archaeology and evolution

Not that I've been able to find. All I came across was brief references in a few articles to a lens found on Mt. Ida from about the 5th century BC, most of which appear to have been copied from each other; but then I found one article about them from the American Journal of Archaeology: Sines, G. & Sakellarakis, Y. A., Lenses in Antiquity, American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 91, No. 2 (Apr., 1987), pp. 191-196 There are pictures of the the lenses in the article, but it's not open access so I can't see them.

It turns out that I can access them, as long as I do it from a university computer. Presumably, our campus library has a subscription to the journal that includes internet access from campus.The paper indicated that the lenses pictured were concave, so could not be used as magnifiers. That would also make them unsuitable for telescopes. The authors believe that they were used as ear ornaments, and valued as art objects.

Are you sure you'e looking at the same lenses? In the free preview bit of the article, it describes one as 'a plano-convex lens, 8mm in diameter and 4 mm thick, which has a focal length of 12mm, thereby giving a nomlnal magnification of 20X.'

An 8-millimeter telescope? Wow.

Good point. I did not read it carefully enough on the first read.Yes, the paper mentions several lenses, and some of the pictured lenses are plano-convex, so can be used for magnification.The pictured lenses appear to be from crystals, but the paper also mentions glass lenses that might have been used as magnifying glasses or for igniting fires.A telescope requires two lenses, one of them with a long focal length, and careful alignment of those lenses. And part of what makes a telescope work is not just the magnification, but the larger amount of light picked up and the greater resolving power dues to a large diameter objective lens.For evidence of early telescopes, I would want to see evidence of a largish diameter lens and evidence of the apparatus that held the lenses in a suitable alignment.

I was just passing through, but if anyone would like this entire article if you drop me an email bj25 at le.ac.uk I will send you a copy. Remember this is for education purposes only.