On the back, two spiral dials tracked the relative positions of the sun and moon, and the dates of solar and lunar eclipses, and showed the dates of the Olympic games.

The ancient Greeks believed that celestial orbits were circular, instead of the elliptical ones we know them to be today. To account for the discrepancies in the moon's movements, the Greek astronomer developed a mathematical model superimposing the motions of overlapping circles, each with a different center. The Antikythera Device uses a "pin and slot" arrangement to exactly reproduce this anomalous motion, so it accurately represents the observed celestial motions and times.

Reflecting this complexity, the 2006 included astrophysicists, radio astronomers, mathematicians and philologists (philology is the study of ancient texts and original documents).

They made use of two advanced technologies to make their discoveries.

supplied a technology to bring out surface details previously unseen. Tom Malzbender, a senior research scientist with HP Labs, and colleagues Dan Gelb and Hans Wolters had developed a digital technique, called reflectance imaging, for re-imaging how light is reflected from a surface. Essentially, it's a computerized version of what most of us have done with the oil dip stick in our car: you hold it up to the light and twist and turn it, until the light shows up the oil film and the inscribed markings.