Ancient Greek computers, clocks and robots - museum recreates precursors of modern technology

Record ID: 1458678

  • Title: Ancient Greek computers, clocks and robots - museum recreates precursors of modern technology
  • Date: 18th February 2020
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (FEBRUARY 13, 2020) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Greek) MUSEUM DIRECTOR MINA MITSOMPONOU, SAYING: "The aeolosphere of Heron could have resulted in the industrial revolution two thousand years before. That means that if the social, economic, and political conditions had allowed it, this specific invention could have given us the first steam engine." ATHENS, GREECE
  • Embargoed: 3rd March 2020 12:13
  • Keywords: Greece ancient Greek inventions museum technology
  • Location: ATHENS, GREECE
  • City: ATHENS, GREECE
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: Science
  • Reuters ID: LVA004C153Y3D
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:When you hear the word robot, it usually brings a futuristic science fiction movie to mind. But the ancient Greeks were making robots thousands of years ago - and computers, and alarm clocks, and automatic doors.
    More than 100 inventions of the ancient Greeks, seen as the ancestors of modern technology, have been recreated in the Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology in Athens, highlighting unknown aspects of ancient Greek life.
    "By just opening up the hood of a modern car, you will see bolts and nuts, screws, automatic pilots - all of these were just some of the inventions originally invented by the ancient Greeks that were the building blocks of complex technology," said Panagiotis Kotsanas, exhibition director and engineer.
    Kotsanas' father, Kostas Kotsanas, is the founder of the museum and a mechanical engineer, who recreated all the inventions with his two sons.
    The automatic servant of Philon from the 3rd century BC, is a life-size robot that could pour drinks through a mechanism using springs, weight, and air pressure. It held a jug in its right hand. If one placed a cup in the left hand the robot poured from the jug, and when the cup was full, it stopped. It could also dilute the wine with water as desired, as the ancient Greeks drank it.
    The automatic doors of Heron of Alexandria were considered a miracle of the gods by the ancient Greek faithful. Through the use of a device buried beneath the ground of a temple, when a fire burned on the sacrificial altar in front of the temple, a mechanism using water, air pressure and weights, triggered by the fire in the altar, forced open the doors of the temple, awing its spectators, who thought it was an act of their mythological gods.
    The two thousand year old Antikythera mechanism is defined as the first analogue computer. A complex mechanism of dials and gears was used to determine and forecast astronomical and calendar events.
    The philosopher Plato's alarm clock, was also a hydraulic system of ceramic jugs full of water which worked through air pressure to 'ring' with a chirping sound at the desired time.
    The Aeolosphere of Heron is considered the ancestor to the steam engine, which drove the industrial revolution more than a thousand years later.
    The hydraulic clock of Ktesibios operated without human intervention and told the time on a 24 hour basis.
    The mobile automatic theatre of Heron of Alexandria portrayed a festival of Dionysos, the mythological god of wine. The figures moved while fire lit on the altar and water and wine flowed.
    Fifty-seven year old Kotsanas, spent 22 years researching and building the remakes. Kotsanas inspiration came after attending a poetry reading of modern and ancient Greek poetry while a student at university.
    He travelled the world and studied ancient Greek, Latin and Arabic texts, as well as ancient artefacts, to recreate the inventions.
    (Production: Vassilis Triandafyllou, Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
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