I wonder how important it is to have people who can apply a technology into something that is useful to people. Many technologies were adopted, such as fire, ax

I wonder how important it is to have people who can apply a technology into something that is useful to people. Many technologies were adopted, such as fire, axe-making, house-building, pottery, perhaps because they were so obviously and immediately useful. But more sophisticated technological development often has several intermediate steps that aren't useful; so I agree that it needs to be valued in itself for progress to occur. The precision machinery of this ancient device was probably used in very few practical products; therefore the skillbase was very fragile and easily lost. Even this ancient device itself would probably only have been used by administrators, who needed to announce the Games. Of course, it also would have been horrendously expensive, in terms of man-hours for creating it, and also in terms of the years of practice required to attain that level of skill. Only kings could afford it; a niche market.