It lay in the museum for some months ...

According to accounts.

... And then it split apart. And when it split apart, the curator noticed the remnants of some small precision gear wheels.

The Antikythera Mechanism was made in about 100BC. It includes some beautiful spiral mechanical calendars, an eclipse predictor, a round thing demonstrating the phases of the moon, and dial telling you when to expect Olympic Games.

They've just published a paper in Nature about it, and the video is here. But if you read the letter, you get an idea of how difficult making sense of it really was.

I have a horrible cold, and apart from my runny nose, I'm a bit too ready to curl up and prickle or burst into tears and rant. Luckily, there are more interesting things out there than my cold.