The Importance of the Construct: Technological Animation in Ancient Religious Contexts

Objects were technologically animated in a variety of religious contexts in the Graeco-Roman world—in procession, temples, theatrical performance, divinatory settings, for example. This chapter focuses on the issue of viewership, probing the relationship between the divine, the object, the human worshipper, and human technician. It explores the examples of rotating wheels displayed or used in temples known largely from pneumatic texts, a pair of epigrams that describe technologically animated votives, and considers the perspective of the mechanician through use of Hero of Alexandria’s On Automata. Far from suggesting that a blind naivety on the ancient audience’s behalf rendered these animated technologies ‘magical’, the chapter argues for a nuanced understanding of how visible, technical elements of construction were key to the success of the animation, and thus to the religious effectiveness of the objects.