NxtUp...History
Ancient Computer
Lost in the excitement over the Antikythera Mechanism's Olympic calendar widget was news of its potential link to Archimedes, the greatest scientist of antiquity.
Consisting of intricately linked dials that foretold the future positions of the sun, moon and possibly stars, the 2100-year-old Mechanism was recovered in 1900 from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. Though its function took decades to determine, scientists assumed that it came from Rhodes, a center of ancient Greek astronomy.
But in addition to finding a tiny dial indicating Olympic locations, researchers from the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project also realized that another dial was inscribed with month names in Corinthian script, suggesting its construction in an unexpected part of the Greek world -- perhaps by the intellectual descendants of Archimedes.
I saw a special on the History Channel on this. Very intriguing.
wired.com
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