What the heck is the Antikythera Mechanism?

I was visiting David Crook's sight and he had a fabulous link to a report by Nature about the Antikythera Mechanism. Intrigued by the greeky sounding name I watched the video and was blown away (although, I shouldn't have been since we know those ancient Greeks were smarty pants). Anyway, what you need to know is that in the early 1900's, divers off the coast of a Greek Island were pulling up sponges off the sea floor when they found a whole treasure trove of greek statuary from two millennia ago. In the middle of all their findings was this odd ball thing encrusted with minerals that no one gave too much attention. Hey, who can look at that ball of crusty stuff when Zeus is standing nearby. Well, finally people started to pay attention to the crusty thing and has the xrayed and prodded they found a mechanism. A mechanism that calculated eclipses, time and even the olympic games. It is magnificent. I suggest you give it a watch you will be astounded.

Antikythera Mechanism