The Antikythera mechanism

Photo by Michael Marsyas,distributed under a CC license.

The Antikythera mechanism can be best described as an analogue computer which was primarily used to predict astronomical positions,eclipses and astrological purposes.

The device was found in 1900-1901 in a wooden box after it was retrieved from the Antikythera shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera.

Several experts tried to date the device itself, so far it seems like it could range from 100 BC to 250 BC.

What makes this device unique is that before its discovery nobody really would have dared suggesting that such a complex device could have existed in such antiquity. Something clearly happened which caused this technology to be lost. Eventually such technology did reappear much later on in Europe during the fourteenth Century.