Divers Find 2,000-Year-Old ‘Computer’ That Calculated Position of Sun, Moon, Planets Like Clockwork

A combination image compiled and designed by The Epoch Times using images from Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images and Gts-tg/CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED.

A lump of corroded metal was pulled from the ocean floor in 1901, along with an extraordinary cache of monumental Greek art artifacts. Found near the Greek island of Antikythera, the crusty object was soon revealed to be nothing short of extraordinary.

Upon investigation, researchers determined it to be a piece of advanced ancient technology—they classified the object as an “analog computer” some 2,000 years old.

How Was It Discovered?

Diving for sponges was their goal, but the fishermen who explored the seafloor near Antikythera, an island between Crete and Laconia, over a century ago found more than they bargained for: they located the remains of an ancient Greek shipwreck. Amid its cargo, there were museum-caliber bronze and marble statues, vases, and other precious artifacts. The strange mechanism was spotted among them.

Museum researchers were smitten with all the art; less attention was paid to the rusty remnant. Yet, shortly thereafter, archeologist Valerios Stais examined it more closely in 1902 and identified a gear. The curious object was determined to be a hand-powered astronomical clock—the first known analog computer—that could calculate cosmic events far beyond what was possible to figure out manually.

The device was dubbed the Antikythera Mechanism after the Greek island where it was found.

It started as a single, solid lump but soon it separated into three chunks, and it subsequently broke into more pieces as it was handled further over the decades. More pieces were also found elsewhere.

Examinations determined that it had 37 separate meshing bronze gears, each with fine triangular teeth. These were hidden behind metal dials and housed within a bronze and wood frame, roughly the size of a shoebox. Seven fragments are mechanically significant, while 16 smaller parts were determined to bear inscriptions in ancient Greek. It was mainly due to advances in X-ray imaging during the last 50 years that these revelations came about. In 1974, gamma-ray examinations helped catalog 82 individual pieces.

What Did the Device Do?

Although the Antikythera Mechanism was plucked from the cargo of a ship, it is unlikely to have been used for navigation, as its delicate gears would not have fared well in the harsh conditions at sea. It could add, subtract, multiply, and divide—but it could also do much more, computing cosmic events.

Pieces of the so-called Antikythera Mechanism, circa 150-200 B.C. (Left: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images; Right: Tilemahos Efthimiadis/CC BY 2.0 DEED)

Cranking the device with a handle drove an intricate sequence of gears. The clockwork mechanism is thought to have calculated the positions of the sun, moon, constellations, and planets of the solar system. By inputting a given date, these data could be predicted with mathematical precision. It could also tell the lunar phases and when the next eclipse would be.

It was so advanced it even accounted for leap years, and kept track of the 4-year Olympiad—or the ancient Greek equivalent.

Rivaling the European astronomical clocks of later centuries, the Antikythera Mechanism would not meet its match in technological advancement until the clockwork creations of Richard of Wallingford came about in the 14th century. Some of the ancient device’s components are said to rival certain 18th century clocks in intricacy.

What Are Its Origins?

Research suggests that the astronomical device might have been made in Syracuse on the island of Sicily—mainly because calendrical markers on its dials point to the colonies of Corinth, of which Syracuse was one. In 2008, the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project proposed a link between the device and the philosopher Archimedes, who is from Syracuse.

Remnants of what is believed to be the world's earliest computer. Left: Marsyas/CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED; Right: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images

Alternatively, scientists have proposed that it came from Rhodes and was built by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius—the reason is that many vases in the ship’s cargo originate from that particular Greek island.

As for its age, the ship itself sank around 70-60 B.C. yet the device probably hails from earlier. Recent studies suggest it could have been built around 150 B.C. or perhaps as early as 200 B.C.

Why Does It Matter?

Although the Antikythera Mechanism might be the first computer ever found, it likely wasn’t unique. There were almost certainly other similar designs. The notion that there were like mechanisms raises a host of conundrums for researchers and historians today.

Left: Inscriptions are visible on the Antikythera Mechanism, on display at the Archaeological Museum in Athens. (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP via Getty Images); Right: An artist's reproduction of the Antikythera Mechanism. (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) (Gts-tg/CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED); Inset: A side side view of an artist's reproduction of the Antikythera Mechanism, Thessaloniki Technology Museum (Gts-tg/CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)

After 2,000 years beneath the sea, the ancient computer found near Antikythera carries far-reaching implications for today’s paradigm; if it really is that old and functioned as some scientists say it did, that could overturn much of what we think we know about the advancement of human civilization.

You can see the mechanism on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. There are also several artistic reconstructions of how it might have looked, in the University of Thessaloniki and Thessaloniki Technology Museum, in Central Macedonia.

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