Although the device was extensively damaged by its 2000 years at the bottom of the Mediterranean, a reconstruction has been put together. It shows a facility with complex machinery as well as a strong interest in the astronomical problem of the motions of the planets.
Image credit: Joyofmuseums [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons
The ancient Greeks were responsible for such marvels as the catapult and the camera obscura. They invented the astrolabe, a forerunner of the sextant, which aided marine navigation by (among other things) measuring the angle between the horizon and the sun or other celestial bodies. By the end of the first century BCE, they had even invented the odometer, which measured the distance a cart or carriage traveled. So when it comes to engineering, they were no slouches. When it comes to preserving their most advanced inventions for posterity…well, that’s another story. At the beginning of the 20th century, historians were shocked to learn that Greek thinkers had built a rather sophisticated analog computer in the neighborhood of 82 BCE and then, astonishingly, left no record of its existence.