16th Century Mechanical Monk

Rowan · Post by **Rowan** » Mon November 5th, 2012, 2:42 pm

I discovered this on another forum and thought it very interesting. This isn't a news article, per se, but an essay on this particular little robot-like mannequin.

In the Smithsonian Institution is a sixteenth-century automaton of a monk, made of wood and iron, 15 inches in height. Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies. From time to time, he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. After over 400 years, he remains in good working order. Tradition attributes his manufacture to one Juanelo Turriano, mechanician to Emperor Charles V. The story is told that the emperor's son King Philip II, praying at the bedside of a dying son of his own, promised a miracle for a miracle, if his child be spared. And when the child did indeed recover, Philip kept his bargain by having Turriano construct a miniature penitent homunculus. Looking at this object in the museum today, one wonders: what did a person see and believe who witnessed it in motion in 1560? The uninterrupted repetitive gestures, to us the dead giveaway of a robot, correspond exactly in this case to the movements of disciplined prayer and trance.

Full essay

DianeL · Post by **DianeL** » Mon November 5th, 2012, 3:01 pm

Fantastic - thank you for that link. The pics are intriguing. I never get over how great (and how OLD) human ingenuity really is.

I'm put in mind of the Electronic Monk, from one of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently novels. Hee.

Rowan · Post by **Rowan** » Mon November 5th, 2012, 8:55 pm

I think humans have always been smarter than people who love aliens are willing to give them credit for.

annis · Post by **annis** » Tue November 6th, 2012, 3:33 am

The little monk is very cool, but humans have been playing with robots for centuries. Early Chinese and Greek sources mention automata of diferent sorts and Leonardo da Vinci designed a humanoid automaton in the form of an armoured knight in the 15th century. He was beaten to it, though, by Al-Jazari, an Islamic mechanical engineering genius of the late 12th century who created many automata, including a humanoid one.

DianeL · Post by **DianeL** » Wed November 7th, 2012, 12:21 am

annis, I think that's the point Rowan and I are making - not that this single item is an anomaly, but that it is a great example against the snobbery of history formed most particularly by Whig historians who created a construct that history is a sort of line of progress from bad to good, and that ultimately we'll get it right and be perfect - whereas in any given now and any given point in history, looking backward, mankind is regressively savage the farther you look.

It's a form of bigotry I personally find offensive and incredibly stupid, because it posits any given "now" as being somehow superior to all the time preceding. What a shortsighted and foolish position to take - and how little one can learn from a history they're busily looking down upon.

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Wed November 7th, 2012, 2:59 pm

Well said, Diane! I believe that ancient civilizations were far more advanced than modern scholars give them credit for.

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Wed November 7th, 2012, 10:03 pm

[quote=""annis""]The little monk is very cool, but humans have been playing with robots for centuries. Early Chinese and Greek sources mention automata of diferent sorts and Leonardo da Vinci designed a humanoid automaton in the form of an armoured knight in the 15th century. He was beaten to it, though, by Al-Jazari, an Islamic mechanical engineering genius of the late 12th century who created many automata, including a humanoid one.[/quote]

Even earlier in the 1C a Greek engineer in Alexandria named Hero (or Heron) created a number of fascinating machines and automata including "an entirely mechanical play almost ten minutes in length, powered by a binary-like system of ropes, knots, and simple machines operated by a rotating cylindrical cogwheel. The sound of thunder was produced by the mechanically-timed dropping of metal balls onto a hidden drum." Pagan priests commissioned a number of "miracles" from him including a flying chariot and a door that opened "by itself." Fascinating guy. I believe someone uses him as a major character in a series of historical mysteries, but haven't read them.