Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient mechanical calculator (also described as the first “mechanical computer”) designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, in 1900. Subsequent investigation, particularly in 2006, dated it to about 150-100 BC, and hypothesised that it was on board a ship that sank en route from the Greek island of Rhodes to Rome, perhaps as part of an official loot. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until a thousand years later.