1902 Discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism
Amongst the remains of a 2,000-year-old shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, archaeologists identified bits and pieces of an ancient device. Over the past century, investigators have probed its secrets and identified it as the world’s earliest analogue computer. Reconstructed, it would have looked like this:
A complicated series of gears rotated by hand would have performed a series of astronomical tasks.
- Little stone or glass orbs would have moved across the machine’s face to show the motion of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in the night sky
- The position of the sun and moon, relative to the 12 constellations of the zodiac
- Another dial forecasting solar and lunar eclipses
- A solar calendar, charting the 365 days of the year
- A lunar calendar, counting a 19-year lunar cycle
- A tiny pearl-size ball that rotated to show you the phase of the moon
- A dial that counted down the days to regularly scheduled sporting events such as the Olympic Games