Athens
Athens, Greece. Credit: Matt Kieffe / CC-BY-SA-2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Taking into account population size, the 2023 average PM2.5 concentration for Greece (17.4 micrograms per meter cubed), puts the country in fiftieth place. This means that out of the 134 nations included, Greece emits the fiftieth highest level of these particulates.

Under the capital city categorization of the report Athens also ranked fiftieth among 114 listed, with 16.7 micrograms of PM2.5 per meter cubed.

Why Orthodox and Catholic Easter are on Different Dates

Orthodox easter date
Greek Orthodox and Western Easter will never coincide after 2700. Public Domain/Wikipedia

Orthodox and Catholic Easter are usually set on different dates. Greece is slowly but surely coming closer to the great feast of Greek Orthodox Easter, or Pascha—a religious occasion celebrated in Greece with more gusto than in many other Western Christian countries.

Unlike most European nations, which will celebrate Easter on March 31st, Greece will adhere to the date for Orthodox Easter, which falls more than a month later this year, on May 5th.

Orthodox Churches still use the Julian calendar for Easter, meaning that at certain times there can be a weeks-long lag behind the Gregorian.

Due to this difference in the measurement of days, the last time the two great Christian denominations shared a date for the celebration was in 2017.

The gap in time between the celebration of Easter for the two denominations will be getting wider and wider.

As a result of this widening gap, from 2700 onward, the celebration of Easter for the Greek Orthodox Church and the Western Christian churches will never coincide again.

Altogether, in the whole of the 21st century, the celebration of Easter will be held on the same day 31 times, but during every coming century, this will happen more and more rarely.

The last time Easter celebrations will coincide is estimated to be in 2698. From then on, Orthodox and western Christians will never celebrate the Resurrection of Christ together again.

Calculating the dates of Greek Orthodox and Catholic Easter

orthodox western easter vs Catholic Easter date
Some of the symbols of Greek Easter, or Pascha. Credit: ManosHacker/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

A complicating factor that caused debates throughout history was finding a single date for Easter and sticking to it. In the early days of their faith, Christians celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ at various times throughout the year.

It was the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in 325 AD who came up with a uniform way of setting the date.

They decreed that Easter was to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, but always after Passover.

To this day, the Orthodox have stuck with this method of calculating the date of the feast, leading to the celebration of Orthodox Easter usually falling later than in the Western world.

In some years, however, Eastern and Western Easter fall on the same date, and this will once again be the case in the year 2025.

In 1923, a group of Orthodox churches met in Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) to re-examine the calendar issue, eventually adopting a controversial position that important religious dates would follow the more astronomically-accurate Gregorian calendar, with the exception of Easter.

Watch the Greek Reporter’s documentary on the “Rocketwar,” a unique Greek Easter custom which takes place on Chios Island every Easter.

Hunt for 17th Century Shipwreck Carrying $5 Billion of Gold Off the UK Coast

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A 400-year-old Shipwreck believed to be carrying £4bn worth of gold just off the UK coast has a chance of being found.
A 400-year-old Shipwreck believed to be carrying £4bn worth of gold just off the UK coast has a chance of being found. Credit: DirectDish. CC BY 2.0/flickr

A 400-year-old Shipwreck believed to be carrying £4bn ($5bn) worth of gold just off the UK coast has a chance of being found now that renewed efforts are being launched by a UK company.

The Merchant Royal’s shipwreck, also known as the El Dorado of the Seas, sank in 1641 and is thought to be somewhere off the coast of Cornwall. The sunken vessel has been the object of many recovery expeditions over the years, with no success, but now a UK company called Multibeam Services believes it can locate it.

Run by former commercial fisherman and diver Nigel Hodge, with a team of 11, the company specializes in locating lost shipwrecks, and is setting out to try and find the vessel next month.

Hodge plans to spend the remainder of this year searching for the wreck, covering an area of 200 square miles of the English channel. It’s “not a gold rush” though, Hodge told Metro.co.uk, even though he thinks the shipwreck may be worth billions.

