Original subtitles

male narrator: This week on "Ancient Top 10,"

the world's first robot, 2,000 years ago...

- There was actually a robot that existed in ancient Greece.

narrator: An incredible ancient death ray...

[high-pitched humming, flames whoosh]

- This really sounds like something from the Space Age.

narrator: Genius that could make water defy gravity...

- We wouldn't see anything like this

until the 19th century.

They were so far ahead of their time.

narrator: And full steam ahead--

it's ancient steam power.

- Technology so advanced that it boggles the mind

this is from ancient times.

narrator: Where will they be ranked

on the only top ten show

thousands of years in the making?

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

Western civilization began in ancient Greece.

[shields clang]

It was home to the great philosophers,

and it was the first civilization

to introduce voting,

giving birth to democracy,

but the Greeks were also brilliant inventors.

- The Greeks are definitely

the fathers of modern democracy,

but what you might not know is that that reasoning ability

put them thousands of years ahead of everybody else

regarding their inventions and technology,

and that changed the world.

narrator: The ancient Greeks were ancient geeks,

and they made all kinds of high-tech advances

that weren't then reinvented until modern times.

[engines whirring, whistling]

This week's "Ancient Top 10:

Ancient Greek Tech"--

the most sophisticated Greek gadgets,

ranked according to how advanced they were.

[metallic clang]

And coming in at number ten--

not exactly the holiest of holies,

but it might be the world's first vending machine.

[exciting music]

- It's incredible to think that the Greeks had something

as modern as vending machines.

But it's true. They did.

And we're talking 2,000 years ago.

narrator: Today, vending machines are everywhere.

There are currently more vending machines in Japan

than there are people in New Zealand,

but, amazingly, this seemingly modern device was first created

by an ancient Greek genius,

and it was in the most unlikely of places...

♪ ♪

A temple.

- In ancient times, temples had to make money,

so they had to come up with ingenious ways

to separate people from their cash.

♪ ♪

- Competing temples would do everything they could

to try and draw in the crowds

and take their money,

and one of the best ways to do this

was to showcase

impressive spectacles of magical devices

so that it seemed like the gods favored your temple the most.

♪ ♪

narrator: The priests paid inventors

to make magical devices for them,

and one of the best inventors was Heron of Alexandria.

♪ ♪

The city of Alexandria in Egypt

was at the time ruled over by Greeks

and had become the center of their commercial

and scientific world.

- Alexandria at the time

was this hotbed of learning and ideas.

A teacher named Heron worked there,

teaching physics and mathematics,

and he had a very special skill set as an inventor,

which was highly in demand at the time,

and he was always willing to make a little bit on the side.

narrator: Heron came up with something so modern

it had to be in our top ten list--

the vending machine.

- You popped in a coin,

and out came in return a cup of holy water.

narrator: How was this ancient marvel possible?

- Someone would put a coin inside the slot.

The coin would fall onto a plate,

and the weight of the coin on the plate

would open a valve.

narrator: As the plate tipped, the coin would slide off of it,

closing the valve again.

This meant that a precise amount

of holy water could be dispensed each time.

- As an inventor, there's nothing more thrilling

than seeing someone's reaction to one of your creations,

but can you imagine, back in the time

of the ancient Greeks, going to a temple,

already being in awe of all the architecture there,

and then seeing something like a vending machine?

They must have thought it was the work of the gods.

- This is a vending machine,

but all the way back in the 1st century A.D.,

and the principle is still the same as we use today.

♪ ♪

narrator: Heron made all kinds

of automatic inventions,

such as a mechanical archer

who could shoot his arrow

at a miniature dragon.

He made model dancers dancing around a fire.

And he made a brass horse

that appeared to actually drink water.

All this was done with air, water,

and complicated levers and valves,

but to amazed onlookers, it was all magic,

and there was no greater magic than the vending machine.

A refreshing twist on technology,

it was the grandfather of today's vending machines,

what many people would think of as a 20th-century invention.

But next in our countdown

is history's first powerlifter,

giving one man the strength of hundreds.

At number nine...

[exciting music]

The block and tackle.

