 They call it the world's first computer, but what if it's one of many computers from an advanced civilization and this device represents lost technology. In this sense, it's the last computer of the ancient past. We are still struggling to understand our history, but it's not a mystery that there was machines in ancient times. It is foretold in many different texts that machines did in fact exist. Perhaps these machines were the last working remnants of an advanced civilization. The passage of time has always been a preoccupation of human beings, whether it be a question of satisfying basic needs such as when to eat and sleep, the importance of seasons for migratory and agricultural purposes, or a more sophisticated measuring of time into defined periods of weeks, days, and hours. The earliest method of measuring time for our current so-called advanced society was through observations of the celestial bodies. The sun, moon, stars, and the five planets known in antiquity, the rising and setting of the sun, the solstice, phases of the moon, and the position of particular stars and constellations have been used in all ancient civilizations to determine particular activities. For example, Egyptian and Minoan buildings were often constructed in orientation to the rising sun or aligned to observe particular stars. Some of our earliest texts, such as those by Homer and Hesiod around the 8th century BCE, describes the use of stars to specifically determine the best periods to sail and farm, advice which remains valid today. The world's oldest known computer lay submerged for more than 2,000 years off the treacherous coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Beneath the weight of the water, the sand, and the wrecked ship that once carried it, the ancient astronomical computer's bronze gears and mechanical parts slowly warped and rusted. At the turn of the 20th century, a group of fishermen happened upon the wreck and its decaying treasures while diving after their evening meal. One of the fishermen swam back to his crewmates, clutching a bronze arm, the first find from the Antikythera wreckage to resurface. Two years later, in 1902, Spiridon Stais visited the museum that housed the recovered treasures from the wreck. Stais, a Greek politician, had orchestrated the ship's underwater excavation. In the midst of the coins, sculptures, and pottery, a green rusted lump of metal caught his eye. It was a piece of the ancient computer which became known as the Antikythera Mechanism. For several decades, scientists had been using x-rays and CT scans to look inside the ancient mechanism and reconstruct what it probably looked like when it was first made. We say probably because they don't know for sure. In fact, you could say this information is patchwork at best, but at least it is still revealing its secrets bit by bit. We now know that the clock-sized device contained an elaborate collection of some 30 interlocking spinning gears that control dials tracking the sun, the moon, eclipses, planets, and the schedule for the Olympics. A crank jutting from the device's frame spun the gears. It is unknown if this could have been a perpetual motion mechanism, but it is still possible. The cranked moved the hands on the dial, allowing the user to accurately predict eclipses and the passage of celestial bodies through the sky. Nothing as sophisticated or even close appears again for more than a thousand years later from the proposed dating of the object. It is sensational to consider this ancient machine to be a computer system, but that is exactly what it was. It was a mechanical functioning computer. For this period in history, we know it is light years ahead of its time with the dating of this object done so through the Olympic Games events that it kept track of. But if this object was so ahead of its time, then why was it one of a kind and why was it being transported? It would appear that the mechanism was a technology from a more advanced and indeed ancient civilization, yet it accounts for the time period. Are we missing something? Researchers don't know for certain the device's purpose or who used it, but the fact is this device existed long before clocks were developed. In fact, this was unknown when clocks were being developed. Yet it exists. When it comes to the hunt for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that might exist across the cosmos, one must reckon with the knowledge that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. In contrast, complex life has existed on Earth's surface for only about 400 million years and humans have developed industrial civilizations and only the past 300 years. This raises the possibility that industrial civilizations might have been around long before human ones ever existed, not just around other stars, but even on Earth itself. It is believed that the device is an ancient astronomy calculator that shows the four-year cycle of the early Greek competitions that inspired today's Olympic Games. Inscriptions on the device list names linked to the Olympiad cycle of games. The first clues that suggested a link with the ancient cycle of Greek Games came when the word Namia was read near a small subsidiary dial on the mechanism. The Namian Games was one of the crowned games in the Olympiad cycle. Other names were also found which include Esthemia for the games at Corinth, Pythia for the games at Delphi, and the word Olympia for the Olympic Games. Like astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes whose work on the complex motion of the moon seems to feature in the mechanism, could it connection exist with mechanical wonders in the island of Rhodes and indeed Crete for that matter? At some point this ancient computer was loaded onto a cargo ship bound from Rhodes to Rome, perhaps for a parade organized by Julius Caesar. Social research and reconstruction of a working model of the device in 2006 found that it may not be Greek as formally believed according to nature. It may actually be Babylonian making the device centuries older than previously thought which means that the Babylonians may have played a large role in shaping Greek advancements in astronomy. It is important to note that the Babylonians discovered planets in our solar system thousands of years ago. They knew a Pluto, Neptune and Uranus to name a few. We have only recently discovered these planets relatively recently and of course the depiction and description of the planet X which are still being hunted today was known to this advanced culture. We don't know the truth about this mechanism but it is an exciting prospect that it could be a machine that included knowledge and advancements from a lost civilization. What do you guys think of this anyway? Comments below and as always thank you for watching.