Further Incidents of Travel
(Other bits)

 

	This, perhaps, is a sign (!) of the sort of territory we are involved with. Some "Pyramidiot"  has defaced the official sign, removing the quote marks around "Pyramid" and the word TOWER here (but only in English). Presumably they thought it makes it more Pyramid-like.
		Nothing to do with 'mids but a Very Strange thing none the less. I've been reading about this for many years, every book about archaeological anomalies quotes this device and in amongst the bronzes at Athens Museum, without any special mention, lurks this ancient machine.
The small plaque on it dates it to around 80 BC and it was found in a ship wreck. The glass casing got the better of the auto-focus on the camera but hopefully you can see this is not a run-of-the-mill Classical Era utensil. It seems to have concentric dials and remnants of something like a clockwork mechanism, comprising dozens of tiny gears. As it was found on a ship it seems reasonable to assume it is some sort of calculator, likely used for determining position, although the clock-like appearance hints at further possibilities.