- The block and tackle may not be

the most glamorous invention on this list,

but you can't underestimate the impact

that this small device had on the world.

narrator: The block and tackle was so advanced

that the famous astronomer Galileo

called its inventor, Archimedes, superhuman.

He has gone down in history

as one of the greatest minds of all time.

- "Genius" is rather an overused term,

but there is no doubt that Archimedes was a genius.

He was a mathematician.

He was a scientist. He was an inventor.

He was a creator.

And he didn't just change the ancient world.

He changed ours too.

♪ ♪

- Most people know Archimedes

as the man who jumped up naked

out of the bath shouting "Eureka"

after he discovered the laws of buoyancy,

when, in reality, he was actually a brilliant scientist,

and one of his most famous inventions

is known as the block and tackle.

narrator: Before the block and tackle of Archimedes,

lifting heavy weights depended on pure muscle power.

To lift one ton would take 40 men.

Archimedes knew that using a pulley made it much easier

to lift a heavy weight,

but he then worked out

that using two joined together

made it twice as easy.

- The block and tackle, it's an amazing invention.

It's a series of pulleys that allows someone to lift

far more than they would be able to normally,

and it's still in use today.

narrator: The weight becomes divided

between the number of ropes.

The more pulleys in the series,

the heavier the weight that can be lifted.

- Using the block and tackle, a simple but ingenious device,

one man can actually lift a ton in weight.

♪ ♪

narrator: This experiment shows

that one man can lift a family car

with just four pulleys linked together.

- The story goes that this invention

was so revolutionary,

Archimedes used the block and tackle

to singlehandedly

pull a whole ship to the shore.

♪ ♪

- There's no proof to that story,

but looking at the simple mechanics,

in theory it could be true.

- What is certain is that this revolutionary invention

had captured men's imaginations.

♪ ♪

narrator: A lever uses a similar principle.

The longer the lever, the less force is needed.

In fact, Archimedes said that,

with a lever long enough,

one man could lift the weight of the Earth.

♪ ♪

Since its invention over 2,000 years ago,

the block and tackle has been in use continually.

♪ ♪

- The critical thing to remember

about the invention of block and tackle

is it allowed one machine to do the work of 100 men,

and this has a profound impact on the story of civilization.

It allows us as humans

to create whole new worlds.

♪ ♪

narrator: Archimedes' invention reached into the future

and pulled the ancient world forward.

♪ ♪

But now, spinning in at number eight,

a totally revolutionary gadget...

[exciting music]

It's the gimbal,

the ancient ancestor of the modern-day gyroscope.

♪ ♪

In the 3rd century B.C.,

a genius inventor was living in the Greek city of Byzantium.

He was called Philon or Philo Mechanicus,

because when it came to mechanics

he was centuries ahead of his time.

Philon invented advanced pieces of technology,

such as an automatic mechanical crossbow.

He was the first person in history

to accurately describe the scientific principles

behind a water mill.

He also worked out how to project huge missiles

from a catapult.

[wood creaking]

[projectile whooshing]

But his most revolutionary invention?

An inkpot.

♪ ♪

Believe it or not,

the technology behind Philon's inkpot

keeps us safe in the skies today.

How?

It's coming up next on "Ancient Top 10."

♪ ♪

And what can possibly be our number one

ancient Greek invention?

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Welcome back to "Ancient Top 10:

Greek Tech"--

incredible ancient Greek technology

ranked by experts

according to how advanced they were.

We're at number eight,

and it's a revolutionary inkpot

invented by Philon of Byzantium.

Philon taught at the famous library in Alexandria in Egypt,

which was the center of learning

in the ancient world.

It was here where he invented this extraordinary gadget.

It was a neat little party trick:

a device that stays level whichever way you turn it.

It's now known as a gimbal.

- The gimbal was first invented to stabilize an inkpot.

So whichever way around it was twisted,

the ink would never spill out.

It was a really simple, really effective design.

narrator: The inkpot had eight holes in eight sides,

and you could dip your quill in any of them.

Within the device was super-advanced technology,

a series of suspended rings attached to each other

but free to rotate.

