The Antikythera mechanism. (Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP)

Sometime in the early first century B.C., a ship went down in the Mediterranean Sea, just off a Greek island named Antikythera. The wreck itself wasn’t unusual. The island was surrounded by jagged rocks, which likely caused many a boat to disappear back then. But there was something different about this one. The boat contained a trove of statues, jewelry, and — most notably — what some scholars believe to be the earliest computer known to man.

On Sept. 15, with the help of a technologically advanced underwater suit that makes the wearer resemble Iron Man, archaeologist Dr. Brendan Foley will lead a team to do one final excavation of the site. He hopes to find yet another ancient computer, along with details that will help historians finally identify who its owner was all those years ago — a question that may shape how we view the birth of civilized technology.

Mysteries of the Mediterranean

Discovered in 1900 by a sponge diver who spotted the glimmer of a bronze hand in the sand, the Antikythera wreck first revealed what vast Roman Empire artifacts lie dormant at the bottom of the ocean.

“Its amazing cargo was the light that shined on the Mediterranean,” Foley said. “People thought, oh my god, if this is down there, what else is? The wreck is really the birthplace of underwater archaeology.”

View photos Remnant of statue More

Images courtesy of the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Copyright Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. (K. Xenikakis)

The exact date and details of the Antikythera shipwreck have long been debated by historians. Initial theories first pegged Roman general Sulla, who lived from 138 B.C. to 78 B.C., as its owner. Scholars surmised that he was traveling home with a recent haul from Asia Minor to attend a big parade being thrown for Julius Caesar.

Carbon dating sank that initial thesis, placing the ship’s capsize date at around 60 B.C. Researchers have since theorized that the ship was sent to retrieve commissioned statues meant to decorate the villas of Rome’s rising upper class.

But Foley favors a more romantic situation: that the ship was transferring a woman of importance or nobility to be married in Rome, and the riches on board — including what he assumes was the very costly and prized mechanism — represented her dowry.

“We’re kind of in love with that idea,” Foley told Yahoo Tech. “It’s such a romantic notion. It makes it the Titanic of the ancient world.” (And the mechanism its Heart of the Ocean necklace, only nerdier).

His wish is buttressed by some evidence. A second excavation of the site, led by Jacques Cousteau in the 1970s, revealed what scientists believe is a female skull and jawbone near some jewelry.

But how Foley’s 10-person team approaches the excavation is dictated less by the ship’s possible origin story and more by putting together the missing pieces from past explorers — especially recovering still-missing parts of the mechanism.

Diving in

Learning how to retrieve the material at 200-foot depths proved much more difficult than the sponge divers in 1900 expected. They spent the better part of a year removing items at the site, their only real diving equipment consisting of a heavy bronze helmet. It connected to a long rubber hose that was fed air by a manual crank at the surface. The entire contraption allowed only five minutes of “bottom time” per person, requiring the excavators to rotate among 20 men at a time.

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