Apparently there were three other similar planetarium-like, mechanical devices known to have been in existence and two were confirmed to have been constructed by Archimedes. Two were located in Rome 30 years later than the estimated date of the shipwreck and the third, was owned by Posidonius (astronomer, philosopher, etc).
The Antikythera mechanism was the fourth known device of the era.
Most of Archimedes' manuscripts, (including some 'blueprints'), relating to the constructions of his inventions survived following the burning of the Library of Alexandria (starting from 48 BC). One can only wonder what else may have been lost from these fires.
I wouldn't mind betting that the Chinese had similar technologies (obviously developed completely independently), from perhaps even earlier than Archimedes' day (287 - 212 BC). They were real sea-farers and thus had practical motivations for compiling detailed Astronomical predictive technologies.
Fascinating stuff. Love to know more about the Chinese side of it all but the various political entities in China appears to have, (perhaps), destroyed all records of it, down through the ages.
Another interesting take-home is that human intelligence capable of constructing these kinds of detailed mechanisms, has clearly been around for at least this long. Interesting that the precision of such mechanisms disappeared for about 20 centuries (from the historical record) and didn't resurface again until the 19th Century, though.
Perhaps Archimedes et al had assistance from 'the others' ! (X-files stuff.. just kidding).
Cheers
PS: Above info sourced from Wiki.
