Ancient engravers use optical magnification or reduction technology?

Hello CoinTalkers,

I am preparing to post my new ancient Greek coins. :thumb: Yes, I have acquired another (two) ancient Greek coins bringing my total up to ten coins. I’m hoping to receive both coins in the mail by the weekend. The anticipation is a FUNdamental part of coin collecting. If they don’t arrive promptly, then I always have the seller’s photos to post.


In the mean time, I have a question ---> :nerd: Do we know when ancient coin engravers first begin to use optical magnification or some type of reduction apparatus? I’ve only read a couple ancient coin books & there has not been much information provided. I would like to know how some ancient pieces came to have some very fine details. Were the good engravers believed to be very nearsighted or did they have some technological help?

 

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I have heard that some ancients may have used water to magnify objects (e.g., coin dies while engraving them). (This would be similar to the magnification you get when looking at something through a glass of water.

The Ancient Engineers

 

I believe that they may have used water, and suspect that they used very shortsighted people to be celators.

 

I read some where that they actively looked for nearsighted youngsters to train as celators. However, I can't remember where I read that.

 

I wondered if they could have uses a lense capsule from an animal eye

 

I spy, with my little eye, something that is fricken ancient!!!

 

Another consideration is we know celators at times tended to be passed on from father to son. The same would be said of nearsightedness. Maybe they didn't look for them as much as simply hire celator's sons.

 

Thanks to everyone for considering & answering my question.

 

must have not been an older man's job, since they didn't have bifocals back then. :nerd:

i'll be 42 this year, and the closer i get those coins to my eye to see it .....the more blurry it gets....

 

It gets worse.

 

Ain't that the truth

 

Ask windchild if 42 is old. If you ask me, 42 is very young, and perhaps 90 is old (well, maybe 95)

 

It depends on how you act

 

If that's the cae, I should still be in nickers, or at best chasing the girls around the school hallways.

 

Oh great => that means I'm only 13 years old!!

 

=> ahahahah Bing => we though the exact same thing!!

Cheers, ya old freak!!



:thirst::cheers::thirst:

 

Thank you for bringing Seneca's quote to my attention.


Seneca:

It would easy to dismiss Seneca as "only a philosopher" and not a scientist. It is important to remember, however, that the concept of a "scientist" only came in the late 18th century.

Prior to then, scientists were considered "natural philosophers," dabbling in alchemy and philosophy, as well as in scientific discovery and exploration,.

In fact, Isaac Newton's breakthrough book on classical mechanics from 1687 was entitled: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy").

An interesting article:

http://www.academia.edu/467038/The_Use_of_Magnifying_Lenses_in_the_Classical_World


guy

 

Thanks for the information everyone

Thanks to everyone at CT including Bart9349 for this link. :smile
http://www.academia.edu/467038/The_Use_of_Magnifying_Lenses_in_the_Classical_World
I hope that everyone will visit the link. For those to lazy to click the link, here is some information gleaned from it:

It is apparently an ongoing discussion about whether magnifying lenses were known, unknown (or little known) in the ancient world. There is apparently an absence of evidence describing how lenses were actually used. According to the 2010 paper by Harvey Hanna, this “absence of evidence” may really just be an “evidence of absence”. In his paper he reiterates that most of the written data of the ancient world has been lost....

According to Hanna’s paper, there may have been lenses readily available in the olden days. The lenses & applications may just not be fully recorded in the surviving historical records. The link describes that circa 423 B.C., there were lenses for starting kindling fires using the sun’s rays. The lenses were available to be purchased at the local pharmacy. Here is a cute & quick scene from a play allegedly written circa 423 B.C. The name of the play is Clouds and according to the reference cited, it was apparently translated by Ian Johnston in 2000.

STREPSIADES: Hey, I’ve devised a really clever way to make that lawsuit disappear—it’s so good, you’ll agree with me.

SOCRATES: What’s your way?

STREPSIADES: At the drug seller’s shop have you seen that beautiful stone you can see right through, the one they use to start a fire?

SOCRATES: You mean glass?

STREPSIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: So what?

STREPSIADES: What if I took that glass, and when the scribe was writing out the charge, I stood between him and the sun—like this— some distance off, and made his writing melt.

SOCRATES: just the part about my case?

etc. etc. etc.

If the translation is correct & the date is right, then it’s apparent to me that there were lenses readily available in 423 B.C. Surely the lenses were prized possessions that would be cared-for & passed down from one generation to the next so long as the lens remained functional. (Maybe passed from engraver to engraver). According to the Weblink, some lens artifacts have been found at a couple ancient engraving sites. These relics may have provided magnification of 3x to 20x. I’m beginning to believe that at least some engravers used lenses in their routine.

My new Greek coin certainly looks as though a lens could have been involved with its engraving. I just received the coin & will post photos ASAP.