Mechanical Men In The Vatican?

[Dingo667]

I've heard about this when I was about 10. Of course it may well be an urban legend (even though it wasn't told as one and it has no moral to it).
Basically machine men (wooden mechanical pseudo-robots) are supposed to be kept in those vast underground corridors of Vatican city. They are dating back to the middle ages.
Just the thought of the possibility of them existing gives me the heebies. Has anyone heard of these or similar?
(Please don't note the old victorian chess robot, I know of it already...)

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Only passingly relevant:

Sakagami agrees with the oft-quoted belief that the concept of robots in Japan differs from that in Europe and the United States, a difference that is said to spring from differences in religious beliefs.

Due to such concerns, when Honda Motor Co. started developing Asimo, it asked the Vatican whether the production of humanoid robots would be acceptable for Christians. The Vatican's response was moderate, showing a full understanding toward the company's project.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2003/01/07.html

Can't be Too Careful
It has been reported that because ASIMO's walk is so eerily human-like, Honda engineers felt compelled to visit the Vatican just to make sure it was okay to build a machine that was so much like a human. (The Vatican thought it was okay.)

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/asimo1.htm

Beyond the Beyond

Friday, 30 January 2004

Robots and the Vatican
Now Playing: earnest philosophical discussion
I'm in Italy watching various
luminaries discuss ethics for robots.
That theologian from the Vatican was
surprisingly on top of the issue.

http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/sterling/i ... _id=210361

According to a ZENIT news release, the Vatican is thinking about robots. They've decided to make the relationship between man and machines the topic of their annual Third-Millennium Spiritual Film Festival. And to coincide with the film festival, a study congress sponsored by the pontifical councils for Social Communications and for Culture, will reflect on the ethical questions posed by "Man-Machine Hybridization". Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said that "the machine seems to be the negation of man and robotics the annulment of the spiritual dimension." But he also goes on to say that modern man cannot do without technology. It sounds like some weird stuff - hopefully the full text of the council's study will be made available later.

http://robots.net/article/1355.html

Vatican film festival will focus on man and machine

Vatican, Nov. 30 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican's 8th annual international film festival will center around the theme of man and machine.

"The world of robots" is the focus of the Tertio Millennio 2004 festival, said Cardinal Paul Poupard, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture. That Council is co-sponsoring the festival along with the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The event is divided into two sections. On December 1 and 2 there will be a symposium on film; from December 14 to 19, a series of films will be screened.

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=33732

I do think their interest is..... interesting.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I'm unsure you really should read this but:

www.the-logos.com/quirks_more/319_0_4_0_C/

[edit: Updating link to a cached version]

Edit: Here's an introductory excerpt from the archived webpage.

Easter Automata
By Ian Ingram

Easter is the Christian holiday commemorating the return from death to life of their prophet, Jesus Christ, who had come to an untimely end at the hands of the Romans and His Jewish contemporaries about 2000 years ago. At least, that is what most subscribers to the Christian faith believed until the discovery in 1726 of the actual burial site near Golgotha. 18th century archaeologists excavating the site unearthed a great deal about tomb design in the era of Jesus' expiration but far more compelling had been the irregular elements of the tomb. A hidden trench was found below the floor near the entrance that opened into a sub-structural room. Inexplicable patterns of cylindrical borings circling the trench penetrated into the room above. Notches in this second room's wall appeared to have originally supported beams and dowels of equivocal purpose. The whole unprecedented structure confounded explanation by experts.

The hidden structure remained a mystery until 1734 when at a separate site in what had been ancient Judea, Prescott Milfrey unearthed plans written in Aramaic and accompanied by intricate drawings that detailed a complicated machine. The machine was in the shape of human man seated on a pedestal. The pedestal encased a large part of a complex mechanism that overflowed though a cut in the floor to a chamber below. Here a large wooden cylinder powered by a weight mechanism slowly turned on its axis. Covered with tiny protrusions, it sent impulses to four hundred levers, which controlled, by means of chains, strings, and shafts that ran through the cut in the floor the movements of the trunk, arms, and neck of the figure. A separate mechanism controlled the output of an air supply generated by human-powered bellows which ran through tubes from the chamber below to the pedestal and thence to a set of minute pipes in the figure's mouth. A similar set of tubes ran to pneumatic actuators that controlled the movements of the lips, the tongue, the articulation of the fingers and the facial expression. Important details of the face and hands and the crown of thorns resting on the head of the figure rendered lead historians to the conclusion that the machine had been designed to create the illusion of a life-like Jesus Christ seated at the entrance to His tomb to give the impression that the martyr had indeed risen from the grave per His prediction. The machine outlined in the famous plans was dubbed the Golgotha Automaton. ...

