The Robot Servant of Philon: Around 3rd century B.C.E

The first known robot was called "The Servant of Philon". It was an ancient Greek humanoid figure capable of automatically filling a wine cup when placed in its hand.

The Greek engineer, Philo of Byzantium, also known as Philo Mechanicus, lived during the latter half of the 3rd century B.C.E. (more than 2,200 years ago)

One of his many inventions was a human-like robot in the form of a maid, who held a jug of wine in her right hand.

A mechanism in the robot stopped the cup from overfilling, and when it was about half-full, the left hand gradually lowered, and the flow of wine would stop. The right hand would begin the flow of water, mixing water with your wine.

You could then allow the cup to fill or pick it up earlier if you did not want so much water in your wine. The hand would stop pouring by itself.

The robot was a complex construction consisting of containers, tubes, air pipes, and winding springs, which interacted through variants in weight, air pressure, and vacuum. This is the oldest known robot created by humans.

The first known robot was called "The Servant of Philon". It was an ancient Greek humanoid figure capable of automatically filling a wine cup when placed in its hand

More information here

You can visit the Kotsana Museum in Athens, Ancient Olympia, Katakolo and Crete. Here

When Humans and Other Animals First Used Fire

Fire has been used by humans in rituals, agriculture for clearing land, for cooking, for warmth and light, and protection from predators and mythological spirits.

Control of fire by humans involves the acquisition of these three cognitive stages: conceptualization of fire, ability to control fire, and ability to start a fire.

There is generally accepted evidence of "microscopic traces of wood ash" from controlled fires used by Homo erectus from 1 million years ago.

Fossils of Homo sapiens found in Morocco dating back about 300,000 years also revealed burnt flint blades in the same layer as the skulls.

In South Africa at Pinnacle Point, two types of silcrete tools were developed between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, using a heat treatment technique from fire. There is evidence to suggest the technique may have been known as early as 164,000 years ago.

Bifacial silcrete point from Blombos Cave, South Africa, Middle Stone Age (71,000 BCE) (scale bar = 5cm). Vincent Mourre / Inrap - Own work

Evidence of the widespread use of controlled fire by anatomically modern humans dates to approximately 125,000 years ago.

There is evidence that Black Kites and some Australian native birds create fires by carrying burning twigs in their talons and dropping them away from the original wildfire, to flush out prey.

 Black Kite, Lara, Victoria. fir0002 flagstaffotos [at] gmail.com Canon 5D II + Canon 400mm f/5.6 L - Own work

The Ancestors of Virtually all Modern Animals

The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott, in 1909, in western Canada.

The remarkably well-preserved fossils found here, in black shales, are about 508 million years old.

It was not until 1962 that serious investigations began of the strange and diverse remains of creatures from the Cambrian Period (roughly 542 million to 505 million years ago). 

The fossils found in the Burgess Shale include the ancestors of most modern animals.

These animals lived during what we call “The Cambrian Explosion”.

Many of these organisms went extinct. But those that didn't diversified into many more species during the Cambrian period.

The basic body types of the major animal phyla (about three dozen) that exist today were established over a relatively short period of about 10 million years from these Cambrian faunas.

Burgess Shale fossils show exceptional soft-body preservation that are not usually preserved in normal conditions.

Trilobites are very common fossils in the Burgess Shale. These are hard-bodied bug-like creatures that lived on the seafloor for almost 300 million years until they went extinct before the era of dinosaurs.

Olenoides Trilobite Fossil, at the Burgess Shale, Canada, is about 350mm long and 530 million years old

Hallucigenia is a genus of Cambrian animals found in the Burgess Shale. The name reflects its unusual appearance and history. The Hallucigenia was later recognised as part of lobopodians, Paleozoic panarthropods from where velvet worms, water bears and arthropods arose.

Hallucigenia is a genus of Cambrian animal resembling worms, known from articulated fossils in Burgess Shale-type deposits in Canada

A combination of environmental factors probably contributed to this evolutionary burst.

Homeobox genes,  master genes controlling the formation of muscles, nerves, or glands, are similar in all species. The mutations that give rise to these master genes may only be advantageous in the earliest, simplest animals.

The Burgess Shale has contributed greatly to the understanding of the origins of animals on Earth.

At Walcott Quarry, Burgess Shale, Canada

Burgess Shale formation of British Columbia, Canada

Interesting, Ancient Toilets

Mesopotamia

The earliest known internal pit toilet, with clay pipes and sewers, comes from the Mesopotamian city of Uruk, dating to c.3200 BCE.

Skara Brae

Skara Brae, the largest island of Orkney, Scotland, consists of a c.3000 BCE village, with a number of small houses without roofs. Each house had a toilet, with a sewer system, draining effluent to the ocean.

Neolithic Orkney, Skara Brae

Indus Valley Civilisation

The pipe below is part of the remains of a drainage system from Lothal, Gujarat, the Indus Valley Civilisation (northwestern India and Pakistan), from c 2500 BCE. Houses of the city drained water to a central sump outside of the city.

