Five years ago, our newspaper talked with a unique ophthalmologist Elnar Mammadovich Akhmedov.
In his work, Elnar Akhmedov is guided not only by the latest achievements in the field of medicine, but often refers to the experience of the ancients.
So, once he became interested in the experience of doctors of the times of antiquity, who made a diagnosis by carefully studying the iris of the eye.
The method of iridology is widely used today in China, which Elnar Akhmedov learned about when he was in this country at a symposium of ophthalmologists.
In traditional Chinese medicine, the eye is not considered as a separate organ, but exclusively in close connection with other internal organs and with all channels and collaterals.
Having studied everything that is possible in this area, Elnar Akhmedov eventually opened an iridology center in St. Petersburg and became its head.
In the five years that have passed since our first conversation, significant changes have occurred in the life of a unique doctor. He defended his Ph. D. thesis, as a result of which he was awarded the degree of Candidate of Medical Sciences.
Now Elnar Akhmedov is actively working on collecting materials for his doctoral dissertation.
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But that's not all. True to his traditions of referring to the experience of the ancients, Elnar Akhmedov became interested in the history of ophthalmological optics and collected extensive historical material on this topic. Now his monograph on this topic is being prepared for publication.
- As far as I understand, this topic has nothing to do with your specialization - iridology. Why did she interest you?
“I’m working with the human eye. I want to be aware of everything, I want to know as much as possible in my field and, if possible, apply to one degree or another all the knowledge gained.
How historical information can be useful to me in future work, I do not know yet, but, as they say, let it be! (Laughs.)
- The exact time of the invention of glasses is unknown, but it is believed that they first appeared in the tenth-thirteenth centuries of our era. Did you study this particular period?
- No, much more ancient! The preconditions for the fact that optical lenses (polished rock crystal crystals of the ancient Greeks, the famous emerald of Nero) appeared much earlier, were long ago, but archaeologists did not seem to notice them.
And so it went on for almost a century after archeology became a serious science. But optical devices made from a variety of materials and found in various countries prove the existence of advanced optics already in ancient times.
- But were our ancestors able to make precise optical instruments several thousand years ago?
- They are capable, and archaeological finds prove it. With the help of those instruments, it was possible not only to observe the stars, but also to carry out work at the microscopic level and even correct astigmatism.
I'm not the only one interested in ancient lenses! (Laughs.) For example, Robert Temple, the one who wrote the famous book on the space knowledge of the Dogon tribe "The Mystery of Sirius", is also sure that the evidence of this was literally under the nose of experts for many years.
- Why didn't they see them?
- It's all about stereotypes. It is very difficult to give up the acquired academic knowledge and look at the problem from a different angle.
It is even more difficult to take a different look at familiar objects and see in them not what to accept to see.
Museums around the world are literally packed with optical instruments! They are in the main expositions and in the storerooms. Yes, you yourself have seen them many times, only you have not thought at all about what it really is.
After all, under them are signs that say that these are just household items. And how about us? It is written - a pot for food, and we believe that this is a pot for food, and not some kind of capacity, for example, for an electric battery, as in the same Ancient Egypt.
- You intrigued me! What are these objects that everyone saw but did not think of them as optical instruments?
- These are numerous jewelry, scattered beads, etc. If you see a round transparent ball with an inscription under it: "A bead from such and such a settlement", you will count it that way! And these "beads" (which, by the way, in most cases do not have a through hole to be strung on a thread) could serve their other purposes!
Some could focus sunlight to get fire, others - to help see distant or microscopic objects, and others - to carry out orientation on the ground. And all that was needed was to abandon the stereotypes of perception!
In 1984, Professor Cyril Smith, a well-known metal connoisseur and science historian of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was so deeply immersed in stereotypes that he dismissed all the samples found during the excavation as "obvious trinkets."
As for Robert Temple, some in the scientific world do not take him seriously, they believe that he is just an amateur or an adventurer making a name for himself from scratch.
However, his monograph "The Mystery of Sirius", which speaks of the possibility of paleocontact - an ancient visit to Earth by aliens, is recognized as the most profound study of all conducted so far in this area.
It was the research and books by Robert Temple, including The Crystal Sun, that made me turn to this question, and I figured out many amazing things.
Thus, it became clear that both in the texts considered to be classical and in the oral tradition of the overwhelming majority of the peoples of the world there are simply striking indications that optical devices existed many millennia ago.
If these texts were read more carefully and when reading their "classical" views that "this can not be, because it can never be", would not prevail over perception, scientists and archaeologists would have long ago paid attention to them.
They would begin to purposefully seek them out, study them, and what has already been found would be viewed through the prism of these indications, and not through the stereotypes that are suggested by classical science.
Although the word "classic" should be put in huge quotes! But this, probably, will not happen in the foreseeable future, because the official science stubbornly asserts that in antiquity there could not be any developed technology - neither in the field of optics, nor in any other.
Hundreds of independent researchers prove this with numerous examples, and official science has climbed into its reinforced concrete shell from outdated views and shouts from there: “No! Never! Can not be!"
- What other examples of misinterpretation of archaeological finds can you give?
- Various polished objects from a wide variety of materials - real lenses! - are interpreted as prehistoric mirrors.
If something is polished to a shine, then what is it for? Well, of course, to look at yourself and see how beautiful I am! (Laughs.) A lot is declared to be women's jewelry.
Official science says that these are pendants, earrings, etc. And the fact that these "earrings" bring objects closer or enlarge is not taken into account.
At best, many of the lenses have been billed as incendiary glasses. That is, how lenses were still recognized, but their use was explained by purely utilitarian needs.
