mch

CHAPTER 5
The Rhodes Calculator
MOST SENSATIONAL discoveries happen by chance, perhaps because
of what we may call the benevolent intervention of the
gods, as long as there is no better explanation for it. And one
such haphazard revelation that simultaneously revolutionized archaeology
and the history of science and technology occurred in
October 1900, without anybody noticing it.
It was the finding by Aegean fishermen of the Rhodes calculator,
or the computer of Antikythera on an ancient sunken Roman
ship. It changed all our ideas about the history of science. It also
started a new science—underwater archaeology—and since I
was one of the very first addicts of the aqualung and deep-sea
diving from the times when all equipment was handmade by the
dedicated few themselves, let me tell you about this discovery in
a little more detail.
On that day in October of 1900 a Greek tartan, a large, singlemasted
Mediterranean ship with a large lateen sail, returning
from a diving expedition along the African coast where it had
been gathering sponges, ran into a stiff southwester and had to
look for a harbor to let the gale blow over. It was a typical Greek
sponge fishermen's rig. Captain Demetrios Condos, a seasoned
veteran of sponge diving, knew that the straits between the islands
of Crete and Antikythera was one of the worst places to be
in a storm. So he pulled fast into the port of Potamos at the