Gravity held the ink bowl level,

so any way you turned it,

the ink bowl was facing upwards.

- Philon was a genius inventor.

His eight-sided inkpot was the precursor

to the modern-day gimbal.

[engine purring]

- The gimbal is still being used today

in very high-tech pieces of kit,

which just goes to show how far in advance

of its time it really was.

narrator: A modern-day ship's compass still uses

the principles behind Philon's ancient creation,

and this invention is still in use

in the skies all over the world.

It's the basis of an airplane's gyroscope,

which shows a level horizon to the pilot.

Whichever way the plane turns, the gyroscope keeps level.

At night or in poor visibility,

it's the most important instrument in the cockpit,

and NASA's most advanced spacecraft

all use this technology in much the same way.

- Amazingly, this technolo t is a high-flying marvel,

but the next invention on our list

is also in use today

all across the globe.

It's gravity-defying ancient genius.

Coming in at number seven,

it's that "eureka" man again, Archimedes.

[exciting music]

It's the Archimedes screw.

- The Archimedes screw allows people to draw water uphill,

and this is over 2,000 years ago.

It's incredible.

♪ ♪

narrator: In ancient times,

agriculture, industry,

and the growth of towns and cities

all depended on controlling the flow of water.

It was crucial.

♪ ♪

Great efforts were taken to divert rivers,

build dams and canals,

and to lift water from one level to another.

♪ ♪

So when Archimedes invented a way

of making water flow uphill,

it was truly transforming.

♪ ♪

- The Archimedes screw was a tube

with a helicoid, or screw, in the center.

♪ ♪

When hand-cranked or turned by some sort of wind power,

this draws water up from the bottom

through the screw

and out through the other side.

[screw squeaking]

This was a revolutionary invention.

narrator: For the ancients,

water flowing uphill was a wonder to behold.

It seemed to go against all the laws of nature,

but this was no party trick.

This simple invention had huge implications.

And because of its simplicity,

it could be applied to many different uses.

- The Archimedes screw is an incredible innovation.

It's been used on everything from irrigation

to bilge pumps on ships.

narrator: Bilge pumps are used to pump water

out of the hold of a ship.

They're crucial for long voyages.

Christopher Columbus couldn't have sailed the Atlantic

if his ships hadn't been fitted with bilge pumps.

♪ ♪

And there's even evidence that the Archimedes screw

was used onboard the biggest ship

of ancient Greece, the "Syracusia."

It was the world's first cruise ship.

- It was the most luxurious passenger ship

that had ever been built.

It was filled with paintings and statues,

bronze bathtubs,

even irrigated flowerbeds.

narrator: And who was it designed by?

Of course, Archimedes.

And it might well have been kept afloat

by an Archimedes screw.

- It's possible that Archimedes invented his famous screw

as a fundamental solution

to pumping water out of the "Syracusia."

It's amazing that this mega-ship

could have been powered by one man

using the bilge pump to keep this boat afloat.

♪ ♪

narrator: With bilge pumps, ships could travel further,

and the ancient world expanded.

♪ ♪

Archimedes screws were also used in ancient mines

to draw water to the surface

to stop the mines from flooding.

There's an example here,

the ancient Roman mine

at Rio Tinto in the south of Spain.

Here, they built incredible underground waterwheels

to lift floodwater from one level to another,

and at the top, in the last part of the process,

they used an Archimedes screw

to get the water to the surface.

- We still use the Archimedes screw today.

As well as being used to move water uphill,

it's also used in the hydroelectric industry,

where the design is reversed.

Water flows downwards through the screw,

turning it and generating electricity.

narrator: And there's a royal twist to the story.

This is Windsor Castle in England.

It's one of the main residences of the Queen of England,

and most of the power of the castle comes from here,

the River Thames,

thanks to these inverted Archimedes screws.

[water rushing]

And it's been used on a much, much larger scale too.

A great deal of the Netherlands

was previously below sea level

and therefore flooded.

- How did Holland reclaim all that land from the sea?

They used the Archimedes screw.

This thing built a country.

narrator: And on a much, much smaller scale--

- No pulse? No problem.

