# The Antikythera Mechanism > Unknown Greek maker, working in a tradition associated with Rhodes, Corinth or Syracuse - c. 150-100 BC on the National Archaeological Museum's own gallery label. A date of 205 BC has been argued from the eclipse sequence on the back dial; other readings place it in the first century BC. The shipwreck that carried it is dated to the second quarter of the first century BC. > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unknown-greek-instrument-maker/antikythera-mechanism/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-13 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown Greek maker, working in a tradition associated with Rhodes, Corinth or Syracuse - **Date:** c. 150-100 BC on the National Archaeological Museum's own gallery label. A date of 205 BC has been argued from the eclipse sequence on the back dial; other readings place it in the first century BC. The shipwreck that carried it is dated to the second quarter of the first century BC. - **Medium:** Bronze plates and gearing in a wooden case - **Dimensions:** The largest surviving gear is about 13 cm in diameter. The 82 fragments vary from plate-sized to chips of a few millimetres and no overall dimension for the complete object survives; reconstructed sizes are estimates and are not adopted here as measurements. - **Object type:** Clocks and instruments - **Period:** Hellenistic Greek, second or first century BC - **Current location:** National Archaeological Museum, Athens; the mechanism is inventory 15087 on the museum's own gallery label for the Antikythera shipwreck - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary Eighty-two corroded bronze fragments, the largest surviving gear about thirteen centimetres across, recovered from a first-century BC shipwreck off the island of Antikythera by sponge divers from Symi in 1900 and 1901. It is a geared astronomical calculating instrument, and there is nothing else remotely like it from the ancient world; the next machine of comparable complexity is more than a thousand years later.It was not recognised for two years. It came up as an encrusted lump among bronze and marble statues that were the reason anybody was diving, and on 17 May 1902 Valerios Stais saw a gear wheel in it. What it actually did was not established for another seventy years, and the reading of it is still being revised: the two decisive advances were both imaging campaigns rather than excavations, gamma-radiography by Charalampos Karakalos with Derek de Solla Price in 1971, and a purpose-built X-ray computed tomography and reflectance-imaging programme in 2005.The object a reader has almost certainly seen is not this object. Reconstructions and working models of the mechanism are in museums and photographs all over the world. The thing itself is a shelf of green fragments, and no photograph of it exists under a licence this archive can publish. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **-c. 70-60 BC** Unknown; in transit aboard a ship carrying Greek goods westward `[unknown]` (origin and loss) No maker, owner, commissioner or destination is documented. The cargo is generally read as Greek material travelling from Delos or from a city on the Asia Minor coast towards Italy, driven off course in bad weather and foundered. Whether the mechanism was cargo, a passenger's property or ship's equipment is not established. The wreck is dated by its cargo and coins to the second quarter of the first century BC; the instrument may already have been decades old when it was loaded. - **1900-1901** Recovered by sponge divers from Symi under Captain Dimitrios Kontos, with the Hellenic Royal Navy `[documented]` (salvage) Located by chance about Easter 1900 by sponge-fishers from Symi returning from the north coast of Africa, who attempted to anchor near Potamos. Raising began at the end of 1900 and lasted many months, in standard diving dress at about 50 metres, a depth at the limit of the equipment. The first object recovered was the right arm of a bronze philosopher of the third century BC. A Greek Ministry of Naval Affairs document of 26 February 1901 records the despatch of the vessel Mykali to Kythera for the works. Divers were killed and paralysed during the salvage; the compensation paid to the crew is not established in the sources consulted. - **1901-present** National Archaeological Museum, Athens `[documented]` (national collection) The finds entered the Greek national collection directly from the salvage. The gearing was recognised on 17 May 1902 by Valerios Stais, two years after the discovery of the wreck; his cousin Spyridon Stais is named alongside him in some accounts. The mechanism is inventory 15087 on the museum's own gallery label, which lists the lyre as 15104 and parts of couches as 15098, 15099 and 15101. It has never been on the market, never been offered at auction, and is the subject of no restitution claim. - **1971-1974** In the museum; imaged by Charalampos Karakalos with Derek J. de Solla Price `[documented]` (research campaign) X-ray and gamma-ray imaging of the fragments, the first look inside the corrosion, published by Price in 1974. Price had become interested in 1951 and published a popular account in 1959. - **2005-present** In the museum; the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project `[documented]` (research campaign) A collaboration of Cardiff University, the National Archaeological Museum, the University of Athens and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with X-Tek Systems and Hewlett-Packard. X-Tek built a 400 kV microfocus CT machine of about eight tonnes and moved it to Athens because the fragments could not travel; HP supplied a polynomial texture mapping dome. Published in Nature in 2006 and 2008, with the inscriptions published in 2016 and a front-dial model in 2021. