Timeline of Robotics from the history of computing project

http://www.thocp.net/reference/robotics/robotics.html

~3500 BC

Greek myths of Hephaestus and Pygmalion incorporate the idea of intelligent robots.

~2500 BC

Egyptians invent the idea of thinking machines: citizens turn for advice to oracles, which are statues with priests hidden inside.

~1400 BC

Babylonians develop a water clock named the “clepsydra.”

This water clock is considered one of the first “robotic” devices in the history of man kind. The water is recycled through a kind of siphoning system.
~700 - 800 BC

First symbolic mention of robots - automatae - appears in Homer’s Iliad(7) - or simulacra as they will be called.

1200 AD app.

Arab authors also designed complex mechanical arrangements. The most famous amongst them is Al-Jazari. He wrote Automata - which is considered the most important text for the study of the History of Technology. This book is richly illustrated and gives the state of the art of technology in the middle ages and shows how advanced technology in that time was compared with the western countries.