Armillary

Archivist's Excerpt from: Odds & Bodkins: A Comprehensive Guide to All Objects Historical, Mechanical, & Quirky, CVI 42.4

The Armillary Sphere is an astronomical device used for predicting the the cosmic positions of celestial objects. Various forms have existed from across the world since before the time of Christ, but it is the form from Ancient Greece that we generally remember as central, and it comes in two forms, the Ptolemaic, with its central sphere representing the earth, and the Copernican, with the central sphere representing the sun.

This device demonstrated the utter marvel that the human mind was capable of at the time as the Armillary represented the cutting edge of modern science, until they ended up becoming overused garden ornaments.