04-29-2006, 08:38 PM
Quote:Afaik, no one knows for sure what the Antikythira object actually is.The Antikythera mechanism was demonstrated in 1959 to be a device for showing the past, present and future phases of the moon. Thus, an ancestor of the Arab astrolabe. As far as I remember, the wreck that it came from was dated to the mid-first century BC (thus, Roman rather than Hellenistic).
Unless there has been some new research that I haven't seen ...