Question

The following passage is adapted from an essay on underwater archaeology and ancient technology.

In the spring of 1900, a crew of Greek sponge divers led by Captain Dimitrios Kontos was forced by a sudden storm to anchor off Point Glyphadia on the remote island of Antikythera. While waiting for the weather to clear, diver Elias Stadiatis donned his canvas diving suit and descended to a depth of roughly forty-five meters to search the seabed. Instead of sponges, Stadiatis surfaced in a state of visible shock, describing a field of submerged human bodies and horses scattered across the ocean floor. Captain Kontos initially suspected the diver was suffering from nitrogen narcosis, but upon descending himself, he confirmed the presence of an ancient Roman shipwreck filled with bronze and marble sculptures.

Among the artifacts recovered during the subsequent salvage operations directed by the Hellenic Royal Navy was a heavily corroded, calcified mass of bronze that lay unnoticed in a storage crate at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens for nearly two years. In May 1902, archaeologist Valerios Stais examined the fragment after it cracked open, revealing intricate gear wheels and fine Greek inscriptions embedded within its corroded layers. Initial scholars hypothesized that the object was an astrolabe or an astronomical clock, but its true complexity remained elusive due to the fragility of the fragmented brass gears.

Decades later, using advanced X-ray imaging and computed tomography, international researchers reconstructed the device, now known as the Antikythera mechanism. The mechanism contained at least thirty gear wheels driven by a manual crank, capable of tracking the Metonic cycle of 235 synodic months, predicting solar and lunar eclipses, and calculating the dates of the Panhellenic Games. Significantly, the inscription on the front dial referenced a gear train ratio designed to replicate the irregular, elliptical orbit of the Moon—an astronomical principle long thought to have originated with Hipparchus of Rhodes around 150 BCE. The device serves as definitive physical evidence that ancient Greek engineering achieved a degree of mechanical sophistication that was subsequently lost for over a millennium until similar geared clockwork appeared in medieval Europe.

According to the passage, how long did the corroded bronze mass remain unexamined in the museum storage crate prior to Valerios Stais's inspection?