Deeply mysterious
The human urge for personal hygiene has had many improbable side-effects, and I can confidently assert that through the ages, sponge-divers have punched consistently above their weight. Bronze-age tools, 10th-century Islamic glassware, a Byzantine ship whose plunge to the bottom was cushioned by the fourth-century Roman wreck it alighted upon, anchors, amphorae, sculpture: if it’s down there, they’ll bring it up. And so, around Easter 1900, there they were, waiting out the bad weather in the shelter of Potamós on Antikythera, a small island northwest of Crete. They decided to use their time profitably, took an exploratory plunge, and one of them, Ilias Lykopantis, discovered a life-size bronze arm, subsequently