Mystery over 2,000-year-old shipwreck with ‘world's oldest computer' that inspired Indiana Jones as boat finally raised
The Antikythera wreck sank in the first century BC off the Greek island that gave it its name, carrying a trove of treasure.
7
7
7
Among the precious artefacts was the Antikythera Mechanism - an unusual device whose purpose long been debated and which even inspired "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny".
But researchers studying the shipwreck are now facing a new mystery after part of the wreck was recovered for the first time since 1976.
The newly recovered timbers do not match those found in the 1970s - they differ in both size and construction.
This has led scientists to consider the possibility that the Antikythera site may actually contain the remains of two separate shipwrecks - not just one.
Lorenz Baumer of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, who directed this year's expedition, said: 'The measures are different.
'The thickness of the planks found by Cousteau is around 10 centimetres, the ones we have measure around five - that's quite a difference.
'Now we have to find an explanation – is it another part of the ship? It's possible that they've been using thinner planks in upper parts, but that's pure speculation for now.
'Or is it – and for me this could be a possibility – a skiff.
'You see many of those merchant ships had smaller boats with them.'
The Antikythera wreck was discovered in 1900 by Captain Dimitrios Kondos and his crew of sponge divers from the island of Symi.
7
Greek island offers to pay thousands to move there & you'll even get land
Shortly after, over 300 other artefacts, including the Antikythera Mechanism, statues, coins and pieces of jewellery, were retrieved.
For over a century, the mysterious device has left scientists scratching their heads.
The conventional theory is that it was an ancient analogue device used to track the cycles of the Moon, Sun and planets and predict solar and lunar eclipses.
Author Jo Marchant, who has written a book about the device, said it was 'probably the most exciting artefact that we have from the ancient world'.
7
A fictional version of the device, renamed the Archimedes Dial, drives the plot in Harrison Ford's hit film, where Indiana Jones is shown diving at the Antikythera wreck.
Dr Baumer said: 'It's total nonsense, but I was very well entertained I have to say.'
But the theory that the ship carrying the mechanism was accompanied by a second ship has historical precedent.
A technical drawing of two vessels - one towing the other - was found in Pompeii, inside the House of the Ship Europa, Dr Baumer said.
He said: 'It's very detailed and very precise, so this drawing has been done by somebody who knows ships and also the technical parts.
'You see on the back of the Europa is hanging a smaller second ship.'
He also mentioned the Biblical tale - when Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked off Malta, a lifeboat was launched from the main vessel.
'We have two wreck sites,' he said.
'Close to 200 meters southwards there is a huge field – it is all covered with amphorae.
'Chronologically the two sites go together so maybe these ships have been sailing together.'
He added: 'We cannot tell if they sank one after the other, or if there was a couple of years, weeks, or days between them.
'But we see we are in about the same period.'
The newly-recovered timbers have also revealed that the Antikythera wreck was already old when it sank.
Analysis of the wood, which is elm and oak, dates it back to around 235 BC, whereas the ship didn't sink until around 80 BC.
This year's expedition also uncovered a fragment of a sculpture depicting a nude male.
Some believe the ship was doomed by the weight of the sculptures it carried.
Dr Baumer said: 'It sunk very, very quickly because it was, in my opinion, totally overloaded.
'Whenever there's a storm in Antikythera, you're happy that you're not on board a ship, even a modern one.
'It is a very rocky coast, it's impossible to land, and you simply get broken up. There's no chance.
'Even now when the waves are too heavy, the ferry boats do not land on Antikythera – it's too dangerous.'
What is the Antikythera Mechanism?
The Antikythera Mechanism is a 2,000-year-old Greek device, often called the world's first analogue computer.
Discovered in a shipwreck in 1901, the object is thought to have been used to predict astronomical events, like eclipses, moon phases and possibly the movements of planets.
It consists of at least 29 gears of various sizes that were made to move simultaneously via a handle.
