Saturday, 3 June 2023

Reverse Engineering

 






























Back in Athens after my mini-odyssey around Folegandros, Sikinos and Syros, I had a little time to spare, and my good friend and fellow writer Jane Cochrane had recommended I should pay a visit to the Kotsanas Museum, not far from Syntagma.


Basically, it's a place of miracles where the technological achievements of ancient Greece – dating back as far as 2000BC – are brought back to stunning life.


I was primarily interested in the musical intruments: the lyres, the percussion items and the world's first keyboard. 


But the really mindblowing exhibits were the re-creations of things that I never knew existed: such as an alarm clock, a door with an intruder alert, an automated theatre, and a female robot wine-server.


They were based on "simple" principles involving water, air and sand – no electricity, no pollution, no waste. They were all things largely left behind by "progress". Truly amazing.

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