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A new exhibition of 2,000-year-old artefacts retrieved in 1900 from a <a href="https://antikythera.whoi.edu/">shipwreck </a>near the Greek island of Antikythera includes some breathtakingly pristine treasures — such as a bowl made of delicate coils of turquoise, yellow and purple glass, and a miniature golden figure of Eros hanging from an earring set with garnets, an emerald and 20 tiny pearls.</p> <p>The ancient ship is famous for having contained a geared astronomical device from the first century BC, dubbed the <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7119/full/444534a.html">Antikythera mechanism</a>. What’s less well known, however, is that the rest of its cargo is hugely important too: a dizzying collection of items from statues to ships’ nails that provide a unique insight into first-century-BC seafaring and trade.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.antikenmuseumbasel.ch/sonderausstellungen/aktuelle-sonderausstellung/">exhibition</a>, called “The Sunken Treasure: The Antikythera Shipwreck”, includes hundreds of items on loan from Athens’ National Archaeological Museum – the first time they have been permitted to leave Greece – and runs at the Basel Museum of Ancient Art and Ludwig Collection in Switzerland until 27 March 2016.</p> <h2>The journey down</h2> <p>Curator Esaù Dozio and Paris-based exhibition designers Studio Adeline Rispal clearly want to take visitors on a journey. To enter the exhibition, we descend into a black-walled room with elegantly placed bronze and marble statues set against the ocean displayed on a 16-metre-wide screen. According to the notes, we’re in a Roman seaside villa. Around 70 BC, when the Antikythera ship sailed, wealthy Romans loved to decorate their homes with Greek artworks, and commissioned thousands of ships to deliver them from territories in the eastern Mediterranean.</p> <div id="attachment_2557" style="width:640px" class="wpn-caption alignright"><a class="wpn-image-link" href="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/exosuit.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-2557 wpn-image " title="exosuit" alt="The Exosuit" src="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/exosuit.jpg" width="640" height="480" srcset="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/exosuit.jpg 640w, https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/exosuit-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></a><div class="wpn-caption-text"><p class="caption">Photo of the Exosuit, a US$1-million wearable submarine used at Antikythera in 2014, with marble finds from the wreck.</p><p class="credit">Copyright: Jo Marchant</p></div> </div> <p>Then we take a voyage, filing past a model of a Roman cargo vessel, and ship components retrieved from the Antikythera wreck itself, including a bilge pipe, hull planking, bronze nails and rigging rings. Next come cooking pots and oil lamps used on board, and what may have been the belongings of an aristocratic passenger – gold jewellery, and silver coins from Pergamum and Ephesus on the Asia Minor coast. Found near female skeletal remains, these items have sparked stories of a royal bride travelling to Rome with her dowry.</p> <p>We descend a ramp to the sound of whistling wind and emerge on the seabed, another black room with marble statues from the shipwreck artistically arranged on piles of white-painted pebbles. The effect is beautiful yet ghostly. The torso of a horse – one of four that may have formed a chariot group – lies stranded on the stones. Crouching nearby is a naked boy. His head and half of his body (presumably protected over the millennia by being buried in sand) are exquisitely preserved, while his other arm and leg are rough, pitted stumps eaten away by the sea.</p> <p>These marbles date from the first century BC, made of stone from the Aegean island of Paros. Meanwhile bronze statues, held in glass cases against the walls, are thought to date from the second and third centuries BC, already antiques when loaded onto the ship. These are mostly in pieces, including the arm of a boxer with a bandage-wrapped hand, and a philosopher’s head with piercing glass eyes and tousled hair. The missing parts are presumably still buried below the seabed.</p> <div id="attachment_2601" style="width:336px" class="wpn-caption alignright"><a class="wpn-image-link" href="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/mosaic-bowl.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-2601 wpn-image " title="mosaic bowl" alt="Mosaic bowl." src="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/mosaic-bowl.jpg" width="336" height="448" srcset="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/mosaic-bowl.jpg 480w, https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/mosaic-bowl-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px" /></a><div class="wpn-caption-text"><p class="caption">Patterned ‘mosaic’ bowl.