The exhibition “Greece and Technology: a Perspective through Time” will open for visitors on 12 November and will run through the beginning of January 2009. The purpose is to present to the public recent scientific findings which verify the theory that ancient Greeks created and used technological devices fairly advanced for their time. During the exhibition a series of lectures will take place till the end of the year.

       One of them will focus on the Antikythera Mechanism, the only preserved ancientastronomic calculator, known as “the computer from Antikythera” as well. It was found off the Greek island and named after it. The mechanism could not only calculate the dates of lunar and sun eclipse but make up calendars and set the dates appropriate for the beginning of the Olympic games and other Pan-Hellenic events. 

       Analogues of the Antikythera Mechanism have not been recorded in science so far.

Several references to such instruments can be found in the ancient literature. For example, there is a description by Cicero of a device made by Archimedes. “The computer” found at the sea bottom in 1990 which survived up to the present is unique. The exhibition aims at disproving the generally shared view that ancient Greeks did not have good connections with technology.

        Systematic and intensive research of authentic material concerning technology either in the form of techno-texts or technological product relics has started recently. The results from this research have already transformed completely what was previously thought about the ancient Greek technology and proved that in fact, it promoted the origin and development of science.

       Most impressing the exhibition highlights that a lot of the 2000 year old inventions still function today on the basis of the same main principles, as for example, the suction pump. This exhibition possesses the potential not only to bust the myth that ancient Greeks were not good at technology but to turn it upside down and prove that they were quite inventive.

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