The Antikythera Mechanism is an ancient calculating machine discovered in a sunken wreck off the island of Antikythera in 1900. It appears to be of Greek origin, constucted between 150 and 100 BC. It is possibly from Corinth, and could be related to the work of Archimedes. It took years after its discovery for reseachers to piece together its function and recognize its complexity. An assembly of meshing gears, it is a complex scientific calculator known as an astrolabe. The user could input a date and the Antikythera Mechanism would calculate the position of the Sun, Moon, and even the planets. It was based on a 365 day calendar, and even dropped a day every four years, one hundred years before the Julian calendar added the concept of leap year.
