At the beginning of the last century, a team of divers found by chance a complex mechanism off the coast of Antikythera (Greece), at a depth of more than 40 meters.

Research over the last 100 years has not been able to completely unravel the mystery of this device, but it has shown that it is an instrument that reveals a very advanced technology for what is believed to have been known at the time: there are no references to similar devices until the sixteenth century.

Christián Carlos Carman, researcher attachment of CONICET (committee ) of Argentina and the National University of Quilmes, presented at the University of Navarra the main discoveries that have been made about the mechanism, on the occasion of a seminar organized by the group of research 'Science, Reason and Faith'.

The expert reviewed the main contributions of the work of Derek de Solla Price, Michael Wright and the team led by Tony Freeth and Mike Edmunds, which have shed light on the main functions of the mechanism and made it possible to decipher the Greek inscriptions on the back.

It is believed that the contraption had more than 30 gears and, by means of different pointers, showed the exact position of the sun and moon in the zodiac, the day of the year, maybe also the position of the planets, the months and hours at which an eclipse would occur (as well as from which subject it was and whether it would be visible or not), how to correct by 8 hours the prediction of eclipses in a 54-year cycle, the month of the luni-solar calendar (it indicated which years had 13 months and which 12, which months had 29 days and which 30 and which day should be omitted).... All this, with great precision.

Anecdotally, it should also be noted that it indicated when the games of Olympia and Nemea were to be held, "which shows a great relationship between science and society at that time," says Professor Carman.

Who could be the author of this sophisticated primitive 'computer'? According to Christián Carlos Carman, one of the hypotheses that is being considered is that it was Archimedes himself who made it, or who set up the instructions so that this subject of mechanisms could be developed. "We know that he wrote a work on how to make instruments like this, to show the position of the sun and the moon," he said. "Also, in Cicero's De Republica, a tool very similar to this one is described and attributed to him."

For researcher, it is a "revolution in the history of technology" and in the history of science, which makes us "rethink the vision we have of the ancient Greeks. They claimed to have a calendar, but we never believed it: the Antikythera mechanism is a test that they were right".

"It is also interesting for what it can tell us about realism and instrumentalism in antiquity: according to some currents, astronomy for the Greeks was a mere instrument of calculation, but without any claim to be describing reality as it is. Then there was another very strong current that showed that many astronomers of the time were realists," he added.