In the year 1900, a crew of sponge divers was looking for sponges off of the coast of the Greek island of Antikythra.

While they were searching, they found the remains of an ancient shipwreck.

The wreck contained over 30 marble statues, some pieces of glasswork, some coins, and a

corroded metal object that nobody could identify.

75 years later, using new technology, they discovered what the hunk of metal was designed for.

Learn more about the antichithro mechanism and how it forever changed our view of the ancient world

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. I'm going to As with most archaeological discoveries, the antichithro wreck was totally discovered by accident.

It was the year 1900 and a Greek ship that was heading to hunt for sponges in North Africa

took shelter near the island of Antichithra during a storm.

Antichithra is located between the island of Crete and mainland Greece.

And in Greek it simply means the opposite of Kythra, which is the name of the larger island nearby.

Anti-Kythra has always been a pretty small island. During the Ottoman period, they never even bothered to conquer it because it was so small it wasn't deemed to be worth their time.

While the Greek sponge divers were there, they decided to dive down to see if they could find any sponges.

One of the divers, Elias Stadiatis, went down at one site that was 45 meters deep or about 150 feet.

They were diving with those old-timey diving helmets and canvas suits that were attached to an air hose of the surface.

As soon as he got down to the bottom, he signaled back to the men on the boat that he needed

the surface.

When he got to the surface, he was terrified.

He spoke of seeing piles of corpses and horses littering the sea floor.

To be fair there isn't a whole lot of light at 150 feet below the surface and he was

wearing a diving helmet and he also wasn't totally wrong.

He did see bodies and horses.

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