16 May 2026

In 1901, sponge divers off the Greek island of Antikythera hauled a corroded bronze lump from a 2,000-year-old shipwreck. It proved to be a mechanical computer with at least 30 interlocking gears, capable of predicting the positions of the sun and moon, the timing of solar eclipses, and the schedule of the ancient Olympic Games. Nothing of comparable mechanical complexity appears anywhere in the historical record for another 1,400 years.

The Antikythera Mechanism, c. 100 BCE