Divers Accidentally Find The 'World’s Oldest Computer’ Dating Over 2,000 Years Ago On Sea Floor

Inside the glassy walls of the National Archaeological Museum’s Room 38 in Athens, three antique fragments stand majestically, perched onto display pedestals. At first glance, these fragments appear to have come from some shard of prehistoric fossils discovered during an archaeological excavation. But a closer look suggests that there’s something very mathematical about these objects. Turns out, these are no ordinary fragments, but remarkable time relics disintegrated from the body of a crumbling artifact that scientists decoded as the “Antikythera Mechanism,” which a Greek diver accidentally discovered at the bottom of a sea. According to a 2021 report published in Scientific Reports, this is the “world’s oldest computer” dating 2,200 years ago.

The discovery happened in the year 1900, near the tiny island of Antikythera, between Crete and mainland Greece, according to Scientific American. Some Greek divers from the eastern Mediterranean island of Symi were searching for natural sponges in the sea but were hindered by a violent storm. One of these divers, named Elias Stadiatis, dressed in a copper and brass helmet and heavy canvas suit, was shaking in fear. He was constantly mumbling about a “heap of dead naked people” he witnessed on the seafloor. When other divers dipped down into the waters, they found that these “dead naked people” were actually marble statues scattered on the seafloor along with various artifacts, all of which were nestling inside a shipwreck full of treasures.

One object found in this treasure trove turned out to be the size of a large dictionary, housed in a bronze and wooden case, the size of a shoebox, per Google Doodles. “The Antikythera Mechanism: After decades of research & curiosity, I was able to finally gaze upon the mysterious device described as the oldest computer, dating to 205 BC, while visiting the National Archaeological Museum Athens. The most technologically advanced ancient device,” Brandon Fugal (@brandonfugal), who often tweets about rare vintage posters, antiquarian books, museum relics, and historic artifacts, wrote in an October 2022 post.

As Fugal said, the device dates back to around 200 BC, which was determined after analyzing the dating of the shipwreck. Over time, this device broke off into 82 fragments which included bronze gearwheels the size of coins. Ever since it was discovered, the object has puzzled scientists and mathematicians for centuries. However, writing in Scientific American, mathematician Tony Freeth of University College London, said that these gears shouldn’t have appeared in Greece or anywhere in the world. “One thing is for sure, it is the most technologically complex object ever found from the ancient world,” he said, per UNILAD Tech.

Historians believe that the Antikythera Mechanism is not just an artifact, but a remarkably intelligent device that will help humans decode the functioning of the cosmos as a machine. “Whoever made the device would have had to know a great deal about astronomy, metallurgy, and mechanology,” Aristeidis Voulgaris, team leader of the Functional Reconstruction of Antikythera Mechanism project, told Live Science. “The mechanism represents a level of technology exceeding anything else of the kind for which we have either physical remains or detailed descriptions from antiquity," Alexander Jones, a professor at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, wrote in his book A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World.

When researchers analyzed the fragments using CT scans, they found detailed descriptions of how Greeks used this clock to interpret the positions of stars, Moon and planets. The device was also featured in the 2023 movie Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But as for now, it only reflects how humans still have a lot to learn from ancient astronomers who could see the shifting domes of stars with the naked eye.