"This was a level of technology that archeologists would usually date to the 16th century, not well before the first."
"Since Price’s assessment, modern X-ray and 3D mapping technology have allowed scientists to peer deeper into the remains of the mechanism and learn even more of its secrets.
"In the 2000s, researchers revealed text - a kind of instruction manual - inscribed on parts of the mechanism that had never been seen before.
"The text - written in tiny typeface but legible ancient Greek - helped them complete the puzzle of what the machine did and how it was operated. In all, it’s astounding.
"The mechanism had several dials and clock faces, each which served a different function for measuring movements of the sun, moon, stars, and planets, but they were all operated by one main crank:
"Little stone or glass orbs that would have moved across the machine’s face to show the motion of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in the night sky
The position of the sun and moon, relative to the 12 constellations of the zodiac
Another dial forecasting solar and lunar eclipses - and, oddly, predictions about their color. (Researchers guess that different colored eclipses were considered omens of the future. The ancient Greeks were a little superstitious.)
A solar calendar, charting the 365 days of the year
A lunar calendar, counting a 19-year lunar cycle
A tiny pearl-size ball that rotated to show you the phase of the moon
And this is pretty neat: another dial of the mechanism that counted down the days to regularly scheduled sporting events around the Greek isles, like the Olympics
"Again, the mechanics of this are absurdly complicated. A 2006 Nature paper plotted out a schematic of the mechanics that connect all the gears. It looks like this. Not simple."
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"Researchers are still not sure who, exactly, used it. Did scientists build it to aid their calculations? Or was it a type of a teaching tool, to show students the math that held the cosmos together? Was it unique? Or are there more similar devices yet to be discovered?
"Its assembly remains another mystery. How the ancient Greeks accomplished this feat is unknown to this day."
This was found in one half of a sunken wreak in 1900 - the other half has not been found since.
The reasons why this sort of ancient tech is surprising today is that most of the knowledge of it was destroyed in with the burning of the Library of Alexandra by Mark Antony in his siege of Alexandra of 30 BC; of what survived that, was later burned during the muslim conquests of 647-720 AD; what remained after that was burned by Girolamo Savonarola, 1452-1498 AD during his rise to power in the Church. It is also possible that a few works survived in monasteries until the Kosovo War 1998-1999 AD when rampaging Albanian muslims burned dozens of Christian monasteries known to have had many unexamined ancient scrolls.