Antikythera Shipwreck Hides Ancient Computer

In 1900, sponge divers off the Greek island of Antikythera discovered an ancient shipwreck and recovered statues, pottery, and an odd-looking lump of corroded bronze. When museum staff later examined and X-rayed this object, they realized it contained interlocking gears and precision markings unlike anything else from antiquity. Researchers dated the device to the 1st century BCE and identified it as the Antikythera mechanism, a complex analog computer for tracking astronomical cycles. This shipwreck find revealed the world's oldest known analog computer, created thousands of years before similar geared technologies appeared again.

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