Because of the strict laws on who has ownership of discovered treasure, “the days of people finding a big pile of gold and becoming rich overnight are well and truly gone,” added Hodge, who also said that the attraction for him lies in finding answers, with any precious metals on board set to become heritage artifacts.

The latest technology may help solve the mystery of the missing wreck, with the company owning unmanned underwater vessels worth £3.5 million ($4.4 million), capable of submerging up to 6,000 meters – deeper than the deepest part of the search area – alongside new sonar tech.

Hodge said the mission will be a difficult one, being that the stretch of water where the ship sank is notoriously dangerous.

“There’s thousands of shipwrecks down there and the Merchant Royal is just one of them,” he told Metro.co.uk. “So we’ve got to literally pick through a lot of wrecks as we’re doing them and then identify them. It’s not straightforward. If it was straightforward, it would have been done.”

Headquartered in Redruth and comprising a handful of former fishermen, Hodge believes his company is well placed to ‘bring home the gold’ where others have failed due to its local knowledge and tech advancements.

The Story of the Shipwreck and the Gold

The ship plunged on its way to Dartmouth on September 23, 1641, after a stay in the Spanish port of Cadiz where it was repaired and took on more cargo on its way back from Mexico and the Caribbean.

The modern day Port of Cadiz.
The modern day Port of Cadiz. Credit: Rab. CC BY 2.0/flickr

It was manoeuvring payment for 30,000 soldiers in Flanders, alongside treasures from the ‘New World’ including 400 bars of Mexican silver and 500,000 pieces of eight. A report about the shipwreck from 1641 housed by the British Library says it was carrying “300,000 in ready boliogne and 100,000 pound in gold and as much value in jewels.”

Historians have not come to an agreement on how much treasure could be on board, with some debate around whether the 100,000 pounds of gold meant in currency or weight. At the lowest estimate however, the treasure on board would still be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The cargo, along with 18 crew members, plunged to the bottom of the ocean, but 40 sailors, including the ship’s captain John Limbrey, were rescued by her sister vessel in convoy, the Merchant Dover.

The financial loss at the time was so heavy that proceedings in the House of Commons were stopped to hear the news, and King Charles I said the event was “the greatest loss ever sustained in one ship.”

Despite its being lost for 400 years, the mission to find it was stoked in 2019 after a fishing boat, the Spirited Lady, hauled up an anchor thought to belong to the long-lost vessel.
Multibeam Services has reportedly already discovered lost wrecks, and even found a sunken pirate ship filled with treasure last year.

Hodge’s attempts to locate one of the world’s most elusive and mysterious shipwrecks will be followed by a documentary crew starting next month, which will be hosted by ex-special forces and commando Jason Fox.

“Some will say it’s a needle in a haystack,” Hodge told Metro.co.uk. “I wouldn’t say it’s quite that but it is a large area and we’ve got the elements to deal with. We need to wait for certain conditions to be able to use the equipment.”

The former fishermen’s crew will base themselves on the Isles of Scilly to prevent themselves having to go back and forth from the mainland.

Elon Musk Releases Grok: Should We Cheer or Should we Fear?

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Elon Musk
Elon Musk aims to shake the AI industry with his latest creation, Grok. Credit: Public Domain

In a groundbreaking move on Sunday night, Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI released its brand-new, cutting-edge chatbot, Grok, as an open-source project. This resulted in a lot of excitement but equally drew a lot of criticism.

The development, which was long-awaited, marks a significant milestone for the entire AI community. This is because Musk’s new project opens up brand new ways of collaboration between companies and people and aims to boost AI innovation. Its main characteristic, however, is that it claims to promote the democratization of this advanced conversational AI technology.

Grok’s open-source nature and its release bring much potential with them. Grok could quite literally revolutionize the way developers and researchers alike approach their AI chatbot interactions, creating a much more inclusive and dynamic ecosystem for its development unlike what we have witnessed thus far.

Background of Grok

Grok is the child of xAI, a startup company founded by Elon Musk in March 2023 to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence even further.

