In 1900 a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an Ancient Greek shipwreck dating from around 70 BC. Lying unnoticed for months amongst their hard-won haul was what appeared to be a formless lump of corroded rock, which turned out to be the most stunning scientific artefact we have from antiquity. For more than a century this 'Antikythera mechanism' puzzled academics, but now, more than 2000 years after the device was lost at sea, scientists have pieced together its intricate workings. In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant tells for the first time the story of the 100-year quest to understand this ancient computer. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters - ranging from Archimedes to Jacques Cousteau - and explores the deep roots of modern technology not only in Ancient Greece, the Islamic world and medieval Europe.

Because they list all the public holidays and pagan festivals of the age, calendars provide unique insights into the culture and everyday life of ancient Rome. "The Codex-Calendar of 354" miraculously survived the Fall of Rome. Although it was subsequently lost, the copies made in the Renaissance remain invaluable documents of Roman society and religion in the years between Constantine's conversion and the fall of the Western Empire. In this richly illustrated book, Michele Renee Salzman establishes that the traditions of Roman art and literature were still very much alive in the mid-fourth century. Going beyond this analysis of precedents and genre, Salzman also studies "The Calendar of 354" as a reflection of the world that produced and used it. Her work reveals the continuing importance of pagan festivals and cults in the Christian era and highlights the rise of a respectable aristocratic Christianity that combined pagan and Christian practices. Salzman stresses the key role of the Christian emperors and imperial institutions in supporting pagan rituals. Such policies of accomodation and assimilation resulted in a gradual and relatively peaceful transformation of Rome from a pagan to a Christian capital.

With the advent of the new millennium, the notion of the future, and of time in general, has taken on greater significance in postmodern thought. Although the equally pervasive and abstract concept of space has generated a vast body of disciplines, time, and the related idea of "becoming" (transforming, mutating and metamorphosing) have until now received little theoretical attention.

This volume explores the ontological, epistemic, and political implications of rethinking time as a dynamic and irreversible force. Drawing on ideas from the natural sciences, as well as from literature, philosophy, politics, and cultural analyses, its authors seek to stimulate further research in both the sciences and the humanities which highlights the temporal foundations of matter and culture.

The first section of the volume, "The Becoming of the World, " provides a broad introduction to the concepts of time. The second section, "Knowing and Doing Otherwise, " addresses the forces within cultural and intellectual practices which produce various becomings and new futures. It also analyzes how alternative models of subjectivity and corporeality may be generated through different conceptions of time. "Global Futures, " the third section, considers the possibilities for the social, political, and cultural transformation of individuals and nations.

The Mexica (Aztecs) used a solar calendar made up of eighteen months, with each month dedicated to a specific god in their pantheon and celebrated with a different set of rituals. Panquetzaliztli, the fifteenth month, dedicated to the national god Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird on the Left), was significant for its proximity to the winter solstice, and for the fact that it marked the beginning of the season of warfare. In The Fifteenth Month, John F. Schwaller offers a detailed look at how the celebrations of Panquetzaliztli changed over time and what these changes reveal about the history of the Aztecs. Drawing on a variety of sources, Schwaller deduces that prior to the rise of the Mexica in 1427, an earlier version of the month was dedicated to the god Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), a war and trickster god. The Mexica shifted the dedication to their god, developed a series of ceremonies - including long-distance running and human sacrifice - that would associate him with the sun, and changed the emphasis of the celebration from warfare alone to a combination of trade and warfare, since merchants played a significant role in Mexica statecraft. Further investigation shows how the resulting festival commemorated several important moments in Mexica history, how it came to include ceremonies associated with the winter solstice, and how it reflected a calendar reform implemented shortly before the arrival of the Spanish. Focused on one of the most important months in the Mexica year, Schwaller's work marks a new methodology in which traditional sources for Mexica culture, rather than being interrogated for their specific content, are read for their insights into the historical development of the people. Just as Christmas re-creates the historic act of the birth of Jesus for Christians, so, The Fifteenth Month suggests, Panquetzaliztli was a symbolic re-creation of events from Mexica myths and history.

How have figures of speech configured new concepts of time, space, and mind throughout history? Brian J. McVeigh answers this question in A Psychohistory of Metaphors: Envisioning Time, Space, and Self through the Centuries by exploring "meta-framing:" our ever-increasing capability to "step back" from the environment, search out its familiar features to explain the unfamiliar, and generate "as if" forms of knowledge and metaphors of location and vision. This book demonstrates how analogizing and abstracting have altered spatio-visual perceptions, expanding our introspective capabilities and allowing us to adapt to changing social circumstances.