Ancient lenses: who made them?

31. 03. 2017
6th international conference of exopolitics, history and spirituality

Archaeologists have not paid attention to them for more than a century. We are talking about optical lenses, complex instruments made of materials that prove the existence of advanced optics in the deep past.

Were thousands of years ago, were people able to make precise optical instruments that could be used to correct astigmatism, observe distant stars, and work at the microscopic level?

Ancient lens specialist Robert Temple (who is famous for his book on the cosmic knowledge of the Indigenous Dogon tribe called Mystery of Sierra) believes it and is firmly convinced that evidence of such unexpected claims has been given to specialists right in front of his eyes for at least a hundred years.

Over the last three decades, he has demonstrated inhuman perseverance by developing his own special method of working and going to museums around the world, discovering that they contain a huge number of objects that are incorrectly described as ornaments, beads, etc., although their real purpose was completely different. They were intended to improve the visibility of distant or, conversely, microscopic objects, to direct the sun's beam so as to ignite a fire, and also to serve as an orientation…

The first surprise, which he described in his monograph Crystal Sun, was that in classical texts, as well as in the oral tradition and religious traditions of many nations, there are numerous indications that they owned optical instruments. And they have long been able to attract the attention of historians and archaeologists and evoke in them the desire to find them.

But, as the author himself admits bitterly, there is a negative tradition in the scientific environment, rejecting the possibility of the existence of any advanced technology in the deep past. For example, some objects, whose shape and material inevitably offer the idea of ​​serving as lenses, were classified as mirrors, earrings or, at best, as flammable lenses, ie they served as lenses as well, but should be used exclusively to concentrate the sun's rays and ignite a fire.

Paradoxically, the tiny crystal balls made by the Romans, who used them as lenses, were filled with water and described as containers for cosmetics and perfumery. In both cases, in Robert's opinion, the short-sightedness of contemporary science has manifested itself, and he intends to prescribe quality glasses.

 Miniature models of the Plinia period

Ancient references to lenses can be traced relatively easily since the days of Pliny the Elder (1st century AD), although, as we shall see, similar instructions can be found in the Texts of the Pyramids, which are more than 4000 years old, and even earlier, and in ancient Egypt.

In his work Naturalis Historia Plinius, Kalikrat and Mirmekid, two ancient Roman artists and craftsmen, describe the strenuous work with miniature objects in these words: “Kalikrat managed to create models of ants and other small creatures whose body parts remained invisible to other people. A Mirmekid earned fame in the same area by making a small cart with four horses, all made of the same material. It was so small that, like a ship of the same size, a fly could cover it with its wings. "

If Pliny's narrative makes a big impression, then the mention of a miniature copy of the Iliad, created on such a small piece of parchment that the whole book could fit into a walnut shell, first mentioned by Cicero, the author of the previous century, is no less interesting. The closer we get to us, the more often classical authors incorporate into their works data on these now lost objects, the creation of which clearly required the use of optical instruments.

According to Templ, “the first contemporary author of optical instruments, if we do not count magnifying glasses, was the Italian Francesco Vettori, who built a microscope in 1739. He was an expert on antiquities gem (gemma, gem, small sculpture, cut or carved into precious stone or glass and used as a piece of jewelery or amulet) and he said he saw some of them as big as half a grain of a lens. However, they were artificially machined, which he considered impossible if we did not admit that there were powerful magnifying devices in ancient times. "

Just when working with ancient decorations, the obvious existence of now lost optical technology becomes evident.

It has been intuitively pointed out by many specialists over the centuries, but for some reason this attractive area of ​​history has remained completely unexplored.

Karl Sittl, a German art historian, claimed as early as 1895 that there was a portrait of Pompeii Plotina, converted into a miniature on a stone barely six millimeters in diameter. Pompea was the wife of the Roman emperor Trajan and lived in the 1st century AD Still points to it as an example of the use of optical magnifiers by ancient carvers.

The Stockholm Historical Museum and the Shanghai Museum house artifacts made of various metals, such as gold or bronze, with clearly visible miniatures, as well as numerous clay tablets of Babylon and Assyria, on which microscopic cuneiform characters are visibly engraved.

Similar tiny inscriptions were so numerous, especially in Greece and Rome, that Robert Temple had to reject the idea of ​​finding and classifying them all. The same goes for the lenses themselves, which he hoped to find only a few pieces, but in the English edition of his book he lists as many as four hundred and fifty!

