Antiquitypunk? Anyone? Anyone?

Steampunk.

It's a popular genre and has been for quite some time now. Some might say it's past it's heyday. I don't know about that. I plant to write a steampunk series sometime in the next year so I hope that isn't true. Even if it were in some peoples' minds, publishing is different now so you can pretty much write anything you want and someone will want to read it, no matter how "out of style" the genre may be.

In any case, I don't think the steampunk sub-genre will ever truly go out of style. I follow a fellow on Facebook, Daniel Proulx, who creates steampunk jewelry. He also posts a lot of wonderful steampunk conceptual art pieces that he finds on to his FB page. Here are a few of my favorites:

But it got me wondering yesterday. That and an interview I was listening to on the Adventures of SciFi Publishing podcast about something older - antiquitypunk. Ancient people's used machines often to tell time, seasons and to study the stars. There are other ancient machines as well that I can't recall the names of at the moment. Oh, there's a famous archeological find called the Antikythera Mechanism that comes to my mind.

What would antiquitypunk look like? What would it be like? what kind of stories could populate such a world? Perhaps ancient flying balloons instead of dirigibles? Or mechanical bow and arrows that shoot arrows of fire that explode on impact, like bunker-busters? Or mechanical horses and chariots? Wooden and metal submarines? Airplanes shaped like birds, made of wood with wings of linen? I don't know. There's a lot to think about. It just gets me thinking that perhaps I should write a short story involving this sub-genre just mostly as a place holder for future ideas.

Anyone else out there have any ideas?