</p><p class="credit">Copyright: Jo Marchant</p></div> </div> <p>Other items provide a snapshot of thriving Mediterranean trade: there’s glassware from Alexandria; fragments of a wood-and-bronze couch, probably from the island of Delos; and wine jars from Kos and Rhodes. A small room dedicated to the Antikythera mechanism doesn’t contain the surviving fragments (these are too fragile to leave Athens) but does feature several models – of the mechanism itself and other ancient geared devices, including the <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/archimedes-legendary-sphere-brought-to-life-1.18431">“sphere of Archimedes”</a> described by the Roman writer Cicero.</p> <h2>Technological shifts</h2> <p>The exhibition also nods to the changing technology used to explore the wreck. On the “seabed”, we see a canvas diving suit like the one used by sponge divers to salvage the 55-metre-deep site in 1900; a model of the boat used by marine researcher Jacques Cousteau when he investigated the wreck in 1976; and a giant photograph of the <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/iron-man-like-exosuit-could-expand-ocean-exploration-1.14822">Exosuit</a>, a US$1-million wearable submarine deployed at Antikythera in 2014.</p> <p>That latest project, directed by Brendan Foley of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts with archaeologists from the <a href="https://www.yppo.gr/1/e1540.jsp?obj_id=91">Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities</a>, aims to discover whether any of the ship’s cargo remains buried on the seabed. In September 2015, divers retrieved items including a blue game pawn, sections of a bone flute and pieces of mosaic glass. They hope future excavations might yield more statues, or even another mechanism, to add to the items on display.</p> <p>But the Antikythera collection is opening up in another way too. As well as excavating the wreck site, Foley says he is determined to carry out as many scientific tests as possible, not just on new discoveries but on the existing artefacts. For example, lead isotope analysis on the ship’s hull sheeting should show where it was built, while DNA analysis on the contents of ceramic jugs and jars may reveal the contents of the foodstuffs, medicines and perfumes they held.</p> <div id="attachment_2561" style="width:346px" class="wpn-caption alignleft"><a class="wpn-image-link" href="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/rotating-statuette.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-2561 wpn-image " title="rotating statuette" alt="Bronze statuette discovered by researcher Jacques Cousteau in the 1970s. Its base may have rotated when a key was inserted." src="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/rotating-statuette.jpg" width="346" height="461" srcset="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/rotating-statuette.jpg 480w, https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/files/2015/09/rotating-statuette-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 346px) 100vw, 346px" /></a><div class="wpn-caption-text"><p class="caption">Bronze statuette discovered by researcher Jacques Cousteau in the 1970s. Its base may have rotated when a key was inserted.</p><p class="credit">Copyright: Jo Marchant</p></div> </div> <p>Other possibilities include fracture analysis on the bronze statue pieces to investigate how and when they broke, and X-ray imaging. A prime candidate for X-ray analysis is a bronze statuette discovered by Cousteau’s team in 1976. It stands on a circular base with what looks like a broken-off key on the front. According to the exhibition notes, a mechanical device inside the base rotated the statue when this key was turned. Yet this idea has never been investigated or confirmed. The statue dates from the second century BC, so if X-ray imaging does reveal an internal mechanism, this statuette would trump the Antikythera mechanism as the world’s oldest known geared device.</p> <p>The Basel exhibition is truly stunning, but for me, the most exciting thing about this collection is the paradigm shift now being driven by Foley and his team. Since 1900, these objects have been beautiful but static, seen merely as artworks to be admired and conserved. The introduction of a scientific approach promises to transform them into a dynamic, rich source of new information about this fascinating period of ancient history.</p> <p><b><a href="https://jomarchant.com">Jo Marchant</a> is author of a book about the Antikythera mechanism called <i>Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s Computer</i>.</b> <b>Her next book, <em>Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body</em>, will be published by Canongate in February 2016.</b></p> <p><strong>For Nature Video’s film <em>Building the Sphere of Archimedes</em>, see <a href="https://youtu.be/L6ycFs1waLo"><em>here</em></a>. For <i>Nature’</i>s full coverage of science in culture, visit <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/booksandarts">www.nature.com/news/booksandarts</a>.