Vision of the Museum is to promote the technological miracle of the Greek antiquity.
Vision
Robotics and computers, steam-driven and gas propulsion, automotive and automatic navigation, automation and automation programming, telecommunications and encryption, geodesy and mapping, utilization of hydraulic and wind energy, the application of belt conveyance, gear pair and chain drive and many other sciences and techniques have been devised in Ancient Greece.
Mission
The museum studies, highlights and presents to the Greek and foreign visitors the technology of ancient Greeks, an extremely important but relatively unknown aspect of the ancient Greek culture.
Technology’s role is indisputable in the development and blooming of any civilization, let alone the ancient Greek one, which gave to mankind unrivaled creations that we know and admire – from the Antikythera Calculating Mechanism to the Acropolis and the Parthenon.
The course of the Western technological culture is not a rising curve of development, as usually believed, but a rapid growth and peak reached in the 3rd century BC, a retreat and loss of this technology throughout the upcoming centuries and then its gradual re-establishment, with the 13th century AD being equivalent to state-of-the-art technology of the early 2nd century BC.
Goal
The aim of the museum is to demonstrate with absolute validity and credibility that the technology of the ancient Greeks, just before the end of the Ancient Greek world, was very similar to the beginnings of our modern technology.
For example, bolts and nuts, gears and rules, pulleys and belts, sprockets and chains, pistons and cylinders, hydraulic controllers and valves, programmers and automatic navigators (all parts of the machine of a modern car) are just some of the inventions of the ancient Greeks that formed the foundation blocks of their complex technology.
These legacies, the same and irreplaceable, are still today the bedrock of our modern technology, the development of which would be dubious without their inexpensive and uncompromising adoption.
It just took over a millennium of maturity to regain humanity this remarkable forgotten technology. The exploration of this era, where state-of-the-art technology was not guaranteed, demonstrates how much more (than we think) owes contemporary Technology to the Greeks.
History
The first permanent space of the Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology opened its gates in 2003 in Katakolo, Peloponnese, in a building granted by the Municipality of Pyrgos, and it was inaugurated by Theodosis Tassios, emeritus professor at the National Technical University of Athens.
The Archimedes Museum in Ancient Olympia, the second museum, opened its gates in 2014 and is dedicated to the greatest mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer and inventor of antiquity. The building has been granted by the Municipality of Ancient Olympia following a unanimous decision of the Municipal Council and an initiative of the Association of Traders and Hotel Owners of the area.
The Athens Museum (8 th January 2018) completes the triptych of the Kotsanas Museums and the panorama of the unique technological miracle of antiquity.
The creator
Kostas Kotsanas was born in 1963 in Ageira-Seliana, Achaia.
He studied in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Patras (Greece). He has dedicated his life to the study of ancient Greek culture, particularly in the field of ancient Greek technology.
A lot of his research, studies and reconstructions that concern Ancient Greek Technology, have been presented at International Conferences, either as a guest lecturer in Greece and abroad (university of KAN, International Conference “ISSM”, National Library of France, National Museum of Music of Corea) either as a conventioneer (National Conference of Ancient Greek Technology, National Conference: Ancient Greece and the Modern World, University of Patras).
He has created, at his own expenses the 500 that form the exhibition today. Many of the exhibits have been presented in various periodic exhibitions in Greece and abroad (Europe, Asia, USA, and Australia). This effort has not been funded so far by any public or private organization. Kostas Kotsanas has written six books concerning Ancient Greek Technology and he is the inspiratory of all three Museums of Ancient Greek Technology in Athens, Katakolo and Ancient Olympia.
The building
The Museum is housed in a unique historic Art Nouveau building at 6 Pindarou and Acadimias Street in Kolonaki. At the beginning of the century, this building belonged to the family of Aspasia Manou, wife of the King Alexander I, and later on was the head office of the Athenian News Agency.
Guests have the unique opportunity to get to know a relatively unknown aspect of the ancient Greek culture through the two permanent exhibitions covering a total area of 700 square meters. At the same time, in the Museum visitors can experience various cultural and academic events.
