In 1901, a group of divers discovered a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea. On board were many statues and other treasures that the Romans plundered from the Greeks.

Researchers assume that the ship sank between 87-80 BC. But it is possible that the so-called Antikythera mechanism is even older.

It was taken as a pile of bronze nuggets. For years, scientists have studied it, trying to understand what it once looked like.

One a group of researchers at University College London using X-ray technology and 3D scanning in 2005. Then they gained amazing insights into one of the most mysterious ancient objects.

Now it’s a new one Study if found published.

A model of the cosmos

The Antikythera Mechanism turned out to be a complex model of the cosmos, which could calculate the phases of the moon and track days, weeks and months.

– It uses gears and gears that we do not associate with antiquity at all. The level of subtle mechanics hidden in the invention did not reappear until the late Middle Ages.

Said museum inspector Jacob Thorek Jensen at the Danish Technical Museum Danish Radio that he was truly amazed that the Greeks could make such sophisticated machines.

At that time, the earth was believed to be the center of the universe. Therefore, some of the calculations he made were not completely correct. However, it requires advanced mathematics to create it.

If you turn the handle on the machine, you start a simulation of a planet’s orbit, or moon phase.

Currently, this is actually the case someone tried to rebuild the machine with the same tools, techniques and technology used to create them over 2,000 years ago.

Far ahead of its time

Foreign media called the machine «the oldest computer in the world» and compared the find to finding airplanes in Viking graves.

Thorek Jensen believes the comparison has something to do with it.

– It was way ahead of its time. One is almost tempted to call it a kind of analog computer.

So far the Antikythera mechanism is truly unique. Researchers don’t know whether this was Petter Smart’s experimental discovery at the time, or whether it played a more important role in understanding the universe.

Forgotten advanced technology

This is not the first time that advanced technology was discovered in ancient times and then revived hundreds of years later.

The ancient Greeks also invented primitive steam engines, among other mathematicians Stork standing behind. It wasn’t until 1,700 years later that steam engines started the industrial revolution.

We can learn a lot by looking into the past to see how things were done before, Jensen said.

– There are many examples of technological breakthroughs that emerged at the wrong time, and today’s world was not ready to deal with them. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be inspired by it now.