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - The Antikythera mechanism has never been sold, offered, valued or insured on any published basis. It was recovered inside Greek territorial waters by Greek divers under Greek naval supervision and entered the national collection directly, so no dealer, no export licence and no restitution claim appears anywhere in its history. There is no hammer price, no premium, no estimate and no comparable. Any figure quoted for it is invention. The only cost recorded against it is human: divers were killed and paralysed raising the wreck, and the sums the Greek state paid the crew are not established in the sources consulted for this record. ## Exhibitions - The Antikythera Shipwreck: the Ship, the Treasures, the Mechanism, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 2012-2013 - Permanent display, bronze collection, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, present ## Literature - 1974, Derek J. de Solla Price, Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism, a Calendar Computer from ca. 80 BC, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. The publication of the 1971 gamma-radiography carried out with Charalampos Karakalos. Superseded in its reconstruction and still the foundation of the modern literature. - 2006, T. Freeth and others, 'Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism', Nature, 30 November 2006. The first publication of the 2005 imaging campaign. NOT READ IN FULL for this record: nature.com returned an authentication redirect to a plain fetch and the abstract was not retrieved. - 2008, T. Freeth, A. Jones, J. M. Steele and Y. Bitsakis, 'Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism', Nature, 31 July 2008. Source in the secondary literature for the Olympiad dial and the Corinthian month names. NOT READ IN FULL for this record. - 2021, T. Freeth and the UCL Antikythera Research Team, 'A Model of the Cosmos in the ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism', Scientific Reports, March 2021. A proposed reconstruction of the front dial compatible with the currently known data. NOT READ IN FULL for this record; the fetch returned a redirect and a mis-served article. ## Open questions - Who made it, and where. No maker is named on the object. The Corinthian month names point to Corinth or a Corinthian colony such as Syracuse and away from Rhodes, which had been the standard guess; attributions to Archimedes, Hipparchus and Posidonius all circulate and none rests on evidence from the object. - When it was made. The museum's own label gives about 150 to 100 BC; a date of 205 BC has been argued from the Saros eclipse sequence; the wreck itself dates only the deposition. The three cannot be reconciled from the material consulted. - Whether all 82 fragments belong to it. The National Archaeological Museum's own gallery text states that it is not certain that the 75 small fragments belong to the mechanism, a caveat that is almost never repeated when the number 82 is quoted. - Whether it was unique or the survivor of a tradition. The inscription analysis has been read as showing that the maker built it for other people to use, which argues for a tradition; no second instrument of the kind survives from antiquity. - Who was on the ship, where it was going, and whether the mechanism was cargo, a passenger's property or ship's equipment. None of this is established. - What the Greek state paid the sponge divers, and the full human cost of the salvage. Divers were killed and paralysed at about 50 metres in standard dress; the compensation terms are not established in the sources consulted. - Why it went unrecognised for two years in the museum after recovery, and who handled it in that period. The recognition on 17 May 1902 is documented; the two years before it are not. - Whether any further fragment survives at the wreck site. No modern campaign since 2012 has recovered another piece of the mechanism, which suggests the 82 are all there is, but the site has not been exhausted. ## Sources - [1] National Archaeological Museum, Athens, gallery label 'The Antikythera Shipwreck', read from the museum's own wall text photographed in the bronze gallery. PRIMARY institutional statement. Source for the Easter 1900 discovery by sponge-fishers from Symi returning from the north coast of Africa, the attempted anchorage near the harbour of Potamos, the wreck lying 25 metres from the coast at a depth of about 50 metres, the raising beginning at the end of 1900 and lasting many months, the cargo probably sailing from Delos or a city on the Asia Minor coast towards Italy, the first object recovered being the right arm of a bronze philosopher of the third century BC, and the inventory numbers of the wreck bronzes: the mechanism 15087, the lyre 15104, and couch parts 15098, 15099 and 15101. - [2] National Archaeological Museum, Athens, gallery label 'The Antikythera Mechanism', read from the museum's own wall text. PRIMARY institutional statement. Source for the seven large fragments A to G and 75 minor pieces 1 to 75, the museum's own caveat that it is not certain that the 75 small fragments belong to the mechanism, the at least 30 gears with dials, scales, axles and pointers, the Greek inscriptions relating to astronomical and calendar calculations and to instructions for use, the wooden-framed case probably with bronze plaques front and back, and the museum's date of about 150 to 100 BC. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Antikythera mechanism'. TERTIARY, flagged for replacement with the Nature papers and the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project publications, neither of which could be read in full for this record. Source for Captain Dimitrios Kontos and the Symi divers, the Hellenic Royal Navy expeditions of 1900 to 1901 at Point Glyphadia, the recovery of the mechanism probably in July 1901, the recognition of a gear wheel by Valerios Stais and his cousin Spyridon Stais on 17 May 1902, the 82 fragments after conservation, the largest gear of about 13 cm, Albert Rehm as the first to propose an astronomical calculator, Derek de Solla Price's interest from 1951 and the 1971 X-ray and gamma-ray imaging with Charalampos Karakalos published in 1974, the 2005 Cardiff-led computed tomography campaign, the 37 gears, the 2006 and 2008 Nature papers and the March 2021 University College London model. - [4] Wikimedia Commons file page for the Greek Ministry of Naval Affairs document of 26 February 1901 concerning the despatch of the vessel Mykali to Kythera for the Antikythera wreck works, published by the National Archaeological Museum in connection with its 2012 exhibition of the wreck material. Licence verified as public domain from extmetadata.LicenseShortName. - [5] Wikimedia Commons API and file description pages, used to verify extmetadata.LicenseShortName per file for every plate proposed in this record and to read the full wikitext rather than the API summary. The 1900 to 1901 salvage photographs are tagged PD-old with the author unknown; the two gallery-label photographs are CC0 releases by Gary Lee Todd, Flickr-reviewed. - [] --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.