The Archimedes screw or screw pump

is used today in modern medicine

to maintain steady blood flow in patients

with acute heart failure.

How amazing is that?

Coming up, did the Greeks

really invent the world's first fire engines?

[water spraying]

And stop the clock.

A water machine so amazing,

you'll wonder if you've time traveled

back to the future.

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Welcome back to our top ten

ancient Greek tech.

And at number six in our list

of technological wizardry

is something that has saved

entire cities from the flames...

[exciting music]

The water pump.

- Even just 200 years ago,

we were putting out fires

by passing buckets of water down the line.

But the ancient Greeks knew a thing or two.

They had their own equivalent

of the modern-day fire extinguisher

thousands of years ago.

narrator: Remarkably, the power

behind the pump was compressed air.

In the modern world,

compressed air is used all around us.

It's in the tires of our cars,

and it's what drives many modern-day power tools.

- Compressed-air power tools

used to change the tires on racing cars

revolve at between 10,000 and 15,000 RPM.

[power tools buzzing, humming]

This is super-high-tech, modern technology.

narrator: But as incredible as it may seem,

there is nothing modern about pneumatics.

The ancients were there first.

The father of pneumatics-- Ctesibius,

an extraordinary Greek inventor

from the 3rd century B.C.

and a contemporary of Philon

at the library in Alexandria.

- Ctesibius was a genius.

He was the first one to realize

that air was actually a substance,

so he's rightly known as the father of pneumatics.

narrator: Ctesibius was the son of a barber,

and one of his first inventions was a mirror

that could be raised up and down to help with shaving.

The mirror had a lead counterweight,

and Ctesibius noticed the noise of air

as it escaped back into the casing

around the lead weight.

Listening to this noise of escaping air,

he had the remarkable revelation

that air had mass and pressure.

narrator: The result was the world's first water pump.

- A directed jet of water was something new and amazing.

There had never been anything like this anywhere before,

and it was portable.

narrator: This was the world's first fire engine.

It was rushed around the ancient city

of Alexandria over 2,000 years ago,

but how did it work?

- As you press down the handle of the water pump,

compressed air is forced onto the surface of the water,

which drives the water through a series of pipes

and out through the nozzle at high speed.

narrator: There are two pistons and a central chamber.

Valves stop the water

flowing back out of the chamber.

When one piston is drawing water in,

the other is pushing water out through the nozzle.

- You could put it on a cart

and take it absolutely anywhere,

as long as there was standing water.

narrator: A portable water pump such as this

wasn't then reinvented for 1,500 years.

[siren wailing]

♪ ♪

The ancients had super-advanced engineering

that wouldn't be out of place in our modern world.

Up next is another invention of Ctesibius

that wouldn't be bettered for 1,800 years.

It was the most accurate clock of the ancient world,

and it was powered entirely by water,

centuries ahead of its time.

At number five...

[exciting music]

The water clock.

- Astonishingly, this clock,

made over 2,000 years ago,

runs continuously,

24 hours a day,

365 days of the year,

and not a battery in sight.

narrator: In the modern world,

telling the time is taken for granted.

We live our lives by it,

but time was important to the ancients too.

In the courts of ancient Greece, for example,

each witness was given a set amount of time to speak.

A set length of time could be measured

by the time it took for water

to run out of a bucket.

It's a fixed duration that's always the same,

but this couldn't tell the time.

It was more like an egg timer.

Then came Ctesibius.

He created a water clock so accurate

that it could actually tell the time.

He adapted an existing Greek water clock

to make something truly extraordinary.

- Ctesibius' genius is that he refines it

using hydraulics so that this becomes

an incredibly accurate time-keeping machine,

and his prototype would be in use

for close on 1,000 years.

♪ ♪

narrator: This is an accurate working model of his clock.

It all works by flowing water.

Water goes in one end,

and at the other end a marker slowly rises,

showing the time.

Ctesibius knew that to give

an accurate measurement of time passing,

he needed a continuous flow of water.

But water flows out of a container quicker and quicker

as the height of the water goes down.

♪ ♪

So he came up with the great idea

of having two water chambers,

and the first is always full.

