The Amazing Steam Engines Of The First Century: An online translation of an ancient text reveals some engineering marvels from antiquity.
by KFC 01/20/2011, http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26285/

"Ask a person in the street who invented the steam engine and you're more than likely to hear the names of various Renaissance inventors such as Denis Papin or James Watt. Less well known is the fact that steam engines were in use at least 2000 years ago. Our knowledge of these devices is largely the result of a text called Pneumatica written in the first century by the Greek mathematician, engineer and inventor Hero of Alexandria. Today, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, talks us through some of these devices as they are described in an online translation of Hero's work."