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Ancient Greek Technology by Elias Sfetsos source: Ancient Technology 11/29/2002
Who
said that the robots, the automatic doors and the locomotive are
technological advances of the
second millennium? Definitely not! The pieces of information that keep
surfacing prove what has been, for some decades, common knowledge among
researchers: in Ancient Greece, people like Daedalus and Gods like
Hephaestus developed techniques and operated inventions that a lot of
inventors of our days would have been proud of. Talos The
famous Talos (in the ancient Cretan dialect it means sun), was a fully
operational robot, built by Hephaestus as a gift for Minos, King of Crete.
Talos was made of copper and was huge. It protected Crete from her enemies
and supervised the application of laws. It could move very fast and was
capable of touring Crete 3 times in a single day (medium speed 250 km/h!).
It had the power to throw enormous rocks against his opponents or to burn
them with his boiling hot breath! In this way it drove back the hostile
boats, protecting the island. Automatic doors
Heronas
of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician, engineer and inventor of the
first century BC. He initially worked as shoemaker but he eventually
decided to explore his ideas. He is better known as an engineer for his
hydraulic mechanisms, simple machines and automations, but he was also an
important mathematician of his time. He served as a director of the famous
Technical School of Alexandria (maybe the world’s first polytechnic
university). Air and water pumps
Ctesibius
liked music and had an idea of using waterpower for his music creations.
He made the first 'armonion'. This was pumping air through pipes! Talking
about musical instruments, it would be an omission to not mention
Pythagoras. He meditated the relation of the music to the mathematics and
found some rules that make the making of musical instruments much easier.
He managed to express the musical harmony with mathematic rules through
his philosophical and scientific approach. The piston pub was also used by Ctesibius to pump water or air. He used it mainly for his prototype 'armonion' but also to other machines. These pubs were used in many constructions since then. They can pump water or air depending on the accuracy of the construction. In many applications we can find them in use until today, because of their simplicity and their reliability.
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Ancient
technology was naturally placed in the service of religion! When a
believer was making an offertory to a God, the God should thank him, no
matter the hour of the day! Otherwise, perhaps the believer would turn to
another God (there were many at those days) and some priests would loose
the “benefits” of servicing their God . So, with the help of
technology, certain doors opened automatically when the fire was lit on
the altar and even certain statues began moving!
Ctesibius
(fl. 2nd century B.C.), a Greek Alexandrian, was described as a mechanical
genius whose inventiveness was limited only by the restrictions of the
world he lived in. He was the son of a barber but the highly technical
environment of Alexandria of this time helped him to leave the barbershop
soon.