Latest Antikythera Stories

The Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient mechanical brass calculator discovered off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, was probably used by the ancient Greeks to set the dates of the first Olympic games, researchers said on Wednesday.The device is made up of bronze gearwheels and dials, and scientists know of nothing like it until at least 1,000 years later. It is an example of the technological prowess of the ancient Greeks. Researchers have long regarded the ancient device was used to...

ATHENS, Greece -- Imagine tossing a top-notch laptop into the sea, leaving scientists from a foreign culture to scratch their heads over its corroded remains centuries later. A Roman shipmaster inadvertently did something just like that 2,000 years ago off southern Greece, experts said Thursday.They claim to have identified a handful of puzzling metal scraps found in a ship wreck as the earliest known mechanical computing device, which pinpointed astronomical events.A team including British,...