A lump of corroded metal was pulled from the ocean floor in 1901, along with an extraordinary cache of monumental Greek art artifacts. Found near the Greek island of Antikythera, the crusty object was soon revealed to be nothing short of extraordinary.
How Was It Discovered?
Diving for sponges was their goal, but the fishermen who explored the seafloor near Antikythera, an island between Crete and Laconia, over a century ago found more than they bargained for: they located the remains of an ancient Greek shipwreck. Amid its cargo, there were museum-caliber bronze and marble statues, vases, and other precious artifacts. The strange mechanism was spotted among them.Museum researchers were smitten with all the art; less attention was paid to the rusty remnant. Yet, shortly thereafter, archeologist Valerios Stais examined it more closely in 1902 and identified a gear. The curious object was determined to be a hand-powered astronomical clock—the first known analog computer—that could calculate cosmic events far beyond what was possible to figure out manually.
The device was dubbed the Antikythera Mechanism after the Greek island where it was found.
It started as a single, solid lump but soon it separated into three chunks, and it subsequently broke into more pieces as it was handled further over the decades. More pieces were also found elsewhere.
What Did the Device Do?
Although the Antikythera Mechanism was plucked from the cargo of a ship, it is unlikely to have been used for navigation, as its delicate gears would not have fared well in the harsh conditions at sea. It could add, subtract, multiply, and divide—but it could also do much more, computing cosmic events.
Cranking the device with a handle drove an intricate sequence of gears. The clockwork mechanism is thought to have calculated the positions of the sun, moon, constellations, and planets of the solar system. By inputting a given date, these data could be predicted with mathematical precision. It could also tell the lunar phases and when the next eclipse would be.
It was so advanced it even accounted for leap years, and kept track of the 4-year Olympiad—or the ancient Greek equivalent.
What Are Its Origins?
Research suggests that the astronomical device might have been made in Syracuse on the island of Sicily—mainly because calendrical markers on its dials point to the colonies of Corinth, of which Syracuse was one. In 2008, the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project proposed a link between the device and the philosopher Archimedes, who is from Syracuse.
Alternatively, scientists have proposed that it came from Rhodes and was built by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius—the reason is that many vases in the ship’s cargo originate from that particular Greek island.
Why Does It Matter?
Although the Antikythera Mechanism might be the first computer ever found, it likely wasn’t unique. There were almost certainly other similar designs. The notion that there were like mechanisms raises a host of conundrums for researchers and historians today.
After 2,000 years beneath the sea, the ancient computer found near Antikythera carries far-reaching implications for today’s paradigm; if it really is that old and functioned as some scientists say it did, that could overturn much of what we think we know about the advancement of human civilization.
You can see the mechanism on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. There are also several artistic reconstructions of how it might have looked, in the University of Thessaloniki and Thessaloniki Technology Museum, in Central Macedonia.
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