BBC

A History of Ideas: The Antikythera Mechanism

Gillian Anderson on the Antikythera Mechanism

Surely computers are a modern invention? Er… no. The Antikythera Mechanism shows that calculating machines had been invented at the time of the ancient Greeks. Find out how the 1900 discovery of this bronze and wooden clockwork machine for calculating dates and the movements of the planets turned our view of ancient technology on its head.

Want to hear more on this topic?

Here’s the whole episode from A History of Ideas – Archaeologist Matt Pope on tools and human evolution

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