Developed as a direct competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Grok distinguishes itself through its unique, one-of-a-kind architecture. Additionally, Grok has real-time access to Twitter (now called X) data and a distinctive personality modeled after “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a comedy science fiction work by Douglas Adams.

It has to be noted that with its impressive 314 billion parameter Mixture-of-Experts model, Grok proves how Musk’s xAI will attempt to technologically advance the field and bring more opportunities for innovation in the coming months and years. The Mixture-of-Experts model is a collaborative neural network architecture that utilizes multiple specialized sub-networks, called experts. These “experts” are asked to handle different parts of the inputs, and a specialized mechanism determines which expert(s) will be used and get activated after certain input.

Grok’s open-source release

What makes this recent release equally crucial and groundbreaking is that its open-source software has a lot to offer and is quite promising.

By releasing Grok, xAI made a bold statement. Musk is committed to remaining open, using transparency and community-driven development as a driving force.

Based on xAI’s decision to open source the whole project, developers and researchers can now access, modify, and build upon Grok’s codebase freely and at their own will. Although this might sound simple, it is fundamentally groundbreaking, as it opens up endless possibilities for enhancements and customization. However, it may also lead to endless windows by which things could potentially go wrong.

Characteristics of Grok

Grok boasts an impressive array of features that set it apart from other AI chatbots. Its 314 billion parameter Mixture-of-Experts architecture allows both for efficient processing and routing of information in a seamless way.

Additionally, Grok’s direct access to real-time Twitter data through the X platform allows it the opportunity to engage in timely and relevant conversations in a way that would remind us of Twitter discussions and threads.

On top of all this and perhaps most notably, the unique personality of Grok, inspired by “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” comedy enriches it with a witty and sometimes rebellious personality, making interactions with it more engaging and certainly more entertaining.

Implications of Grok’s release

As it is obvious, even though we’re still in the very early days, the decision to open-source  Grok will have severe implications for the AI industry and our societies overall. By democratizing access to AI technology, Grok will give developers and researchers from different backgrounds the opportunity to contribute to its development and shape its future towards an end goal that they deem appropriate.

This collaborative approach will most certainly accelerate innovation, but it will also establish a more inclusive and transparent AI ecosystem. xAI believes that it can offer access to data that other AI companies restrict.

Nonetheless, as is understandable, this release also raises important questions on crucial topics such as data privacy, model transparency, and important ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI chatbots by the public.

This exact open-source nature of Grok is what makes many people in the wider AI community adopt a more critical stance.

Many challenges and concerns have been raised by experts already. One major fear is that the technology unleashed by Musk could be misused by bad actors of various backgrounds who are ready to generate and spread mass disinformation at an unprecedented scale that we haven’t even seen thus far.

Without guaranteed and proper safeguards and regulation by authorities, the powerful language model of Grok could be deeply exploited to create convincing fake news, as well as wild conspiracy theories and misleading propaganda that could serve maleficent actors in the international arena.

Additionally, there are worries about the lack of transparency and accountability in the development stage of such AI systems prior to their open source release. There is also a possibility of biases and inaccuracies in output because of lack of transparency.

Grok’s performance and limitations

While Grok does showcase impressive capabilities, it is imperative for us to evaluate its performance objectively. Perplexity AI, a popular platform that includes multiple AI models, has already confirmed it will include Grok on its website.

Benchmarks show Grok is very competitive with other AI models, particularly in handling more complex and nuanced conversations, as well as generating creative content.

However, like every other AI system out there, Grok has its own limitations. Its overreliance on Twitter data, for example, may introduce biases based on its users’ perspectives along with its accuracy and factual consistency.

Accessing and using Grok

For developers and AI enthusiasts who are eager to explore the potential of Grok, accessing its open-source model is pretty easy and straightforward.

The codebase and model weights are already available on GitHub, along with very detailed explanations and guidelines for its usage and features. As the community begins to “play around” and experiment with Grok, we can expect to see a number of applications and innovations in the near future. These will most probably range from enhanced conversational interfaces accessible to all to creative content generation and beyond.

What’s next for AI development?

