"Robert Temple's fascinating book should be read by all who have an interest in the history of science, and may well cause a revolution in this subject"
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Thursday 8th February 2001
Based upon 33 years of research all over the world, in museums from Stockholm to Shanghai, from Athens to Cairo, and in thousands of books in several languages, Robert Temple has reconstructed a wholly forgotten story: the story of light technology in ancient civilisation. It goes back to at least 3300BC in Predynastic Egypt, and continues throughout Western antiquity. Unknown to our modern archaeologists and historians, a science of optics and a sophisticated technology for the manufacture of lenses was widespread and fundamental in ancient times. It inspired awe in cultures who used it, so that it permeated their mythologies and religions, and led even to a 'theology of light' in mediaeval Christianity.
Now at least we can know how it was that the earliest Egyptians surveyed their pyramids and other structures with such uncanny precision; they used the equivalent of theodolites with lenses, and were masters of optical surveying techniques. We can also understand how for thousands of years the ancients were able to produce miniature carvings on gems, including some so small they are invisible to the naked eye altogether. The burning mirror by which Archimedes destroyed a Roman fleet has been successfully reconstructed and proven to work. The Greek philosopher Democritus spoke of the moon having mountains and being a second earth because he had viewed it through a rudimentary telescope. A similar instrument was used for studying the moon by the ancient British, and Temple has located many lost crystal lenses in English museums.
Myths are explained, and many religious motifs can now be understood for the first time, from the Eye of Cyclops and the Eye of Horus to the fire that Prometheus brought from heaven.