A drainage system from Lothal, Gujarat, the Indus Valley Civilisation (C.2500 BC).

Jerusalem

A stone toilet that is 2700 years old, was found in the Armon Hanatziv neighbourhood of Jerusalem, made of carved limestone.

A stone toilet that is 2700 years old, in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem

Vietnam

In southern Vietnam, at the Rạch Núi archaeological site, a toilet has been found dating back to 1500 BCE

Rome

Almost every city in ancient Rome had large public latrines. However, it was the Etruscans who constructed the first underground sewers in the city of Rome around 500 BCE.

For example, at Ostia Antica, 25 kilometres southwest of Rome, public latrines lie along 3 walls, with washbasins between 2 entry doors near the Forum.

The public sit on holes cut into marble. Under the seats, a deep channel flowing from the drain of one of the Public Thermal Baths would take away waste.

At Ostia Antica, 25 kilometres southwest of Rome, public latrine lie along 3 walls

An Ancient Multi-Level Underground City

Located in Central Turkey, Cappadocia, is a place of dramatic valleys, rock formations and naturally formed caves.

The Cappadocian Greeks arrived in the mountainous regions of Cappadocia after the conquest of Anatolia by Alexander the Great and developed their own culture. 

The original populations of Cappadocia, which included the Hittites, also became Greek-speaking over time. 

It is known that the region of Cappadocia was inhabited in prehistoric times. However, the first underground cities in Turkey were mentioned by Xenophon of Athens:

Their houses were underground, with a mouth like that of a well, but below they spread out widely. Entrance ways were dug for the herd animals, but the people descended by ladder. In the houses there were goats, sheep, cattle, birds, and their children. Inside, all the animals were kept fed on a diet of fodder.
— Xenophon 4.5.25

One of the Diadochoi (“successors”) of Alexander the Great, Eumenes, became a Satrap (governor of a province) of Cappadocia and established Greek settlements in the region. 

Eumenes installed his friends in charge of cities, appointed garrison commanders and organised the administrative and legal system. 

There are around 40 cities in total in Cappadocia, with only a few open to the public.

By 1st century AD, most of the Greeks had become Christian. 

Cappadocians were involved in the affairs of the Eastern Catholic Church at Constantinople. For example, Maurice Tiberius (582–602) served as Emperor.

To protect themselves from foreign invasion, rock-cut buildings were constructed below and above ground, including whole cities. 

The few entrances were hidden by rocks or foliage. Inside, intricate passageways were like a labyrinth and difficult to navigate.

Doorways were sealed with large rock doors. In some places, holes in the ceiling enabled the attack of intruders with spears.

The largely unexplored city of Özkonak had about nineteen levels and 60,000 inhabitants.

By the eleventh century, about three thousand churches had been carved in the rocks.

Richard MacGillivray Dawkins, a Cambridge linguist, undertook fieldwork in Cappadocia from 1909 to 1911. He recorded in 1909 that "When the news came of the recent massacres at Adana, a great part of the population at Axo took refuge in these underground chambers, and for some nights did not venture to sleep above ground."

In 1923, the Christian inhabitants of the Cappadocia region were expelled from Turkey and moved to Greece.

In 1969 the site opened to visitors.

Cappadocia region, Turkey

Cappadocia region, Turkey

Cappadocia region, Turkey

 Underground passasges, Cappadocia region, Turkey

Cappadocia region, Turkey

Welsh Settlement in The Ukraine

A Welsh engineer was the founder of one of Ukraine's largest cities, Donetsk.

John Hughes, a successful businessman born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, in 1814, made his money and reputation by developing armour plating for ships.

John James Hughes (1814 – 17 June 1889) was a Welsh engineer

In 1868, Hughes was the manager of the Millwall Iron Works, London, when Alexander II, the Russian Tsar, ordered plating for a naval fortress being built at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea, from Hughes.

The Tsar was very interested in Hughes' knowledge and expertise, which led to an opportunity for Hughes to develop his own metal works in eastern Ukraine (part of the Russian Empire), including a factory for forging railway lines.

In 1869, Hughes acquired a piece of land to the north of the Azov Sea and formed a new company.

Hughes sailed with eight ships, in 1870, to the place where the new town would be established, carrying equipment and about a hundred ironworkers, miners and their families, mostly from South Wales.

The new town, based around ironworks and collieries, would be called Hughesovka, after its "creator".

John Hughes' home in Hughesovka, c.1900

Colliery and coke ovens at Hughesovka, Russian Empire, 1912

It was the Russian Revolution of 1917 that changed everything. As the metalworks fell to the Bolsheviks, many Welsh workers were forced to return home to Wales. 

The name Donetsk was adopted in 1961.

The Ukrainian government lost control of Donetsk to Moscow-backed separatists after the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.

From April 2014, the area has been part of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”.

With a population of about one million people, Donetsk is now part of the broader Russo-Ukrainian War (2022).

 Other names for the town have been Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin and Stalino.

“William George beloved husband of Margaret Waters, late of Hughesoffska, Russia”.

Ruins of John Hughes' house, Donetsk (Hughesoffska)