Man is indeed nature’s most complex and unpredictable creation. Every new archaeological discovery poses even more puzzling questions regarding the human race, especially ancient civilisations.

It is through these interesting and intriguing finds that the mysteries of time and progress deepen, making it even more difficult for us to separate myth from truth.

What does one believe about ancient history and accepted facts? How and when do we rewrite the history of modern man?

The plot thickens. Let’s come to the most important technological tool or invention of today, the PC or personal computer. Can anyone believe that the world’s first personal computer was made before Biblical times, in the second century BC? Little did the sponge divers who found the strange device while on a routine exploration off the coast of a Mediterranean Island called Antikhythera, which is near Crete, knew they had found one of the most puzzling artefacts of ancient times.

The year was 1900 and the divers came across an ancient shipwreck. What they found on the sunken ship along with ancient marble statues was a small wooden box. Inside it was a unique object, which no one could understand. The date on the case indicated 80BC. The shipwreck was later estimated to have occurred during the First Century BC.

Scientists and researchers have spent decades studying this artefact and its mechanism. The report made by an international team led by experts from the Cardiff University, Wales, states that the device is a most complex mechanism made with high precision and fine tools. It enabled astronomers to correctly predict the movements of the Moon, Sun, Lunar and Solar eclipses including the calculations of the irregularities or differences in the Moon’s movement because the Moon has an elliptical orbit.

All this in the Second Century BC!

It also helped forecast the motions of the other planets in our Solar System. Now this is something that can only be calculated with the most advanced computers of today by simulating the movements of the Solar System.

Opening up the secrets of how this extraordinary thing must have worked was not easy. The team conducted three-dimensional x-rays and high resolution surface imaging to count the 30 small ‘teeth’ which were hand-cut gears. The imagery enabled the scientists to identify the mechanism’s 80 parts and new kind of Greek writing. Derek Price, Yale University’s science historian was of the opinion that this unique artefact was as ‘astronomical computer’. But recent studies conclude that it was a much more complex device. Its ability to do calculations of relevant data is even more advanced than previously thought.

Amongst the many functions were to show time, a calendar showing correct dates and days of the month including when the Pan-Hellenic games, (which were the four sports events in Greece, one of which were the Olympics), were to be held, the positions of the zodiac signs at any given time, apertures showing the Moon and the Sun and the phases of the Moon.

A Swiss company by the name of Hublot has managed to recreate the mechanism of the “Antikhythera device”. This is the first time that such an ancient artefact has been reproduced. It is housed in the Musee des arts et métiers in Paris. The device has been made in the form of a wristwatch.

Then we come to the other latest invention by modern man: airplanes. Could people in the very ancient past also have the capability to fly in aeroplanes? Here’s another perplexing find. A six-inch wooden object found in 1898 in a tomb in Saqqara, Egypt. The small object is thought to have been a replica or model airplane toy. It was made exactly like a modern flying machine or even some kind of glider. The mystery here? It has been dated back to 200BCE.

The object has a body or fuselage, seven-inch wings that are curved downward, a tail and a fixed rudder. But when it was found, which was in 1898, airplanes were not yet invented, the authorities thought it was an ancient bird carved for some purpose and put in the basement of the museum in Cairo.

Many years passed and then Dr Khalil Messiha, who is an expert in ancient models, took it out for study. Other experts too studied this strange artefact. They came to the conclusion that it was a model airplane and had every feature of ‘advanced aerodynamics’, meaning that it had the capability of not only flying but also even staying in the air. Moreover, the curved wings are very much the same technology applied in the modern Concorde, capable of supersonic air travel.

Did the ancient Egyptians make this small object as a model of their larger version of flying machines or was it a toy made for a young child to play with resembling the real larger flying craft or was it just in the experimental model stages?

Something similar has also been found in South America. A gold object that dates back to 500 or 800AD. It too looks like the model of a modern airplane and it even had a pilot’s seat right where it should actually be.

Quite intriguing and unsettling is an account of Maharishi Bharadwaja, who wrote in an ancient text from India, written in the 4th century BC. The account was dictated while he was in a trance of some kind where he is taking about certain codes regarding details of a manual that had instructions of piloting a fighter aircraft. The abilities of the aircraft were presumed to be making the “vimana” or the airplane from becoming invisible from how to bomb enemy locations. Wow! So what is the history of ‘modern man’?