10 EURO SILVER COIN PROOF THE AUTOMATIC THERAPY OF PHILON

Περιγραφή

Philo of Byzantium, a 3rd-century BC engineer who lived in Alexandria, describes this invention in his work Pneumatica. It is an automaton (robot) in the form of a life-sized servant girl holding a wine jug in her right hand. Inside the figure were two containers — one with wine and one with water (since the Greeks drank their wine diluted) — along with a mechanism of tubes for transferring liquids and air.
When someone placed a cup on the outstretched left hand of the servant, the mechanism was activated. By air pressure, the liquids (first the wine and then the water) were directed through the right arm into the jug and from there into the cup, in the desired proportion.
The automatic servant is the oldest known functional robot.

The design of Philo’s automaton maid on the obverse of the coin is based on a representation from the Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology.