Antikythera wreck

The Antikythera wreck (Greek: ναυάγιο των Αντικυθήρων, romanized: navágio ton Antikythíron) is a Roman-era shipwreck dating from the second quarter of the first century BC.

The wreck yielded numerous statues, coins, and other artifacts dating back to the fourth century BC, as well as the severely corroded remnants of a device many regard as the world's oldest known analog computer, the Antikythera mechanism.

Around Easter 1900, Captain Dimitrios Kondos and his crew of sponge divers from Symi sailed through the Aegean en route to fishing grounds off North Africa.

Shortly thereafter, the men departed as planned to fish for sponges, but at the end of the season they returned to Antikythera and retrieved several artifacts from the wreck.

By the middle of 1901, divers had recovered bronze statues, one named "The Philosopher", the Youth of Antikythera (Ephebe) of c. 340 BC, and thirty-six marble sculptures including Hercules, Odysseus, Diomedes, Hermes, Apollo, three marble statues of horses (a fourth was dropped during recovery and was lost on the sea floor), a bronze lyre, and several pieces of glasswork.

The death of diver Giorgos Kritikos and the paralysis of two others due to decompression sickness put an end to work at the site during the summer of 1901.

[5] The wreck remained untouched until 1953, when French naval officer and explorer Jacques Cousteau briefly visited to relocate the site.

[4] Further evidence for an early first-century BC sinking date came in 1974, when Yale University Professor Derek de Solla Price published his interpretation of the Antikythera mechanism.

In 2012, marine archeologist Brendan P. Foley (formerly of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the United States and since 2017 at Lund University, Sweden) received permission from the Greek government to conduct new dives around the entire island of Antikythera.

[12][13] One extraordinary find is an ancient weapon known as a dolphin, a 100-kilogram (220 lb) lead bulb tipped with an iron spike, intended to be dropped from the ship’s yardarm through the deck and hull of an attacking vessel.

[18] The team also recovered a finely-formed red marble object that may be a sarcophagus lid, and a mysterious bronze disk depicting a bull.

Archaeologist Lorenz Baumer, overseeing the 2022 mission with the University of Geneva, described the Antikythera wreck as "an extremely rich site, the richest in the ancient world".