</strong></p> </div> </section> <div class="wpn-entry-meta"> <aside> <div class="article-tools cleared"> <h2 class="hidden">Article tools</h2> <ul id="wpn-share-post-2527" class="wpn-entry-user-actions"> <li class="wpn-entry-comment-link"><a class="comments-link" href="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/2015/09/29/beyond-the-antikythera-mechanism/#comments" title="Comment on Beyond the Antikythera mechanism">1 Comment</a></li> <li class="sendtofriend"><a href="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/tell-a-friend?id=2527">Email</a></li> <li class="print"><a id="print-link" class="track" href="javascript:window.print();">Print</a></li> <li class="wpn-share-bookmark"> <h3 class="toggle-bookmarking-links">Share/bookmark</h3> <div id="bookmarking-links" class="bookmarking-popup"> <ul class="bookmarking" id="wpn-share-post-2527"> <li class="facebook"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F">Facebook</a></li> <li class="twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/?status=Beyond+the+Antikythera+mechanism+https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F">Twitter</a></li> <li class="delicious"><a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F&title=Beyond+the+Antikythera+mechanism">Delicious</a></li> <li class="digg"><a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F&title=Beyond+the+Antikythera+mechanism">Digg</a></li> <li class="googleplus"><a href="https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F">Google+</a></li> <li class="linkedin"><a href="http://linkedin.com/cws/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F&title=Beyond+the+Antikythera+mechanism">LinkedIn</a></li> <li class="reddit"><a href="http://reddit.com/s/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F">Reddit</a></li> <li class="stumbleupon"><a href="http://stumbleupon.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F&title=Beyond+the+Antikythera+mechanism">StumbleUpon</a></li> </ul> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </aside> </div><nav><div id="wpn-bottom-links" class="top-links cleared"><ul class="wpn-prev-next-article"> <li class="prev wpn-ellipsis"><div><span class="wpn-nav-label">Previous post</span><a href="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/2015/09/25/hunger-games/" rel="prev">Hunger games: food security on stage and screen</a></div></li> <li class="next wpn-ellipsis"><div><span class="wpn-nav-label">Next post</span><a href="https://blogs.nature.com/aviewfromthebridge/2015/10/16/ornithological-photog/" rel="next">The ornithological photographer</a></div></li> </ul></div></nav> </div> </article>  <section> <div class="section expanded cleared" id="comments"> <h1 class="section-heading toggle">Comments</h1> <div class="content">  <ol class="wpn-comment-list comments ugc cleared"> <li id="comment-475" class="wpn-comment wpn-byuser wpn-comment-author-vittorio-tomasi wpn-even wpn-thread-even wpn-depth-1 wpn-role-subscriber wpn-user-vittorio-tomasi wpn-has-avatar box"> <article> <img alt='vittorio tomasi' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a26f61818d72cdd3c3504b0afe3034a6?s=80&d=mm&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a26f61818d72cdd3c3504b0afe3034a6?s=160&d=mm&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-80 photo' height='80' width='80' /> <div class="wpn-comment-meta wpn-upper"><p class="datetime"><time datetime="2015-10-08T12:28:12+01:00" pubdate><abbr class="published" title="2015-10-08T12:28:12+0100">October 8, 2015 12:28 pm</abbr></time></p><p class="moderation"> <a class="report" href="?action=report&comment=475#comment-475">Report this comment</a> </p> </div><dl> <dt><span class="comment-author vcard"><cite class="fn">vittorio tomasi</cite> said: </span></dt> <dd><p> For several centuries Athens on sea was invincible. From Salamis battle to Arginuses the Athens navy in a number often largely lower with respect to enemy one, conquered victories that decided the sort of wars. Antykythera device may contribute to explain Atens superiority. I speculate that by using the device navy admirals were able to forecast moon effects on tides often inducing enemies navy to shipwreck on rocks.</p> </dd> </dl><div class="wpn-comment-meta wpn-lower"> </div>  </article> </li> </ol>  <ol class="after-comments"><div id="wp-temp-form-div"> <p class="must-log-in">You need to <a href="https://idp.nature.com/login/natureuser/?target=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nature.com%2Faviewfromthebridge%2F2015%2F09%2F29%2Fbeyond-the-antikythera-mechanism%2F%3Fcookie-test%3D0">log in</a> or <a href="https://idp.nature.com/register/natureuser">register</a> to comment.</p> </div></ol> </div> </div></section>  </div> <div class="col" id="extranav"> <div id="wpn-primary" class="wpn-id-primary sidebar aside"> <div id="wpn-about-blog" class="current-issue-box"><div class="wrap"><h1 class="wpn-archived wpn-expander">About this blog</h1> <div>A View from the Bridge is the blog for Books and Arts, culture hub of the top international science journal Nature. 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