I had no idea, when I went to see , that the eponymous artefact would turn out to be the Antikythera mechanism (pictured above), the most wondrous creation of the ancient world. The device is mind-blowing: a calculating machine, sometimes called the world’s first computer, that was made in the 1st century BC. Nothing like it would be built for another 1000 years.
When I reviewed Jo Marchant’s riveting account of the discovery of the mechanism, I said it was like an Indiana Jones adventure – and it seems that writer Jez Butterworth agrees. The film is heaps of fun, surprisingly moving and has a wild, sci-fi twist. Co-star Phoebe Waller-Bridge is sensational.
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I’m currently reading Keggie Carew’s , and I’m loving her account of our treatment of animals through the ages, as well as how she argues for non-humans to be granted proper respect and even personhood.
Rowan Hooper
Podcast editor
London