There's a continuous flow of water into it

with an overflow pipe at the top.

Then this feeds into a second chamber.

The water in the second chamber

then rises at a steady rate,

and time can be measured accurately

for the duration of that rise.

- Ctesibius fitted a siphon to his water clock.

This is the first recorded incidence

we have of that happening,

and it meant that the clock could empty

and then refill itself automatically.

So basically he's inventing

a kind of intelligent machine.

narrator: A siphon allows water to flow upward

so long as its final destination

is at a lower level.

It was super-advanced hydraulics,

and it meant that the clock ran continuously,

time after time.

- Ctesibius' water clock was so precise

that it adjusted itself automatically

to changes in seasonal daylight hours,

which is absolutely incredible.

narrator: By a complicated series of cogs,

the rising water of the clock raised an arrow on a marker

which had hour lines that grew further,

then closer apart,

and for nearly 2,000 years,

it was the most accurate clock in the world.

♪ ♪

We're over halfway in our "Ancient Top 10" countdown

of the most advanced ancient Greek technology.

♪ ♪

Coming up,

death rays and robots--

- You talking to me?

narrator: Science fiction?

It's science fact.

[wood creaking]

And what will be

our "Ancient Greek Tech" number one?

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Welcome back to "Ancient Top 10:

Greek Tech," our countdown

of the most advanced ancient Greek technology,

astonishing machines and gadgets

and colossal engineering advances.

At number ten, as if by magic,

an ancient vending machine.

Number nine was the block and tackle

doing the heavy lifting.

Number eight was the technological marvel

the gimbal.

And number seven, still in use today,

the Archimedes screw.

At number six was the water pump,

and clocking in at number five,

the water clock.

Next in our countdown is an invention more advanced

than any we've seen so far,

and it's something truly deadly.

Coming in at number four...

[exciting music]

It's the death ray.

- Beams of light shooting down and burning ships:

this really sounds like something from the Space Age.

But this was an ancient super-weapon.

narrator: In the 3rd century B.C.,

the might of the ancient Greeks was being challenged

by a new up-and-coming power in the Mediterranean:

Rome.

Syracuse, the Greek colony on Sicily,

was coming under attack.

But Syracuse was the home of Archimedes.

- Up until now, Greeks have really controlled the world,

but the Romans are new big players on the block,

and Archimedes has to come up with a big invention

to try to match their might.

narrator: Archimedes had already invented

some devastating war machines.

- He was known as the great geometer,

the master, the wise one,

and he came up with all sorts of amazing inventions.

narrator: Such as a cannon powered by steam...

[explosion]

And a claw that could rip enemy ships from the sea.

♪ ♪

Today, the U.S. navy has laser weapon systems.

They're called directed energy weapons.

But Archimedes was there first by over 2,000 years.

[explosion]

- The story goes that Archimedes

was able to burn a fleet of Roman ships

using only the power of the Sun

and nothing more than mirrors.

♪ ♪

- We're told that Archimedes used the power of the Sun

and reflected it back onto the Roman boats,

which then caught fire

till the whole fleet was in flames.

[flames roar and crackle]

narrator: There is written evidence

that there was such a weapon,

a solar-powered death ray.

Ancient sources have claimed that the ancient lighthouse

at Alexandria, the mighty Pharos,

also used mirrors to make a death ray.

This was to protect its harbor from enemy ships.

One lens or mirror at the top revolved

to catch the sunlight,

which was reflected down to a second mirror.

This could be turned as well to aim

a devastating beam of light.

It may have been inspired

by the deadly weapon of Archimedes.

This Renaissance painting shows the death ray

at Syracuse as one giant mirror.

♪ ♪

But there is another theory.

In Syracuse at that time,

there were plenty of smaller mirrors on hand.

- The defending soldiers had highly polished shields

of copper or bronze

that were also concave.

And in theory, Archimedes

could have used these to reflect the Sun's rays.

♪ ♪

narrator: How many bronze shields

would it take to burn one Roman ship?

We now know the answer.

- The ignition point of wood is over 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

Modern calculations show that you'd need

200 to 300 shields working together

to set a ship ablaze.

narrator: With an army of over 20,000 soldiers,

Syracuse would easily have had that many shields.

