Discovery of Antikythera mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek device made of bronze gears, recovered from a Roman-era shipwreck off the small island of Antikythera. Sponge divers found the wreck in 1900, and an archaeologist noticed a gear embedded in a corroded lump of material in the spring of 1901. The device probably dates to the second or first century BCE. Studies, including X-ray tomography in the early 2000s, showed that it was a hand-cranked analogue computer that modelled the movements of the Sun and Moon, predicted eclipses and tracked the cycles of the ancient Greek calendar and athletic games. Nothing comparable in complexity is known for over a thousand years afterward. It is kept in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

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