In the Homeric Epics, important references to specific autonomous
systems and mechanisms of very advanced technology, such as automata and
artificial intelligence, as well as to almost modern methods of design
and production are included. Even if those features of Homeric science
were just poetic concepts (which on many occasions does not explain the
astonishing details of design and manufacture, like the ones included in
the present volume), they seem to prove that these achievements were
well within human capability. In addition, the substantial development
of machine theory during the early post-Homeric age shows that the
Homeric descriptions were a kind of prophetic conception of these
machines, and scientific research must be a quest for the fundamental
principles of knowledge available during the Late Bronze Age and the
dawn of the Iron Age.
Such investigations must of necessity be strongly interdisciplinary and
also proceed continuously in time, since, as science progresses, new
elements of knowledge are discovered in the Homeric Epics, amenable to
scientific analysis.
This book brings together papers presented at the international
symposium Science and Technology in Homeric Epics, which took place at
Ancient Olympia in 2006. It includes a total of 41 contributions, mostly
original research papers, covering diverse fields of science and
technology, in the modern sense of these words.
