The Myth

Why we are called Antikytera.

Two instincts sit behind the name. One is ancient: reading the cosmos to know what to do tomorrow morning. The other is stubbornly modern: inventing a new way of thinking because the existing one doesn't solve the problem in front of you.

The Antikythera mechanism on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens — The Antikythera mechanism — National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

In 1901 sponge divers recovered a corroded bronze object from a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera. It turned out to be a geared analog computer built around 100 BCE — and it was not built for astronomers.

It was built so that sailors who were not astronomers could read the heavens. Expert knowledge compressed into a device a non-expert could operate.

Corroded bronze fragment of the Antikythera mechanism showing its ancient gear teeth — Fragment of the original bronze gearing, c. 100 BCE.

Detail of the Antikythera mechanism gear train recovered from the shipwreck — Detail of the gear train — dozens of hand-cut bronze wheels.

The first piece of automated technical assistance in human history.

What strikes us is not the astronomy. It is the move: someone decided that a question about the cosmos could be answered by a machine, and then invented the gearing to do it. No precedent, no field, no category — just a practical problem and a new way of thinking about it.

Prediction is only worth something when it changes what a person does next.
Then, a bronze dial · Now, a camera

We are simply continuing the work.

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Photographs of the Antikythera mechanism courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.