The real story
In 1900 Greek sponge divers sheltering from a storm off the island of Antikythera found a Roman-era shipwreck full of bronze and marble statues. The mechanism came up in 1901 as an unremarkable lump, and only in May 1902 did archaeologist Valerios Stais notice a gear wheel inside. It survives in 82 fragments at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
In 2005 researchers scanned the fragments with high-resolution X-ray CT and found thousands of tiny engraved letters, in effect a user's manual. Its 30-plus hand-cut bronze gears tracked the Sun and Moon, the Moon's phases, eclipses, and even a four-year cycle of Greek games that included the Olympics. Gearwork this complex doesn't turn up again until the astronomical clocks of medieval Europe.
