If you were to go calculate for the world ’s first mechanical humanoid , you ’d have to go all the back to ancient Greek mythology .
His name ? Talos , the Isle of Man of bronze .
Talos , as Joe McCormick and I discuss onthis sequence of Stuff to mess up Your Mind , emerged from the taradiddle of Jason and his Argonauts – a band of heroes that in some ways resist as a proto - superhero squad . When our heroes pass the island of Crete , they play a bronze automaton created in the likeness of a valet . There , the bang-up guardian stalk the shore , hurl rocks at unidentified sea vessel and embracing any enemy brave enough to land in an immolating scarlet - hot bear hug .
The origin of Talos varies . Some account name him as the last subsister of an ancient race of bronze men , but the more popular versions attribute his creation to Hephaestus , god of the smithy . Later tellings even cast him as the workplace of Daedalus , the mythic inventor of the Minoan maze and the wings of Icarus .
Wherever he came from , his show in Grecian myth mostly revolves around his demise . Ancient spoiler alert : Jason and the Argonauts were able to overcome the bronze human beings ( key multifariously as a colossus or a human - sized entity ) only with the attention of the sorceress Medea . With trick and deception , she pull a bronze nail from Talos ' blackguard and drain the vital ichor fluid ( or blood of the gods ) from its consistency , reducing the mighty shielder to a heap of lifeless metal .
But as we talk about on the podcast , Talos is far more than a mere oddment amid other narration of graven image and heroes . While myth can bring out much about history and culture , this installment also interest the nature of technology .
On one hand , Talos stands as a potential metaphor for the might of bronze engineering science during the Greek Bronze Age , stretching from 3200 to 1200 B.C.E. In its loom stature , we see the elect nature of bronze craft at the time , as well as the military prowess of bronze arms . It was an old age of peak bronze technology . The might of nations depended upon this long-lasting admixture .
All ages come to an remnant , however , and historian believe that the encroacher who attacked Greece from the north around 1200 B.C.E. used iron weapons . So it ’s possible that this is a tale of the transition from bronze to iron , with Talos ' destruction typify the destruction of bronze superiority .
Talos is something exceptional , even to modern human race . He ’s the shape of technological accomplishment and divine power intertwine in a single mythic being . And , as classics professor Merlin Peris pointed out in his1971 paperdiscussing the " Abominable Bronze mankind " :
This slayer robot stares back at us from the mist of ancient human civilization , speculate the attitude of its time but also challenge us to regard the ramification of esthetic and technical creative activity . What are the limits of the forward-looking Talos ' might ? How terrible is its embracement ?
Despite the never - ending barrage of sci - fi Orcinus orca automaton , these questions stay on as enthralling as ever .
