Tony Freeth and Alexander Jones's Additions
In their 2012 article for the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) entitled The Cosmos in the Antikythera Mechanism they suggest that it is quite likely that the mechanism included gearing and indicators for the planets as well as possibly indicating solar anomalies.
They base their proposal on inscriptions detailing the motion of the five known planets as well as on the noticeable holes and brackets on the main driving gear.
They suggest that the mean sun wheel (b1) may have been utilised as a carrier for various gear trains and other hardware and they describe and simulate how this could have been possible. They also describe in detail the evidence they have found for additional fixings on the gear. These include bearings for shafts on some of the spokes, a recess and a raised flat area possibly used to attach fixings with solder or rivets and pillars around the edge of the wheel which were potentially used to hold a sub plate and fixing bridges. They also find evidence for a 1 mm hole drilled lengthwise into the spoke at the bottom left; this would have been a complex technical achievement at the time and they are unable to explain its purpose, but tentatively suggest something to do with lubrication.
Their model simulates the solar anomaly, inferior planets and superior planets and indicates their positions on the front face along with the date and lunar pointers.
Investigations reveal that their simulated mechanism is not particularly accurate, the Mars pointer being up to 38° out at times. This is due to the inaccuracies of the Greek theories of the planets and the lack of detailed knowledge by the same.
In short, the Antikythera Mechanism was a machine designed to predict celestial phenomena according to the sophisticated astronomical theories current in its day, the sole witness to a lost history of brilliant engineering, a conception of pure genius, one of the great wonders of the ancient world—but it didn’t really work very well! —The Cosmos in the Antikythera Mechanism, 2012Read more about this topic: Antikythera Mechanism, Investigations and Reconstructions
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