Ancient Greek computer reveals its secrets

A bronze calculating machine salvaged from a shipwreck a century ago is finally yielding up its secrets, revealing a Greek computer of remarkable sophistication for a device constructed long before the birth of Christ.

	How the back dials of the supercomputer would have looked

Scholars have been baffled by the 80-plus fragments of the ancient mechanism found in 1901 by sponge divers in a Roman shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, midway between the Peloponnese and Crete.

Around the size of a discus, the device was so badly corroded that it had the consistency of flaky pastry and was encrusted with deposits. Yet it seemed to be the earliest-known machine involving an arrangement of gear-wheels, built centuries before such technology became commonplace.

Was it a rich man's toy? Or was it an orrery or an astronomical clock? Or something else that reflected an ancient interest in astrology?

In the wake of a study of its workings published today in the journal Nature, the "Antikythera Mechanism" will transform the way we think about the technological capabilities of the ancient world.

An international team unveils a new reconstruction of the way its gears worked and has doubled the number of deciphered inscriptions on the casing. It reveals a spectacular and ancient astronomical calculator that may even have been designed by Hipparchos (190BC-120BC) himself, arguably the greatest astronomical observer of antiquity, or by his followers.