The release of Grok as an open source is indeed a fundamentally crucial moment in the history of AI development. By making its technology freely and openly available, xAI made a bold statement. Musk initiated an era of more collaborative innovation, by democratizing, as is believed, access to advanced conversational AI tools to the public.

As developers, researchers, enthusiasts, and the general public overall begin to engage with Grok, we can certainly anticipate foundational and groundbreaking implications and advancements that will shape the future of human-AI interaction in ways we can only imagine.

Related: Elon Musk Makes Grok AI Open Source Amid Ongoing OpenAI Lawsuit

The Only Ancient Temple in Greece That is Almost Intact

The ancient temple in Greece that is almost intact
The Temple of Hephaestus next to the Ancient Agora is the only ancient temple in Greece that remained almost entirely intact. Credit: Storeye/ Wikipedia Public Domain

There is an ancient temple in Greece that is almost entirely intact, standing at the top of the hill of Agoraios Colonos, which borders the Ancient Agora of Athens.

This is the Temple of Hephaestus, more widely known as “Thiseion.” It is one of the best preserved ancient temples, a fact partly due to its conversion into a Christian church in later centuries.

According to the traveler and historian Pausanias, Hephaestus, god of fire, patron of metalworkers, and Athena Ergani, patron of potters and housework, were worshiped together in the temple next to the Ancient Agora.

Its identification as a temple of Hephaestus was confirmed by the excavation research in which metallurgy workshops were discovered in the wider area of the hill. This negates earlier assumptions that Theseus, Herakles, or Ares were the deities worshiped in the temple.

Architectural style

The construction of the temple had likely taken place between the years 460 and 420 BC by an unknown architect to whom other temples in Attica with a similar construction style are attributed.

The temple had a pronaos and an opisthodomos with two columns in front. Externally, it was surrounded by a peristasis, a Doric colonnade, with six columns on the narrow sides and thirteen on the long ones.

The entire temple from the floor to the roof was made of Pentelic marble, while the  architectural sculptures that adorned it were of Parian marble. Inside the nave, there was a two-toned, Π-shaped colonnade. At the bottom of it, there was a pedestal on which the bronze cult statues of Hephaestus and Athena stood. These were works of the sculptor Alkamenes, according to Pausanias. They must have been crafted between the years 421 to 415 BC.

Sculptural decoration of the ancient temple

The temple had rich sculptural decoration. Of the architectural sculptures, the metopes, which adorned the eastern side of the peristasis from the outside are of particular interest. The peristasis represent the labors of Hercules.

In continuation of these, on the northern and southern sides, are the four labors of Theseus. These are scenes from which the popular name “Thiseion” for the temple was adopted. The frieze does not run along the four sides of the nave but only the front and back.

The pronaos sculptures depict the victorious struggle of Theseus against the claimants to the throne, the fifty sons of Pallas in which six gods of Olympus are also present.

In the back, across the width of the nave, the Battle of the Centaurs is represented. Remarkable sculptural works also adorned the pediments of the temple. In the west, the Battle of the Centaurs was depicted, and in the east was the welcome of Heracles to Olympus or the birth of Athena.

Some of these sculptures are recognized in statues found in the area of the temple, such as the fragmentarily preserved complex of two female figures. One of them carries the other on her shoulder as if trying to save her. The other is the torso of a clothed female figure with a strong element of movement. Both are exhibited at the Museum of the Ancient Agora.

History of the temple

During Hellenistic times (323-31 BC), shrubs or small trees were planted around the temple in parallel rows in pots. This came to light during excavations.

In the 7th century AD, the temple was converted into the church of Agios Georgios Akamas and functioned thus until the liberation of Greece from the Turks. According to archaeologist Kleio Tsoga, during the eighteenth century, many prominent Protestants who died in Athens were buried in the building.

In 1834, the welcoming ceremony of King Otto was held at the ancient temple. Since then, the temple functioned as an archaeological museum until the start of excavations of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in the Ancient Agora in 1930.

Temple of Hephaestus, Ancient Agora of Athens, Greece
The temple of Hephaestus, as seen from the Ancient Agora, Athens, Greece. Credit: public domain from Wikimedia Commons