As for glass spheres, which were used as spark plugs and for burning wounds, which, regardless of their fragility, were also preserved in many different museums, they have always been classified as containers for storing special fluids.

 From the rays of death to the ancient Egyptian optics

The fact that the optical technologies of antiquity are not an illusion or "optical illusion" at all can be understood if you read the classics carefully, look in the catalogs of museums and reinterpret some myths. One of the most obvious examples in this area is the legend of divine fire, which was passed on to people by various heroes, such as Prometheus. Just accept that people had tools capable of "getting fire out of nowhere."

The Greek author Aristophanes even speaks directly in his comedy Oblaka about the lenses with which they lit a fire in the 5th century. BC Judging by all accounts, the Druids did the same. They used clear minerals to expose the "invisible substance of fire."

But we found the most significant use of this technology in Archimedes and his giant mirrors. There is no need to mention the scientific contribution of this genius, who was born in Syracuse and lived between 287 and 212 BC. But it must be said that at the time of the siege of Syracuse by Claudia Marcello's Roman fleet in 212, Archimedes was able to set fire to the Roman trieras (warships of antiquity, note translation) by focusing the sun's rays on them with huge, probably metallic mirrors.

The veracity of the episode was traditionally questioned until November 6, 1973, when Greek scientist Ioannis Sakkas repeated it in the port of Piraeus and set a small ship on fire with the help of seventy mirrors.

The testimony of these forgotten knowledge can be seen everywhere, revealing the fact that the life of ancient people was much richer and more creative than ever being able to admit our conservative reason. It is here, better than anywhere else, the old saying that we see the world as the color of the glass through which we are looking is confirmed.

Another important discovery that Temple introduced us to is the fruit of hard work in bibliography and philology. Dr. Michael Weitzman of the University of London has just given his time. He showed that the term "totafot," which is used in the biblical books of Exodus and Deuteronomy (sometimes also called 5, by the book of Moses,) for the designation of filactaria, attached to the forehead during the service, so at first it referred to an object which was placed between the eyes.

As a result, we have another description of the glasses before us, and in the opinion of Weitzman, the best expert on ancient Jewish history in England, these are glasses that come from Egypt.

It is not strange that in the land of the pharaohs they were acquainted with them even before the pharaohs actually appeared there. After all, this is the only way to explain the microscopic drawings on the handle of an ivory knife found in the 90s by Dr. Günter Dreyer, director of the German Institute in Cairo, at the Umm el-Kab cemetery in Abidos.

It is noteworthy that the knife is dated by a predynamic epoch, the so-called "Nakada-II period", which is approximately 34. century BC In other words, it was made five thousand three hundred years ago!

This real archeological mystery shows us a series of human figures and animals whose heads are no larger than one millimeter. And this can only be determined by a magnifying glass.

Temple seems to be absolutely convinced that optical technology appeared in Egypt and was used not only in the production of miniature images and in everyday life, but also in the construction and orientation of Old Empire buildings, as well as for creating various lighting effects in temples through cut disks and in time calculations.

Staggered eyes of statues IV, V and even III. the dynasties were "curved crystalline lenses, perfectly machined and polished". They increased the size of the dolls and gave the sculptures a vivid look.

In this case, the lenses were made of quartz and evidence of its abundance in ancient Egypt can be found in museums and books devoted to Egyptology. It follows that the "Eye of Horus" was another type of optical device.

 Layard lens and not just the one

The prototype of the extensive series of evidence gathered by Temple, was Layard's lens.

It is this stone that stands at the very beginning of its thirty-year epic, and in view of its enormous importance, which it represents for an in-depth examination of history, it is kept in the British Museum, in the department of antiquity in Western Asia.

The lens was found during excavations carried out by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in Iraq, in one of the halls of the palace in Kalch, also known as the city of Nimrud. It is only part of a complex of finds, which includes a huge number of objects belonging to the Assyrian king Sargon, who lived in the 7th century BC

We are talking about an object made of rock crystal, oval in shape, whose length is 4,2 centimeters, width is 3,43 centimeters and an average thickness of 5 millimeters.

It was originally cast, perhaps from gold or other precious metal, treated with great care, but was stolen and sold by excavators. But the most remarkable thing is that we are talking here about a real flat-convex lens, which was made in the shape of a toroid, completely wrong from a layman's point of view, with numerous notches on the flat surface. At the same time, it is quite clear that it was used to correct astigmatism. Therefore, the diopter calibration on this lens is different in their different parts, from 4 to 7 units, and the levels of diopter increase range from 1,25 to 2.

