The world’s oldest computer is more than 2,000 years old.

The Antikythera mechanism

When it was unearthed in 1900 among the ruins of an ancient Greco-Roman shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, the instrument now known as the Antikythera mechanism was more or less ignored. The sponge divers who brought the corroded bronze lump to the surface had no idea they had just recovered an ancient marvel now considered the world’s oldest analog computer, dating back to around 100 BCE. Indeed, they were more interested in the bronze and marble sculptures, coins, and other treasures scattered around the shipwreck. The Antikythera mechanism even broke apart (perhaps because of exposure to the air) a few months later at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, but it still took more than half a century before its remnants received sustained scholarly attention.

In 1976, Derek J. de Solla Price, a Yale professor of history of science, published “Gears From the Greeks,” an academic text on the Antikythera mechanism based on more than 20 years of research. Price argued that the fragments of corroded bronze had once been a “calendar computer,” and explained how their complex system of gears and dials had been used to calculate the positions of the sun, moon, and planets at any day in time, past or future. The mechanism was also able to track the Egyptian and Corinthian calendars and the Olympiad cycle, calculate eclipses, and more, although some of its functions remain mysterious.

Of course, this wasn’t a computer in the digital, electronic sense; the gears were cranked by hand, and the whole thing was housed in a wooden case about the size of a mantel clock. However, the Antikythera mechanism is often referred to as an analog computer, or an extraordinarily sophisticated calculator. It was called the “most complex scientific instrument from the ancient world” by historian Alexander Jones, and nothing like it appears in the historical record for another thousand years. While scholars still debate some of its intricacies, its existence shows that ancient technology can be leaps and bounds beyond what we once imagined.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

The Antikythera mechanism was recovered during the first major underwater archaeological dig.

In the spring of 1900, a group of Greek sponge divers returning from an expedition off North Africa took shelter from a storm near the island of Antikythera. When the sea calmed, diver Elias Stadiatis descended in search of clams, but instead discovered an ancient shipwreck. He returned to the surface shaken, describing what looked like naked bodies — broken marble statues scattered across the seabed. That autumn, the divers returned under the direction of the Greek government, working with a University of Athens professor and a Greek navy ship. Over the course of 10 months, despite dangerous conditions, they recovered dozens of marble and bronze sculptures, coins, glassware, and most remarkably, the Antikythera mechanism. The dive was the first major underwater archaeological excavation in history, but it was not without cost: One diver died and two were permanently injured due to the extreme depths and lack of modern equipment. Because of the difficult conditions, the site remained largely untouched until oceanographer Jacques Cousteau revisited it in 1953 and again in 1976, recovering hundreds more artifacts and human remains. Since 2014, the Return to Antikythera archaeological project has continued exploring the wreck, uncovering new treasures including weapons, equipment, and a large marble head of a bearded male figure thought to be part of a statue of Hercules.