Discovered by sponge divers on a Roman-era shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901 as a chunk of barnacle encrusted bronze, what is now known as the Antikythera Mechanism is one of the most startling archæological discoveries ever made (see ). Although crushed, corroded and incomplete, the mechanism has been reconstructed by archæologists to reveal what has been called the world’s first computer, manufactured
