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The Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII had his own unique way of receiving visitors. Next to his
throne squatted golden lions that suddenly came to life: With a ghastly roar they opened their
mouths, flicked their tongues and flapped their tails. The Italian diplomat Liutprand of Cremona was
also treated to the spectacle. The man immediately did as custom dictated: he threw himself
lengthwise to the ground. When he dared to lift his eyes again, the throne together with the emperor
had risen to the ceiling of the hall. In 949 Liutprand was on a business trip in faraway Constantinople,
today's Istanbul. There a world of almost inconceivable wonders opened up to him. The envoy was
still able to explain the Ascension Throne to some extent. Presumably it was a hidden threaded
spindle ("like our wine presses") that raised the monarch. But what secret might the gilded tree hold,
which Liutprand saw with his own eyes? A flock of metal birds chirped in its branches - and each
species performed its typical songs. To a brave Central European such things must have seemed
unearthly. In foreign countries, on the other hand, people had long been accustomed to such
wonders. Similar bird trees existed in the courts of the caliphs in Baghdad and Samarra. The Sultan of
Damascus and several Indian princes were also entertained by artificial singing birds. Franciscan friars
on a mission to the pagans even discovered a magnificent specimen in the palace of a Mongolian
Khan. It almost seems as if every better potentate in the Orient afforded a chirping tree powered by
compressed air. In the Occident, on the other hand, iron ploughshares were already regarded as the
pinnacle of modern technology. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Christianity had fallen
behind for centuries. The Orient, on the other hand, was already well versed in dainty, masterfully
constructed automata in the early Middle Ages. They were usually driven by weights suspended in a
movable manner. Arab engineers designed particularly complicated mechanisms consisting of
hydraulic tubes, valves and rack-and-pinion gears - incomprehensible to the Christians of the time:
How could only these heathens on the edge of the world achieve such miracles? "Contemporaries
did notice that there was a moving mechanism involved," says American historian Elly Truitt. "But
they were unable to recreate such devices. So they resorted to what they were more familiar with as
an explanation: the workings of demons or a favorable constellation of the stars." The mechanical
birds, for instance, may have been built with magical gems. And the singing: perhaps a breath of
wind, directed into the tree by means of spirit conjuration? New mysteries constantly arose.
Charlemagne, for example, received an unheard-of gift from Harun al-Raschid, the Caliph of Baghdad,
in 807 AD: an ingenious water clock with moving figures. On the hour, the appropriate number of
bronze balls fell into a basin, a little door opened, and out came one of twelve small metal horsemen
- what was this if not pure magic? In a just-published book, historian Truitt fathoms for the first time
just how difficult the exotic devices were for the Europeans of the Middle Ages*. Travellers at that
time repeatedly brought news of wondrous artificial beings that seemed to act of their own accord.
And soon occidental poets, too, populated their works with metal archers, talking statues, and other
imagined feats of automata construction. A twelfth-century French heroic hymn imagines
Charlemagne traveling to Constantinople with his retinue. There, King Hugo receives him in an
unprecedentedly magnificent building: when the wind blows, the entire palace turns "like a
cartwheel" around a huge pillar of solid silver. On the ridge of the roof blow * Elly R. Truitt: "Medieval
Robots - Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art". University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia; 256
pages; $55. then two copper robot children blow their horns and smile at each other - "one would
have sworn they were alive," the poet writes. Such creatures of art seemed to blur the line between
life and death. Did they not seem animate? In a French retelling of the Tristan saga, the sad knight
creates a substitute for his unattainable Isolde: a lifelike doll whose hollow chest is filled with
exquisite herbs. Through hidden tubes, the fragrances escape Isolde's mouth - almost like a breath of
soul. And next to the doll, Petitcru, a small automaton dog, wiggles his head and rings his little bell.
The Europeans had no idea of the craft of higher mechanics. They therefore considered the
construction of illusory statues to be a special field of philosophy. Some of the great thinkers of the
time were said to have created robots by virtue of their mental powers. A popular legend at the time
is about the German theologian Albertus Magnus: one day a fellow monk knocks on the door of his
monk's cell. He is invited in - and almost faints. Albertus is not there, there is a talking automaton in
the room. The monk quickly smashes the unchristian machine. Albertus later scolds him bitterly: Only
every 30000 years, the scholar complains, are the stars in the right constellation for such a creature.
Poets at the time were particularly fond of making up stories about talking heads. The English
philosopher Roger Bacon, it was said in one novel, had made one out of brass; the artificial head
could supposedly tell the future. After carefully inspecting the stars, the mathematician Gerbert of
Aurillac, later Pope Sylvester II, succeeded in making a very similar automaton. After his death, it was
said that Gerbert sold his soul to the devil for the prophetic head. Contemporaries always wavered
between admiration and suspicion. Occult powers might have been involved in the construction of
the automaton. And in general: Christian humility and arbitrary pride in creation did not go well
together. The skilled constructors of the Orient, on the other hand, continued a tradition that goes
back to antiquity. As early as 120DER SPIEGEL 26 / 2015 The Robots from the Orient HistoryIn the
early Middle Ages, Oriental inventors were already building artificial songbirds, predators and
servants. The Occident looked with suspicion at the incomprehensible automata. A mechanical
waitress on rollers independently filled the glasses of the table guests with wine. 121 In the third
century B.C., the Greek mechanic Ctesibius invented compressed air catapults, water-powered
organs and pneumatic singing birds. His successors came up with many more devices - sc haften -
playfully learning to harness the workings of natural forces. When the ancient culture sank, the Arabs
in particular took over the legacy of the unselfconscious tinkerers. In the twelfth century, the
inventor al-Jasari designed a magnificently powerful elephant clock (see diagram), which is one of the
most ingenious devices of the era. The master also left behind a manual for the construction of
numerous devices - from ladles to water games to an automatic waitress on rollers who poured wine
for the table guests by means of built-in levers and pulleys. In the Christian Middle Ages, however,
the ancient engineering spirit was thoroughly forgotten. It was not until the 13th century that
European craftsmen gradually dared to try out trickier devices. The famous gardens of Hesdin, a
castle park in the far north of France, offered a kind of showcase. The powerful Count Robert II of
Artois had the latest amusement technology installed here - the first automata in the West were to
be found in the extensive grounds. Today, nothing remains of the old splendour; the other magic
machines of the Middle Ages have all been lost. At that time, however, the gardens of Hesdin were
considered a small wonder of the world. Visitors were in for unheard-of surprises at every turn:
mechanical monkeys wrapped in real badger skins waved from the trees. Bridges suddenly gave way
when stepped on, causing walkers to plop into the pond. Statues began to speak or make faces.
Anyone who touched hidden switches was splashed with water and dusted with flour or soot. The
modern amusement park was already announced in the carnival of Hesdin - of course, it was mainly
the initiates who had the pleasure: They laughed at the unsuspecting who fell for the crude fun
mechanics. In general, progress in the construction of automobiles had brought with it a certain
disenchantment: where once higher magic had been at work, one now saw cogwheels, cable pulls
and valves. Miraculous works of art had turned into simple apparatuses. And the free play of ideas
was soon followed by the seriousness of a new age: with the invention of the wheel clock, a
completely different kind of automaton took over the reins - in the service of synchronisation and
efficiency. Manfred Dworschak Mail: [email protected]