Key parts:
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
8 hours ago
- The Sun
Mysteries of 2,300-year-old mummy Bashiri ‘The Untouchable' revealed after researchers refused to unwrap ancient fabric
MODERN technology has helped shed further light on an Ancient Egyptian mystery after spending millennia under wraps. The Bashiri Mummy, also known as the "untouchable one", has long remained unravelled - as researchers have feared causing damage to the intricately wrapped fabric. 5 5 5 It is believed by some sources that Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered this mummy in the Valley of the Kings. This is the same area he would famously go on to uncover King Tutankhamun's tomb. But according to Discover magazine, the most that is known for sure is that the "untouchable one" was found, but that no researchers have dared attempt to unfurl its cloth. Prior to the invention of X-ray and CT scanners, people would unwrap these ancient mummies to study them - causing severe damage. New technology has lessened the need for such methods of study, allowing researchers to learn more about ancient artefacts while inflicting less harm on them. It brings them one step closer to understanding the mysteries of the Bashiri Mummy. The untouchable one's face wrappings are said to be unique, featuring a pattern resembling the base of a pyramid. According to the American Museum of Natural History, "In the past, the only way to learn about a mummy was to unwrap it. "But this widespread practice destroyed the mummy, often detaching body parts." Scans have now revealed fresh details about the mummy. Researchers have established that the Bashiri Mummy would have been an adult man who stood about 5.5 feet tall. He would have lived in the Ptolemaic Era - which spanned from 305 BC to 30 BC. This makes the mummy around a staggering 2,300 years old. The X-ray scan also showed an inscription of the man's name, according to the Egypt Museum. However, it is not fully clear if Pacheri or Nenu are written, leaving some mysteries around the mummy still unresolved. The museum added that the mummy's encasement was decorated with "various scenes arranged in registers, notably the mummy lying on a bed, surrounded by the goddesses Isis and Nephtys, and the four sons of Horus." "Finally, the casing around the feet has two images of the funerary god Anubis," it adds. It is not the only incredible discovery of the Ancient World unveiled in recent weeks. A network of dimly lit tunnels under Rome's Capitoline Hill could soon become the city's latest tourist hot spot. The secret underground city covers some 42,000 square feet under the Ancient Roman Forum - and reaches depths of 985 feet below the surface. It is expected to be open for visitors from late 2026 or early 2027, CNN has reported. 5 5
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
Spanish discovery suggests Roman era ‘church' may have been a synagogue
Seventeen centuries after they last burned, a handful of broken oil lamps could shed light on a small and long-vanished Jewish community that lived in southern Spain in the late Roman era as the old gods were being snuffed out by Christianity. Archaeologists excavating the Ibero-Roman town of Cástulo, whose ruins lie near the present-day Andalucían town of Linares, have uncovered evidence of an apparent Jewish presence there in the late fourth or early fifth century AD. As well as three fragments of oil lamps decorated with menorahs and a roof tile bearing a five-branched menorah, they have also come across a piece of the lid of a cone-shaped jar bearing a Hebrew graffito. While experts are split over whether the engraving reads 'light of forgiveness' or 'Song to David', its very existence points to a previously unknown Jewish population in the town, which eventually fell into decay and abandonment 1,000 years later. The discovery of the materials has led the team to consider whether the ruins of a nearby building, assumed to be an early Christian basilica dating from the fourth century AD, could perhaps have been a synagogue where Cástulo's Jewish community came to worship. When the site of the supposed church was first excavated between 1985 and 1991, archaeologists assumed it was a Christian edifice. 'During the 2012-2013 [dig], we found the roof tile with the five-armed [menorah],' said Bautista Ceprían, one of the archaeologists working on the Andalucían regional government's Cástulo Sefarad, Primera Luz project, which aims to uncover the town's Jewish history. 'Until that moment, we didn't know that there could have been a very small Jewish community in Cástulo.' In a recently published paper, Ceprián and his colleagues David Expósito Mangas and José Carlos Ortega Díez consider the possibility that the 'church' could in fact have been a synagogue. They argue that the lack of Christian materials in the site, combined with an absence of evidence of burials or religious relics – which would normally be expected in a Christian church of the era – could point to its use as a Jewish temple. A nearby baptistry, in contrast, has already yielded Christian finds and burials. Jewish religious law, however, forbids burials within 50 cubits (23m) of a residential area. 'When we looked at the interior of the building a little more closely, there were some strange things for a church; there was something that could have been the hole for a big menorah,' said Ceprián. 'It's also strange that this building doesn't have any tombs.' The authors also point to the site's architectural features, such as its layout, which is reminiscent of some synagogues found in Palestine. 'Synagogues of that time could be more square in shape than Christian basilicas because in Jewish worship, there's usually a central bimah [raised platform], which people sit around,' said Ceprián. 'In a church, the priest performs the rituals in the apse, which means things are more rectangular.' Then there is the location of the possible synagogue; it would have sat in an isolated part of town near a ruined Roman bathhouse that would have been feared and hated by the local bishops. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion 'The Roman baths were the last pagan place that remained in a city,' said Ceprián. 'It was something diabolical and therefore something that had to be outside the Christian world. It seems to be the case that the baths in Cástulo had already been closed by the end of the fourth century, or the beginning of the fifth century.' He argues that the synagogue's location, so close to a font of paganism, would have helped the local Christian hierarchy in its efforts to conflate Judaism with unholy practices: 'The Jews would have had few options and at that moment it's clear that it's the bishops who are fundamentally organising the town – and it would allow them to relate Jews with evil.' If the researchers' theories were to be confirmed, the Cástulo synagogue would be among the very oldest Jewish temples on the Iberia peninsula. Spain's handful of surviving original synagogues are mainly medieval. The most recently discovered synagogue, in the Andalucían city of Utrera, dates from the 1300s. The problem for Ceprián and his colleagues – as they acknowledge – is the lack of written historical corroboration. 'I'm sure there will be criticism, which is totally legitimate – that's how science works and how it has to work,' he said. 'But of course we believe we've provided data with enough seriousness to allow ourselves to posit it.' Whether the building was a church or a synagogue, those digging up Cástulo have uncovered evidence of what would appear to be a small Jewish community living, if only for a while, in peaceful coexistence with their Christian neighbours. As the centuries wore on and the church propagated the otherness of Spain's Jewish inhabitants in order to forge and galvanise a Christian identity, there were pogroms and, finally, the expulsion of the country's Jewish population in 1492. 'It shows us that there was a good coexistence between all the different social groups or faith groups that were there at that time,' said Ceprián. 'But later, from the time when the Christian church begins to grow stronger in the Roman government, you start to get powerful groups opposed to those who are weaker in society. Oddly, that's something that's happening now, too.'
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Archaeologists from London help catalogue ancient Jersey finds
Archaeologists from London are visiting Jersey to help catalogue and store hundreds of ice age animal bone from an ancient site. Jersey Heritage said while the items, found before 1960 at La Cotte de St Brelade, had been subjected to detailed work, the early finds were yet to be studied using modern scientific techniques. It said visitors could meet the team from the University College London (UCL) Institute of Archaeology for a free "Meet the Collections" event on Saturday at Sir Francis Cook Gallery. The finds, which are part of a Société Jersiaise collection, include a fragment of woolly mammoth bone and lots of pieces of horse, red deer, bison, and bear bones, said Jersey Heritage. It added the UCL team was interested in the remains of animals that may have been hunted by some of the last surviving Neanderthal groups in the Heritage said: "There is no reason why some of these fragments of bone might not be from the Neanderthal people themselves." Curator of archaeology at Jersey Heritage, Olga Finch, said: "It's great to have the expertise of the London team to undertake this curatorial work and provide a detailed catalogue, which the public and researchers can access to learn more about this important story in the Island's history."Dr Matt Pope from UCL said it was exciting to be involved in the "important process"."This is one of the most important collections of Ice Age animal bone in the region and we are getting every ready to unlock its secrets," he added.
