Valerios Stais

unremarkable enough that it sat largely ignored in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens for nearly a year.

Then, in May of 1902, an archaeologist named Valerios Stais noticed something embedded in the corrosion that didn't belong in any statue or vessel.

A gear wheel, its teeth still visible, fused into the bronze.

For decades afterward, most scholars simply couldn't accept what that implied.