As archaeologist Valerios Stais was looking at one of the 86 pieces of brass fragments brought back from the dive, he noticed, to his amazement, that it had a gear wheel embedded within it. This would prove to be the most momentous find of the dive, and would change the way scientists viewed the ancient Romans--to say the least.

Though it was originally believed to be a mechanized clock, the Antikythera mechanism is now considered to be the world's oldest analog computer.

No doubt this discovery sounds almost too amazing to be true. It's common for us to want to believe that the people in our ancient past were far less advanced than we are. Yet the evidence is overwhelming and cannot be denied.

It makes me wonder what else has been lost over the ages. What other technology might they have had that we have only recently re-discovered (or haven't yet re-discovered)?

Let's explore the Antikythera mechanism to understand just how amazing a find it really is.