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Archaeology

High tech from Ancient Greece

Nature volume 444, pages 551–552 (2006)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 06 December 2006

The Antikythera Mechanism, salvaged 100 years ago from an ancient shipwreck, was long known to be some sort of mechanical calendar. But modern analysis is only now revealing just how sophisticated it was.

During renovation work in a northern Italian palazzo, an enigmatic artefact comes to light, dated to the late fifteenth century. After intensive analysis, it is identified as a complex steam engine — constructed 200 years before French inventor Denis Papin's pioneering experiments, and 300 years before the Industrial Revolution. Our view of the technical achievements of the Renaissance is completely changed. The reverberations are felt far beyond just scholarly circles.

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Figure 1: Wheels within wheels.
Figure 2: Islamic descendant.

UNIV. LIBRARY, LEIDEN

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  1. François Charette is at the Lehrstuhl für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Museumsinsel 1, München, D-80538, Germany

    François Charette

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  1. François Charette
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Charette, F. High tech from Ancient Greece. Nature 444, 551–552 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/444551a

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