One of History’s Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds
The small Greek island of Antikythera lies roughly halfway along the sea lanes used by ships that sailed the waters between Asia Minor and Italy. In antiquity as well as today, Antikythera’s jagged coastline was hazardous, and often dashed ships to destruction on its unforgiving rocks. That was the fate of an unfortunate ship we now call the Antikythera Wreck, that sank off the island around 87 BC. The wreck lay forgotten at the sea bottom until 1900, when fishermen diving for sponges spotted a bronze hand sticking out of the sediment. They told the Greek authorities, who then directed an underwater archaeological search around the shipwreck. Divers recovered over 200 amphorae, some of them intact, finely worked vases, other high end goods, and some of the era’s most prized works of art.
The recovered items included an intriguing bronze object, about 20 centimeters high. It began to disintegrate as soon as it was removed from the water. Scrupulously preserved in an Athenian museum, scientists figured out that it was an instrument for astronomical data. However, just how did the instrument, named the Antikythera Mechanism, work? Scientists could see its surface, but the object’s advanced corrosion prevented the examination of its interior and inner workings. It was not until the twenty first century that modern scanning tools finally enabled scientists to penetrate the corrosion and see the Antikythera Mechanism’s insides. 3D scans revealed interlocking gears, similar to a clock, as well as inscriptions engraved inside the machine, as a kind of instruction manual.
