The Ancient Computer

Discovered in a Greek shipwreck at the beginning of the 20th century, the Antikythera mechanism at first resembles a mass of corroded bronze. In reality, it is probably the most complex mechanical device built in antiquity.

In 1901, divers recovered several objects from an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the statues and amphorae was a strange metal block, covered in corrosion, whose function no one initially understood.

Decades later, researchers discovered inside an extremely sophisticated system of miniature gears. Dating from the 2nd century BCE, the mechanism probably served to calculate astronomical movements: it allowed prediction of lunar phases, certain planetary positions, and eclipses, with several dials reproducing the celestial cycles known to Greek astronomers.

What astonishes historians is not only the device's precision, but its technical level: some gears are so complex that such fabrication was not believed possible at that time. The history of technology readily presented antiquity as a world of simple, poorly mechanized tools; the Antikythera mechanism suggests on the contrary a Greek knowledge far more advanced than imagined.

It also acts as a troubling reminder of all that has disappeared. If an object this refined could exist more than two thousand years ago, other ancient technologies may have been lost without leaving the slightest trace.