Ancient glass lens

The previously documented relics retrieved from the ruins of a Parthian city located in a suburb of the modern city of Baghdad include an ancient battery dated to 250-224 BC [1]. This discovery was described in a book published by Pureinsight.org, Unravelling the Mask of Prehistoric Civilisation - The Unknown Ages. But the city holds surprises greater than this – a more striking finding was reported recently.
At the same place where the ancient battery was found, a polished optical lens was unearthed. It is about the width of two fingers in diameter and it is highly transparent. Tests identify it as a polished lens. Due to the passage of time, parts associated with this lens were lost. Only the lens itself, slightly cracked, remains. This earliest lens known to date is now in the British Museum. [2]

In textbooks, we are told that the earliest optical lens polishing techniques appeared in 16th century Europe. However, this polished lens is an ancient relic 2200 years old.

The ancient people of Baghdad who made this lens had knowledge of glass shaping and polishing like that of today’s artists and scientists. They were able to melt glass materials, obtain desired shapes after processing, and polish the finished products to a high level of transparency. If they did not know how to burnish and polish glass, how could they have made such a lens? The writer Erich Von Daniken said, “I believe there was an unknown highly civilised society here in ancient times.”

I used the boolean search and i found nothing related to this:

Ancient Civilisation of Baghdad: Optical Glass Lens from 2200 Years Ago




How is that possible?

Well if these ancients mepotamians didn't had that technology to creat this len, maybe a scientist of our time used his ''time machine'' to travel back to the past... and lost his glasses...

unless they did have that tech and knowhow...

How do you explain this?

[edit on 28-1-2007 by Dragonlike]

This 'lens' was found in 1850 in the course of A.H. Layard's excavations in the North-West Palace at Nimrud (Iraq) and probably dates to about the 8th century BC. It is normally on display in Room 55 (Later Mesopotamia Gallery), case 9 at the British Museum. It is an oval 'lens' of ground rock crystal with one plane and one slightly convex face. It has often been regarded as an optical lens and as such would be the oldest known lens in the world. However, most experts today agree that it would have been of little or no practical use as a lens, and interpret it as a piece of decorative inlay.

www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk...

www.clearharmony.net...
The ancient people of Baghdad who made this lens had knowledge of glass shaping and polishing like that of today’s artists and scientists.

But it just said that the technology in europe dates to the 16th century.

Why is it surprising that people in ancient times could grind a good lense? I know its extremely uncommon, but, especially amoung a people with a stellar religion, a good lense would be useful no?

Also, notice, depsite having the ability to make this lense, they didn't make many of them or do much with it.

They were able to melt glass materials, obtain desired shapes after processing, and polish the finished products to a high level of transparency.

Why should a babylonian not be able to do this? We know that other ancient people's could make magnifying lenses and such.


The article states that its 'too advanced', but doesn't describe any optical qualities that are impossible.

From marduk's link

www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk...
of ground rock crystal

Meanwhile, the other page is claiming that its ground and polished and hand blown glass.
These are two completely different things. I wouldn't beleive anything on that other page if they can't even get the material correct.

This also shows that just because something isn't in the average high school text book of a few years ago, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Many times these supposed 'immpossible and shocking' facts aren't at all surprising if you look deeper than the level of a general textbook.

Who's to say this piece of glass was not an artifact from a meteorite impact or a volcanic event? It's possible all the locals did was polish the thing.

We know that other ancient people's could make magnifying lenses and such.

I din't know that. Can you provide links to read?

Who's to say this piece of glass was not an artifact from a meteorite impact or a volcanic event?

i don't know anything of this to have happened. Any ancient text saying that?

[edit on 28-1-2007 by Dragonlike]

Originally posted by Dragonlike
I din't know that. Can you provide links to read?

Here is a rather old, and very interesting, essay on glass in the ancient world, it talks about blowing glass and grinding it into lenses:

penelope.uchicago.edu...*/Vitrum.html

Here is a less dense magazine article:
www.newdawnmagazine.com...

Here is a scholarly article about lenses, but only the abstract is available:
cat.inist.fr...

By the time of the Romans, ancient glass workers were making incredible examples of caged glass:

Which I find too fascinating and beautiful not to mention.

Tea
Who's to say this piece of glass was not an artifact from a meteorite impact or a volcanic event?

Its a rock crystal. And its clearly been cut and polished.

The ancients had glass, on its own, for a long, long, LONG, time, and there was an extremely large and busy trade in glass for all sorts of uses throughout the ancient world. They manufactured it, all they really had to do was make enough heat to manufacture it, and even today people blow glass manually in the same way that they did.

