DragonKing Dark: The Antikythera Mechanism

Join host Karl Stern as we open the museum of curiosities again this week and pull out an actual real artifact.

This is one that you can really see in a museum, study it, and make models of it: the Antikythera Mechanism. It’s a vastly complex analog computing device dating to presumably 200 BC or earlier with hugely complicated gears and switches that track celestial movements, eclipses, and more — sometimes down to the very hour.

The lost wisdom of our ancestors is astonishing and this artifact seems out of place in the timeline, so let’s talk about it.

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