One has to wonder why the Antikythera Mechanism was not produced in numbers if it was genuinely useful. Was it commissioned as a one-of for a special client? Was it a prototype that was lost before its value could be fully assessed? Was the time and effort to produce it so great that it was essentially unaffordable? Or maybe it lacked genuine practical value.
One has to wonder why the Antikythera Mechanism was not produced in numbers if it was genuinely useful.The idea of mass production was 2000 years in their future. EVERYTHING they made was hand-crafted. That thing probably took years to make. Consider how long it took John Harrison to make the first successful seagoing chronometer by hand.
Credit should have been given to Carl Zeiss IMT, who built the X-ray CAT scanner that enabled the researchers to see inside those corroded lumps and measure the parts so precisely.