[edit on 28-1-2007 by Nygdan]

look guys
this is not a ground glass lens
it is a piece of mineral
my link was to the british museum website which actually owns this piece of tat so you'd think they'd know what they were saying
the babylonians did have the technology to make lenses
they were making glass over a thousand years before the date of this
but they did not have any practical use for them
they didn't know that much about the properties of light
they only knew of five planets which is the amount that you can see from earth with the naked eye
and they were expert astrologers
so if they had known about telescopes it would be very very obvious
ok

I don't think they could have made this lens without help from an advanced civilization. If it was found at the same location as the batteries, maybe it's the lens from a flashlight.

did you not read any of the other posts at all
it is not a lens
and the civilisation that it was from did have the technology to make lenses for a thousand years
bloody flashlight

are you sure it wasn't a spacemans laser gun
or a vehicle cats eye for all the armoured personell carriers they were using to batter down the walls of Troy

I read the other posts and your comments. I still think it's a lens and all we need to find now is the lightbulb and we'll have an ancient babylonian flashlight.

OK folks a but of science and history for you.

Glass is basically made from silica, one of the most common elements on the surface of the earth. It is basically made from sand. It is believed that the first man made glass objects were made around 3500 BC that's over 5000 years ago.

Lens grinding is not a difficult thing to do nor does it require high technology. Give me a flat piece of Borosilicate glass, a ceramic tile, some plaster and with no tools other than some find sand for polishing, I can make you a high power telescope capable of seeing the rings around Saturn and the moons of Jupiter.

[edit on 28-1-2007 by Terapin]

dragonlike, what is with the timetravel thing? this is the second post of yours today i've read where you mentioned someone traveling back in time to drop a piece of "advanced" tech. not to say that someday i don't believe that time travel will be possible because i'm open to the possibility that it will be, but sheesh lol.
glass as has been stated is not terribly difficult to work with and the ancients were using it for a long time. any decent anthropological journal database will have at least a few articles about it.
this artifact is nothing mysterious and obviously isn't some dropped piece of equipment from a time traveler. interesting find though

I'm with Mythatsabigprobe on this one. I think that they used the baghdad battery and babylon lense to create the sumerian flashlight for making handshadow puppets to frighten off their enemies.

Yes, there are many Persian tales of the 'Fire Babies'.

I don't have any links.

Originally posted by Dragonlike
Well if these ancients mepotamians didn't had that technology to creat this len, maybe a scientist of our time used his ''time machine'' to travel back to the past... and lost his glasses...

Michael Crichton reader? Timeline?

The website's just a tad out of date with the information.

Originally posted by Dragonlike
In textbooks, we are told that the earliest optical lens polishing techniques appeared in 16th century Europe. However, this polished lens is an ancient relic 2200 years old.
How is that possible?

In fact, the ancients had been using gemstones and crude glass, polished into lenses, for quite some time. The Roman, Seneca (4 BC-65 AD), read with the use of such a thing and he was hardly the first:
www.didyouknow.cd...

So, it shows development from a much older form. VERY interesting article, though -- it's exciting to see just how far back this goes!

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
I don't think they could have made this lens without help from an advanced civilization. If it was found at the same location as the batteries, maybe it's the lens from a flashlight.

But a lens can be ground with plain old sand -- the same way they'd been polishing gemstones ever since 3,000 BC. I don't think it requires an advanced civilization to do something they'd already been doing for a thousand years.

...and the lens isn't that good or that clear or curved properly for a flashlight. You'd find it disappointing as a flashlight.

Originally posted by Marduk

are you sure it wasn't a spacemans laser gun
or a vehicle cats eye for all the armoured personell carriers they were using to batter down the walls of Troy

RAOTFLMFAO

Like you say Marduk, if they had optical lens technology they would have had more knowledge of the number of Planets....unless the planets they did not know of didn't exist then or perhaps their long dead inhabitants used Klingon stealth technology

Originally posted by Nygdan
I'm with Mythatsabigprobe on this one. I think that they used the baghdad battery and babylon lense to create the sumerian flashlight for making handshadow puppets to frighten off their enemies.

Again RAOTFLMFAO, my sides are hurting stop it please.

The Ancients did seem to have some lost technologies and techniques.
To find a bit of glass and claim it to be any form of optical lens is a bit of a stretch IMHO.

The origin of the glass is important. To say they could manufacture lenses would require some destructive testing of the glass to ascertain if it was man made and tests to find its optical characteristics and method of grinding, polishing.

Peoples around the world went round gathering all sorts of rocks and worked them to a high degree. If it were a lump of coal or jasper not many would be interested.

It could be that, someone just found an interesting looking piece of rock and fashioned it into a more interesting object. It is oval after all, not a good shape for a lens. Personally I am always impressed with the way they worked stuff like lapis lazuli into "pretty, polished shapes".

I see no reason to associate this lump of glass with other technologies, like the alleged battery. Come to think of it the "battery" is a very crude looking device. Perhaps they took more pride in lenses than batteries

I think its a jewel or maybe part of the Mesopotamian Star Wars Defence program

I dont find this so hard to believe. We would be floored by the tech of our past. they knew things that we have long forgoten.