# Ancient automata
The concept ‘robot’ originates from Czech writer Karel Čapek.
However, automata are common through history both in the real world and in stories.
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### Mechanical and psychological spectacle
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### Temple automatics as power mechanism
Moving on to medieval Europe, the automata and artifice in stories merge with the concept of *Natura artifex*, inspiring the 17th-century notions of mechanical nature and clockwork-world, which have in turn contributed to our contemporary models of rationality, underlying the conceptualisation of current technologies.
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