This half hour film is a detective story, following a group of innovative British engineers based in Tring as they travel to Greence to crack open the secrets of the ancient and now famous Antikythera Mechanism. In a museum in Athens, lie the remains of an extraordinary machine, found by Greek sponge divers off the small island of Antikythera. It was created by an ancient genius more than 2,000 years ago. This is the story of how 21st century engineers uncovered the deepest secrets of the mechanism. Known as the Antikythera Mechanism, it is now split into many corroded bronze fragments.

This half hour film is a detective story, following a group of innovative British engineers based in Tring as they travel to Greence to crack open the secrets of the ancient and now famous Antikythera Mechanism. In a museum in Athens, lie the remains of an extraordinary machine, found by Greek sponge divers off the small island of Antikythera. It was created by an ancient genius more than 2,000 years ago. This is the story of how 21st century engineers uncovered the deepest secrets of the mechanism. Known as the Antikythera Mechanism, it is now split into many corroded bronze fragments. It was created in ancient Greece and it is one of the most extraordinary finds in history. It is a remarkable landmark in the history of science and technology, which has attracted huge interest and controversy, ever since its discovery in 1901. What did it do? How did it work? What was it for?

Research over more than a hundred years had begun to unravel its essence as an astronomical calculating machine of great complexity, but much confusion remained. This film shows how a dedicated and close-knit team of X-ray engineers managed to gather crucial 3D X-ray data that led to an astonishing solution to the gearing of the Mechanism as well as many other discoveries. The team used high-resolution 3D X-rays to probe its hidden secrets and an astonishing picture emerged: it was an eclipse predictor; it followed the variable motion of the Moon; it showed the cycle of athletic games in ancient Greece; and it tracked all five planets known in ancient times. This research was the result of a close collaboration between the X-ray engineers of pioneering company, X-Tek Systems, and a new team of research scientists, known as the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. (Original English version with German Subtitles)