DECODING THE WORLD’S FIRST COMPUTER

Partners: Images First, distributed by Electric Sky

Length: 52 minutes

Airing: 2012

Rights available: Worldwide excluding Japan, France, Germany and Greece

In 1901, a group of divers near the island of Antikythera, off the Southern coast of Greece, found an ancient Roman shipwreck that uncovered many treasures, but the true value of one mysterious object – a lump of calcified stone that contained within it several gearwheels practically welded together by years under the sea – would be revealed by a 10-year effort by an international team of scientists. The 2,000-year-old object, no bigger than a modern laptop, is actually being regarded as the world’s oldest computer, devised to predict solar eclipses and, according to recent findings, calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics.

This program follows the efforts of scientists to uncover the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism, revealing surprising and awe-inspiring details of the object that continues to mystify.