A clockwork machine hailed as the "supercomputer" of the ancient world provided a calendar for the Olympic Games and may have had a link with Archimedes.

The 2,100-year-old device has bemused and bedazzled experts ever since its corroded and calcified bronze wheels and dials were recovered from Roman shipwreck by Greek sponge divers in 1901.

For decades, they speculated that the machine, called the Antikythera Mechanism, was an astronomical calendar, although how it worked was unclear.

In 2006, experts using X-ray computed tomography confirmed the theory by getting a 3D view and used high-resolution imaging to get a close up of tiny letters engraved on the surface.

They figured it was able to estimate a 365-day calendar with the leap day ingeniously included.

In a new study, the sleuths say they have now discovered that one of the dials recorded the dates of the ancient Olympics, possibly to provide a benchmark for the passage of time.