Ancient Artificial Mysteries

Talos the first Robot
(Vase showing Hephaestos at his flying chariot)
Hephaestos was the Greek Lord of the fire. He mastered the secrets of the iron forging which he combined with technical knowledge permitting him to make weapons for the Gods, as the shield of Goddess Athina and the thunder of Zeus. In the same way he was able to make automatic anthropoids which in the form of Golden Women helped him in his workshop.

(Vase showing Zeus as a bull with Europa)
According to mythology, Zeus fell in love with princess Europe of Phoenicia. So, he turned into a white bull with firm body, golden horns and innocent eyes and tricked the princess and her friends who were peaking flowers. He brought Europe to Crete and, as tokens of his love, he gave to the girl: giant Talos to protect the island, a quiver of arrows that always succeeded in hitting their goal and a golden dog as her guardian angel. Mythology claims that Zeus and Europe were united in the area of Gortys, under a plane tree which became evergreen, or at Diktaion Andron where the nymphs had prepared the bridal bed. Zeus and Europe bore three sons: Radamanthys, Sarpedon and king Minos.

(Click at the pictures for full size)

(Scripture from the Argonautica Book IV, ll. 1638-1653)
...And Talos, the man of bronze, as he broke off rocks from the hard cliff, stayed them from fastening hawsers to the shore, when they came to the roadstead of Dicte's haven. He was of the stock of bronze, of the men sprung from ash-trees, the last left among the sons of the gods; and the son of Cronos gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete and to stride round the island thrice a day with his feet of bronze. Now in all the rest of his body and limbs was he fashioned of bronze and invulnerable; but beneath the sinew by his ankle was a blood-red vein; and this, with its issues of life and death, was covered by a thin skin...
So Talos, for all his frame of bronze, yielded the victory to the might of Medea the sorceress. And as he was heaving massy rocks to stay them from reaching the haven, he grazed his ankle on a pointed crag; and the ichor gushed forth like melted lead; and not long thereafter did he stand towering on the jutting cliff. But even as some huge pine, high up on the mountains, which woodmen have left half hewn through by their sharp axes when they returned from the forest -- at first it shivers in the wind by night, then at last snaps at the stump and crashes down; so Talos for a while stood on his tireless feet, swaying to and fro, when at last, all strengthless, fell with a mighty thud.

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Relevant Technological Mysteries : Daedalus flying machines

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