- We don't know whether Archimedes' death ray

was ever actually used,

but it is a really clever psychological weapon.

- We're not sure exactly how

he made this super-weapon,

but we can be sure it was thousands of years

ahead of its time.

No one else had any kind of laser or death ray

to burn ships.

This was truly spectacular ancient technology.

♪ ♪

narrator: Other Greek inventions went on to do

amazing things with air and water,

but this solar-powered death ray

was manipulating light--

20th-century technology-- in ancient times.

[explosion]

Still to come, could something as advanced as robotics

possibly have been invented thousands of years ago?

It's coming up on "Ancient Top 10."

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

narrator: This is "Ancient Top 10's" countdown

of the most advanced technology

from ancient Greece.

We've now reached the top three,

and it's time to brace yourself

for something mind-blowing...

[exciting music]

Ancient robotics.

- You talking to me?

narrator: Robotics sounds so modern.

It used to be science fiction.

It's incredible to think that robots are nothing new.

In fact, they're ancient.

- The father of robotics is not who you think it is.

It's not actually a modern-day scientist

but, in fact, it's an ancient Greek,

over 2,000 years ago.

♪ ♪

narrator: It was that mechanical genius,

Philon of Byzantium.

As well as being the inventor of the gimbal,

he is the father of robotics.

Philon taught himself all about hydraulics

and compressed air by studying the inventions of Ctesibius

such as the water pump and the water clock,

but then he took things one stage further.

He was the first man in history to make a robot.

- Believe it or not, there was actually

a robot that existed in ancient Greece.

It was built to look like a serving maid,

and it performed a very simple human task.

narrator: This ancient robot could pour a glass of wine,

astonishing guests at an ancient dinner party.

- Imagine walking into a lavish dinner party

and being told to place your cup

in the hand of an odd-looking statue.

Then the statue would be

pouring out and filling your cup.

And that, to me, is just absolutely mind-blowing.

♪ ♪

A humanoid figure built to perform a task

automatically: well, that, in itself,

is the definition of a robot.

♪ ♪

narrator: It was all done by a series of valves

and changing air pressure inside,

set in motion by movement of the cup

as it filled with wine.

- The weight of that cup would lower the hand,

setting off a series of complex mechanics within the body,

and then this would pour out

equal measures of water and wine,

which is exactly how the Greeks liked to drink it.

♪ ♪

narrator: The movement of the arm

led to the release of the wine.

And then, when the goblet reaches an exact weight,

the wine valve closed and the water valve opened.

- I'd love to go back in time

and be poured a goblet of wine by Philon's robot.

However amazed those guests would have been,

they'd have had no idea

just how much they were looking into the future.

narrator: Most of Philon's work

has been lost to history.

Tragically, a fire started in the 1st century B.C.

burnt much of the Library of Alexandria.

We can only imagine

what super-advanced technological insights

it might have contained.

We're into the top two of our countdown

of the most advanced ancient Greek technology.

We've seen all manner of machines

that would amaze us if we came across them today.

However, our number two is something

we're all familiar with...

[exciting music]

Automatic doors.

- When automatic doors were first introduced

in the 20th century, it was like magic.

People were left wondering, how on Earth did they work?

It was something from science fiction.

narrator: Automatic doors were the future.

But the unbelievable truth is that, yet again,

ancient Greek technology was there first.

This is Ephesus in modern-day Turkey.

It was home to an ancient Greek temple

that had huge doors that opened automatically.

There are the indentations in the ground rock

where they opened.

- Of course, behind the magic of the doors

is ancient technology,

a technology so advanced it boggles the mind

this is from ancient times.

♪ ♪

narrator: This was technology

masquerading as divine magic.

♪ ♪

It was the work of the same genius

behind the vending machine, Heron of Alexandria,

the master of temple wizardry.

How did they work?

The temple priest lit a fire.

The fire heated a tank of air underneath.

The expanding hot air pushed through

into a second tank of water,

forcing the water through a pipe into a bucket.

