Antikythera Time Line

This timeline with events directly or indirectly related to the Antikythera Mechanism was initially compiled by Alexander Jones and Yanis Bitsakis, for the volume “Antikythera Mechanism: the Book”.
The page is regularly updated with new events.

See also the database of the people involved in the research and other activities around the Antikythera Mechanism and the shipwreck (ongoing work)

776 BC Traditional date of first Olympic Games.
8th – 6th centuries BC Settlers from Corinth found colonies in Corfu, Epirus, and Syracuse.
681-627 BC Astrologer-scholars observe and interpret astronomical phenomena for Kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal of Assyria. Discovery of Saros eclipse cycle?
484 BC Babylonian calendar begins to be regulated by 19-year cycles.
c. 450 BC Anaxagoras gives correct physical explanations of the phases of the Moon and eclipses.
432 BC Inaugural year of Meton of Athens’s 19-year calendar cycle.
c. 400 BC Standardized zodiac adopted by Babylonian astronomers.
c. 340-330 BC Antikythera Ephebe.
330 BC Inaugural year of Kallippos’s 76-year calendar cycle.
c. 300 BC Mechanical Problems, by a follower of Aristotle, describes basic principle of (toothless) gears.
c. 230 BC Antikythera Philosopher.
212 BC Archimedes killed after Rome captures Syracuse.
162-127 BC Hipparchos conducts astronomical observations and researches in Bithynia and Rhodes.
Late 3rd century – early 1st century BC Creation of a Mechanism know later as the “Antikythera Mechanism”
146 BC Rome destroys Corinth.
79-77 BC Cicero’s travels in Greece; meets Posidonios in Rhodes.
c. 70 BC Geminos writes astronomical handbook, “Introduction to the Phenomena”.
69-67 BC Rome suppresses piracy in eastern Mediterranean.
c. 60 BC Antikythera Wreck.
51 BC Cicero writes “De Re Publica”, containing description of Archimedes’s “sphere.”
c. 150 Ptolemy writes “Almagest” and other scientific treatises at Alexandria; criticizes makers of astronomical mechanisms
c. 500 Byzantine portable sundial with geared calendar.
1048 Death of al-Biruni, author of book on geared calendar.
1221-1222 Astrolabe with geared calendar made by Muhammad b. Abi Bakr in Isfahan.
1348-1364 Giovanni de Dondi constructs planetarium-clock, earliest known gearwork device of comparable complexity to Antikythera Mechanism.
Easter 1900 Sponge divers from Symi discover the shipwreck at Antikythera
1900 (November) Salvage operations begin under government supervision
1900 (December) First fragments of the Ephebe recovered
1901 (probably July) Mechanism comes out of the sea
1901 (September) salvage operations cease
1902 (May) Mechanism identified within the Museum by Spyridon Stais (Saturday May 18, Julian calendar)
1902 (June) Mechanism fragments put on public display
1903 Svoronos publishes his book on the shipwreck
1905 Conservation work on the fragments
1905-1906 Rehm studies the fragments
1906 Rehm’s lecture about the Planetarium read in Athens
1934 Theofanidis gives a lecture at the Academy of Athens and present his model
1953 Cousteau reestablishes the location of the Antikythera wreck
1953 Conservation work at the National Archaeological Museum
1958 Price studies Mechanism in the Museum
1959 Price publishes in “Scientific American”
1971-1972 Karakalos makes radiographs of the Mechanism
1974 Price publishes “Gears from the Greeks”
1976 Cousteau dive at Antikythera
1990 First results from Bromley’s and Wright’s research
1995 Publication by Wright-Bromley-Magou
2005 (September) Wright presents his model with Planetarium, while the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project begins with the PTM surface imaging technique
2005 (October) The “Blade Runner” CT scanner arrives in Athens. New inscriptions revealed through X-rays
2006 (November) First publication in “Nature” about the Mechanism, coincides with international conference
2008 (July) Second publication in “Nature” about the Mechanism, coincides with Olympic Games
2011 (October) Presentation of the Hublot “Antikythera” movement at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris
2012 (April) Antikythera Shipwreck exhibition in Athens
2012 (October) Divers from the Hellenic Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution go back at the Antikythera Shipwreck. New artefacts recovered.
2013 (October) Second dive at the Antikythera Shipwreck by the Ephorate and Woods Hole team. Discovery of a possible second shipwreck
2014 (September) The “Return to Antikythera” expedition begins
2015 (June and September) Next two seasons of the “Return to Antikythera” expedition
2016 (May) Next season of the “Return to Antikythera” expedition
2016 (June) Publication of the full corpus of inscriptions of the Antikythera Mechanism.