The production of a similar device required the highest precision at work. At first, its surface was completely flat on both sides and was perfectly transparent, a quality that is naturally lost due to numerous cracks, dirt trapped in micropores, and other influences that inevitably left their mark on the two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old artifact.

It is essential that the lens has the dimensions of the eyeball and even its parameters correspond to some current standard lenses.

When Temple came across its history and completed the analysis, work began that led to the discovery and study of more than four hundred and fifty lenses from around the world. The pioneer of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann, found forty-eight lenses in the ruins of the mythical city, one of which was characterized by the perfection of processing and traces of acquaintance with the engraver's tools.

Thirty lenses were found in Ephesus and, characteristically, they were all convex and reduced the image by seventy-five percent, and in Knóss, Crete, it turned out, the lenses were made in such quantities that they even found a real workshop of the Minoan era, where they dealt with their manufacture.

The Cairo Museum houses a specimen of a well-preserved round lens, dated 3rd century. BC, which has a diameter of five millimeters and enlarges one and a half times.

In the Scandinavian countries, the number of old lenses found is approaching one hundred, and in the ruins of Carthage they found sixteen pieces, all flat-convex, glass, with the exception of two, made of rock crystal.

It is clear that after the publication of the book The Crystal Sun and its translation into other languages, new lenses, lenses, "emeralds" and other testimonies of the optical art of antiquity will be found, which have been dusty in museums for many decades or even centuries.

However, there is no need to see in these testimonies traces of the aliens' stay on our planet or the existence of some forgotten civilizations with extremely advanced technologies. All of them merely point to the normal evolutionary development of science and technology, based on the study of nature through the accumulation of empirical knowledge, through trial and error.

In other words, the testimony of the inventiveness of the human genius lies before us, and only man is responsible for both the creation of such miracles and their forgetfulness.

 Glasses of a thousand years old

We already know that the biblical term "totafot" was probably of Egyptian origin and referred to an object similar to our glasses. But a better example of the use of glasses in the deep past is given by the infamous Nero, about which Pliny offers us an exhaustive testimony.

Nero was short-sighted, and in order to watch gladiatorial battles, he used "emeralds," bits of greenish crystal that not only corrected vision defects, but also visually approaching objects. That is, we are talking here about a monocle, which, as far as possible, was mounted on a metal base and its lens was probably made of green semi-precious stones, such as emerald or convex cut glass.

In the last century, experts have discussed much of Nero's nearsightedness and concluded that the invention of vision correction agents 13 years ago is entirely possible, and is the opposite of the traditionally accepted view of the origin of glasses in the XNUMXth century.

Robert Temple concluded that: "Ancient glasses, which, in my opinion, were abundant, were a kind of pincer that was attached to the nose, or a kind of theatrical binocular that they kept to their eyes from time to time."

Regarding the question whether or not they had any trim, then it seems to be possible to answer positively. The beads existed and strengthened just like today, that is, behind the ears.

"Perhaps the trims were made of soft and not very strong materials, such as leather or twisted fabric, which made them sit very comfortably on the nose. But I believe that most of the ancient convex lenses made of glass or crystal, which were used for vision correction, were never worn permanently on the nose. I think they held them in their hands and, for example, when reading them, they attached them to the page like a magnifying glass in those cases where a word on the page was not legible, "concludes Templ.

 Roman magnifying glasses

According to the author of the Crystal Sun, the Romans were characterized by a special talent in the production of optical instruments! Lentils from Mainz, found in 1875 and dated 2nd century. BC is the best example, as is her contemporary, found in 1883 in Tanis, now stored in the British Museum.

However, in addition to lenses, there were plenty of "ignition glasses," tiny glass jars five millimeters in diameter that filled with water to zoom in or out on objects, focus the sun's rays, and be used to light fires or burn wounds.

These glass balls were inexpensive to produce, which compensated for their fragility, and many museums in the world boast their extensive collection, although it is true that they have so far been considered perfume bottles.

The author has identified two hundred of them and thinks they are ignition glasses designed for everyday use. They are much coarser than high-quality polished and therefore expensive lenses, which were used two and a half thousand years ago in ancient Greece.

 

Similar articles