The Antikythera mechanism (/ntkir/ ANT-i-ki-THEER- or /ntkr/ ANT-i-KITH--r) is an

ancient Greek analogue computer[1][2][3][4] and orrery used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses
for calendar and astrological purposes.[5][6][7] It could also track the four-year cycle of athletic games
which was similar (though not identical) to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games.[8][9]
[10]

The device was found housed in a 340-millimetre (13 in) 180-millimetre (7.1 in) 90-millimetre (3.5 in)
wooden box. It is a complex clockwork mechanism composed of at least 30 meshing bronze gears. A team
led by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth at Cardiff University used modern computer x-ray tomography and
high resolution surface scanning to peer inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism and read the
faintest inscriptions that once covered the outer casing of the machine. Detailed imaging of the mechanism
suggests that it dates back to 150-100 BC and had 37 gear wheels enabling it to follow the movements of
the moon and the sun through the zodiac, to predict eclipses, and even to model the irregular orbit of the
moon, where the moons velocity is higher in its perigee than in its apogee. This motion was studied in the
2nd century BC by astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes, and it is speculated that he may have been consulted
in the machine's construction.[11] Its remains were found as one lump, later separated into three main
fragments which are now divided into 82 separate fragments after conservation works. Four of these
fragments contain gears, while inscriptions are found on many others.[12][13] The largest gear is
approximately 140 millimetres (5.5 in) in diameter and originally had 223 teeth.[14]

The artefact was recovered on May 17, 1901[15][16] from the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of
Antikythera, which was known as Aigila in antiquity.[17] The instrument is believed to have been designed
and constructed by Greek scientists and has been variously dated to about 87 BC,[18] or between 150 and
100 BC,[5] or to 205 BC,[19][20] or to within a generation before the shipwreck, which has been dated to
approximately 70-60 BC.[21][22]

The knowledge of this technology was lost at some point in antiquity, and technological works approaching
its complexity and workmanship did not appear again until the development of mechanical astronomical
clocks in Europe in the fourteenth century.[23] All known fragments of the Antikythera mechanism are kept
at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, along with a number of artistic reconstructions of how
the mechanism may have looked.[24]