FULL ARTICLE: https://web.archive.org/web/20041026202157/www.the-logos.com/quirks_more/319_0_4_0_C/

 

[Anonymous]

I'm unsure you really should read this but:

www.the-logos.com/quirks_more/319_0_4_0_C/

why, because it was written on April 1st?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

why, because it was written on April 1st?

Pretty much but I was refering to the idea that even though it is clearly a spoof (I hope ) it might still give them the heebies.

Back to the subject - I think we will need more details because all I've found is either unrelated, a spoof, bat shit crazy, etc.

Here is another:

The Golem of Golgotha

CLASS Artifact

MATERIAL Wood, Copper, Uranium 16

ORIGIN N/A

DATE 16th century

In recent discovery of the Golem of Golgotha.(The automaton of Death, or Skull) scientists were astounded by the complicated structure within this artifact.. Amazingly the object was found emitting beta particles. which indicate that this artifact was radioactive. From the extensive damage due to extreme heat, and the unique localized damage to the interior, scientists recognize that this is similar to the properties of a collision between anti-matter and matter.(For example, Process inside nuclear generator) scientists are certain that this artifact can be dated to the approximate time of the famous Jewish Legend of Rabbi Low of 16th-century Prague. In Jewish folk tale, this teacher created Golem as his servant. Scientists suspect that either advance technology was available before the Dark Ages, or this object is foreign. In either case scientists suspect that extraterrestrial contact was made during that period. Further evidence from a recent photography of a image of a face found on the dark side of the moon further support this theory. The Challenger Probe, was able to scan and collect sample of these anomalies. The data indicated that it is of human origin, and can be dated back to around the age of this mysterious artifact.

Source
(66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:www.student.ocad.on.ca/Student/1999_2000/wunderkammern/+Golgotha+Automaton)
Link is dead. No archived version found.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Could this half-remembered story be a reference to the museum established in the College of Rome by the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher, 1601 - 80?

The Vatican had the Belvedere Palace and Gardens which were connected to the old Vatican palace by two long galleries.

I have dim memories of reading of mechanical statues exhibited there in the Renaissance. Maybe in one of Frances Yates's books - none of which are to hand. :?:

 

[Anonymous]

Interestingly, there was something on TV a while ago that mentioned a huge automaton that IIRC was used in the cathedral of Bury St Edmunds to confer blessing on pilgrims during the medieval period. Can't find any reference to it online though.
Poo.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Could this half-remembered story be a reference to the museum established in the College of Rome by the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher, 1601 - 80?

The Vatican had the Belvedere Palace and Gardens which were connected to the old Vatican palace by two long galleries.

I have dim memories of reading of mechanical statues exhibited there in the Renaissance. Maybe in one of Frances Yates's books - none of which are to hand. :?:

I did find a number of references to this kind of thing - there were a number of very early water powered automatons (automata? autotrada?) around Italy (and France and Germany?) and that although details are lost it may be that the Vatican still has the plasn tucked away in some secret archive.

They do sound amazing and must have been as close to magic as you would come back then.

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

I immediately thought of Leonardo Da Vinci's clockwork knight when I read this post. Perhaps not...

 

[Dingo667]

Brrrrrr, silent, wooden, centuries old human like automatons, standing in the dark somewhere... with dead stary eyes.
Now I have goosepimples.
And yes of course the Golgotha Automaton is a fake BUT others did exist and that gives me the the creeps.
Modern Robots don't scare me, I love Asimo and to be frank I don't see why the church should discuss them at all, so what if they are human like?
What's it to them?

Anyway who knows what other strange things are hidden deep in the bowels of the Vatican?
Is there really a "secret archive" where important writings/ideas from history are kept?

 

[chockfullahate]

golgotha automaton

what is it? just read about it in a thread further down...

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

chockfullahate: I've merged this back in here because (as has been said above) its an April Fools joke.

This is why I was nervous about posting the link.

 

[chockfullahate]

ah i see, nice idea though...