♪ ♪

Heron may well have been the first to understand

that heating air caused it to expand.

♪ ♪

The weight of the water gradually lowered the bucket,

which was attached by ropes and pulleys to the doors.

The doors then automatically opened.

It was as if the gods were opening them,

narrator: When the fire was extinguished,

the air beneath would cool,

drawing the water back the way it had come,

and the doors would magically close again.

- It's ancient technology, but it's so far advanced,

it's incredible to think

that it's almost 2,000 years old.

narrator: We've had hydraulics, pneumatics, robotics,

incredible high-tech inventions from ancient Greece,

but number one is still to come.

2,000 years ahead of its time,

it held within it

the power to change the course of history,

and it will make your mind spin.

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Welcome back to the finale

of our top ten ancient countdown.

We've reached the very top in our list

of amazing ancient Greek tech.

At number ten, we saw an ancient vending machine.

♪ ♪

Number nine:

the transforming block and tackle.

♪ ♪

Number eight was the ahead-of-its-time gimbal.

♪ ♪

And number seven:

the groundbreaking Archimedes screw.

♪ ♪

At number six was the fire-fighting water pump.

♪ ♪

And at number five,

the Big Ben of the ancient world:

the water clock.

♪ ♪

Number four was the space-age death ray.

♪ ♪

And at number three, unbelievably, ancient robotics.

♪ ♪

Number two, technological wizardry:

the first automatic doors.

So what can possibly be our number one?

What have our experts and historians chosen

as the ancient Greek technology

that can beat all else?

Amazingly, the ancient world

had its very own steam engine.

[exciting music]

The aeolipile, also known as the steam ball.

- It's a rotating copper ball,

but it rotates at 1,500 RPM.

That's three times the speed of helicopter blades.

narrator: This is an aeolipile.

It means "ball of wind" in Greek.

♪ ♪

Why it was invented is still a mystery,

but it is the greatest, most incredible example

of all ancient technology.

It is the world's first steam engine.

- The aeolipile was the fastest rotating object

in the ancient world,

powered by steam.

♪ ♪

- Because this technology wouldn't be rediscovered

for another 2,000 years,

the steam ball has got to be our number one pick.

- The fact that the ancients had this form of power,

this steam power,

it--it boggles the mind.

We wouldn't see anything like this until the 19th century.

They were so far ahead of their time,

centuries ahead of their time.

narrator: The aeolipile was made by the genius

behind the vending machine

and the automatic doors,

Heron of Alexandria.

He was the master of miraculous machines

that pushed technology to the limits.

It's possible that this was invented

as a party trick or a device

to show off Heron's genius to potential patrons.

For the automatic doors,

Heron used expanding hot air as a source of power,

but he realized that the steam he could see

when boiling water must be a substance, too,

and potentially a hugely powerful one.

This was remarkable insight,

a scientific "eureka" moment

that didn't occur to anyone else

until the 18th century.

Heron's design was ingenious.

He made an airtight cauldron and filled it with water.

Two pipes connected the cauldron to a sealed ball

that was free to spin under its own stem.

- As the water's heated, it creates steam,

and that steam escapes through two nozzles

that are facing in different directions,

forcing the ball round at incredible speed.

- A forward force generated

by a concentrated spurt in the opposite direction:

now, that's the same principle behind jet propulsion.

♪ ♪

- The potential force of that spin,

if put into some useful machinery--well,

it could have changed history.

[machinery whirring]

narrator: Today, high-pressure steam

is used in the most advanced machines,

and Heron was there first.

♪ ♪

- This is actually the technology

that powered the industrial revolution.

And can you imagine where we would be today

if the Greeks had realized

what kind of power they held in their hands?

♪ ♪

narrator: We are left wondering,

what if future generations had gone on

to develop this super-advanced technology?

Where would we be today?

[triumphant music]

♪ ♪

So much of our modern world has been influenced

by the ingenuity of the ancient Greeks.

Incredible scientific insights,

astonishing inventions.

The technology of ancient Greece was so advanced,

it wouldn't be matched for centuries to come.

Over 2,000 years later,

it's a wealth of technological know-how

that we are still rediscovering.