New Scientist
Volume 200, Issue 2686, 10 December 2008, Pages 36-40
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The Antikythera: lost secret of the ancients

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(08)63161-9Get rights and content

A corroding lump of bronze from an ancient shipwreck has turned out to be an astonishingly advanced astronomical calculator. As Jo Marchant reports, it could even be linked to Archimedes

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Long-lost loot

Studies of the Antikythera wreck and the cargo it carried suggest the ship set sail in around 65 BC, heading west from Asia Minor. It was a Roman ship, carrying looted Greek treasures back to Rome. At this time, the fearless young general Pompey was sweeping his way through Asia Minor, so the ship could have belonged to him.

The presence of supply jars from Rhodes suggests the vessel stopped off at the island shortly before sinking. The astronomer Hipparchus, whose theories are embodied in the

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