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Yesterday 29th July 02008

The world oldest calculating machine was discovered in 1900,
deep within a 2300 year old Greek wooden ship wreck, in the Mediteranean sea.

The corroded Bronze lump was carefully freed of its Calcium coating, and was surprisingly found to be a lump of gear wheels.

Its taken 20 over years to tease the object free into its 82 separate parts. For the last three years it has been subjected to 3D-Xray and Laser light which has shown up all the indexed markings stamped into its gear wheels.
It has been proven to be a sophisticated astronomical calculator, of the Moon and other Planetary motions, as well a
other more down to earth events.
Who could have made it is unknown, but it must have been a terrible loss for its owners those 2000+ years ago.

A modern working model is now being made. Amazing, those Ancients knew a thing or two.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/30/scicalc130.xml

Hey Mike

Just to add a little timeline of things that were happening around that time frame around 2300 yrs ago..292 BC

605 BC: Nebuchadnezzar II leads the Babylonians to conquer Carchemish and defeat the Egyptian army
525 BC: Cambyses of Persia conquers Egypt at the battle of Pelusium
404 BC: Amyrtaios of Sais expels the Persians (28th, 29th and 30th dynasties)
343 BC: the Persians conquer Egypt again (31st dynasty)
332 BC: Alexander the Great conquers Egypt
331 BC: Alexander founds Alexandria in Egypt
323 BC: Alexander dies at Babylon and Ptolemy inherits Egypt
312 BC: Ptolemy's general in Syria, Seleucus Nicator, establishes a kingdom ranging from Syria in the west to India in the east and founds the Seleucid dynasty
307 BC: Ptolemy I creates the library of Alexandria (Museum)
300 BC: Ptolemy I builds the Pharos of Alexandria
283 BC: Ptolemy dies
198 BC: the Seleucids under Antiochus III conquer Palestine from the Ptolemaics


307 BC: Ptolemy I creates the library of Alexandria

which was the worlds center of knowledge , the library housed
what could be told as the knowledge of the world in that day.

There were many genius's around at that time in alexandria
who were particularly interested in mechanics , levers , gears , buoyancy , etc...

I think the first mechanical clock was invented there
but I cant remember by whom.

I kind of suspect that this might be the work of an
alexandrian , or someone studying in alexandria at the time.

or perhaps the result of someones studies there such as
archimedes although he died before the mechanism was made , he may have been a direct influence on its inventor.

archimedes returned to syracuse after his studies in alexandria.

this calculator has been an interest of mine for a long long time.

thanks for the update.

The reports I've seen suggest that showing when it was Olympics time was very important for the device. I guess if it was whole, it would be signaling right about now!

I don't think the computer you are describing was a calculator in the sense that it did arithmetic, but I think it was an accurate guide to showing the ancients how the sky should appear at certain times of the year per their understanding of the world and the universe where the planet was the center of the universe. I don’t know anything about an ancient mechanical clock, but something else I thought was interesting, was that they showed that the ancient Greeks knew how to gold plate things, so there is a possibility that some, most, or all of the ancient golden artifacts in the Greek Museums might not be solid gold as they advertise. The Museums will not let their golden artifacts out for scientific testing in case this is true.