It's like declaring a microscope to be a device to help jewelers!
It gets ridiculous when various small crystalline spheres of the times of Ancient Rome are declared to be vessels for cosmetics and perfumes or for storing some kind of liquids.
But if you fill them with water, we get full-fledged lenses! But the fantasy of modern scientists does not go further than perfume bottles! Robert Temple very figuratively said in this case about the myopia of modern science, which he intends to prescribe good glasses!
Except for lenses in the form of beads, etc. in many historical museums, for example, in Stockholm and Shanghai, unique artifacts are stored from a variety of materials - metals, ceramics.
Looking at them, one can notice a miniature work that cannot be done without the help of magnifying devices. On many clay tablets from Babylon and Assyria, one can see squeezed out microscopic cuneiform signs, even Nikolai Nepomniachtchi wrote about this.
Samuel Noah Cramer, a very famous researcher of the Sumerian civilization, who passed away twenty-five years ago, after studying an artifact from the Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, said: "We are surprised how the ancient scribe managed to write them, and how, having written, he could read them without a magnifying glass or microscope."
- You said that in many, considered classical texts, there is a direct indication that the ancients were familiar with optics. What texts are we talking about?
- Well, for example, in the "Pyramid Texts", which are more than four thousand years old and which were found in the second half of the nineteenth century. There are also older texts from the times of Ancient Egypt.
Of the later literary and historical monuments of writing, one can cite as an example numerous texts from the time of Pliny the Elder, this is the first century of our era.
One of his most famous works is Natural History. In it, the ancient Roman writer and scientist describes the laborious work with miniature objects. This work was carried out by two ancient Roman artists and artisans - Kalikrat and Mirmekid.
Pliny the Elder writes: “Calicrates was able to make models of ants and other tiny creatures, whose body parts remained invisible to other people.
A certain Mirmekid earned himself fame in the same area, having made a small cart with four horses from the same material, so tiny that it could be covered with its wing by a fly, and a ship of the same size.
Tell me, please, how these two worthy people could do such a delicate job without any magnifying devices ?! Or did they have eyesight like an eagle ?!
Cicero (and this is already the first century BC) cites as an example a miniature copy of Homer's Iliad, so small that it could fit in a walnut shell.
How can you create such a thing without having something like a microscope? No way!
And what about official science? And she, having studied these and later texts up and down, does not want to see at close range that such a work would be completely impossible if it did not have the ancient mater of optical instruments.
Orthodox scientists have agreed to explain all this … hereditary myopia! In the early eighties, Leonard Gorelik and John Gwynnstg, medical scientists at State University of New York, hypothesized that magnifying glasses were simply not necessary in the ancient world!
They say that if nearsighted people hold small objects directly in front of their eyes, they see them much better than people with normal vision. And even better than using optics.
These two would-be scientists, rejecting the obvious, pushed the hypothesis that all (!) The miniature work of the ancient world was carried out by shortsighted craftsmen.
And since the predisposition to myopia is a hereditary thing, they agreed that there were whole generations of myopic masters.
- Yes, it's funny … However, the texts you mentioned do not directly mention optical devices.
- No. And why should ancient authors mention them, if by default it is clear that fine work cannot be done without the help of optics! Well, if such an example is not convincing, let's give another one.
Ancient historians have described beautiful statues made of marble or metal.
Did any of them say that the ancient Greek sculptors Praxitel, Phidias or Polycletus used various casting devices?
Does anyone mention that the ancient Roman sculptor Pasitels used a tongue-and-groove, a scarpel, a Trojan or a mallet when working with marble? (All marble statues are surviving late Roman copies of Greek metal statues.)
So in the case of optics: and so it is clear that it was used. Moreover, the lack of mention of her just underlines the fact that she was more than familiar! Who will say now that nails are used when building a wooden house, and glue is used when gluing wallpaper?
- And do later authors have any information about the now forgotten optics of the ancients?
- There is. And there she is just mentioned almost directly, and not indirectly. Take, for example, Philip von Stosch, who lived in the eighteenth century. He was a renowned collector and connoisseur of antique gems.
Stosh wrote that miniature gems, half the size of a lentil grain, passed through his hands, which, nevertheless, were skillfully processed. Stosh argued that this would have been impossible if the ancient carvers did not have magnifying devices, and powerful ones.
By the way, if we consider the ancient jewelry of the times of antiquity, then even without any authorities it becomes clear that they cannot be created without optics.
- As you know, myths are not born from scratch. Are there any myths or legends that would speak in plain text about any optical devices?
- Well, it's hard for me to say now about the open text, but if you carefully study and correctly interpret some of the myths, you can find again indirect, but very convincing examples of the use of optical devices by the ancient. Take, for example, the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus, who gave humanity a divine fire.
But, you must admit, it is not enough to receive something as a gift, you need to be able to preserve it, and subsequently to get it yourself. This concerns fire in the first place.
It seems to me that in the case of Prometheus - if we discard all the fabulousness - in the bottom line we will deal with obtaining fire using incendiary glasses, that is, lenses.
I am sure this myth should only be interpreted in this way. Otherwise, how else can they get fire “out of nowhere” ?!
By the way, the ancient Greek author Aristophanes, in his comedy "Clouds", speaks about lenses for ignition of fire. This is the 5th-4th century BC.
Judging by ancient Druidic myths, Druids were able to do the same, extracting the "invisible substance of fire" using a variety of materials, including using lenses.
- In that case, you can put Archimedes in the same row with his story about how, during the siege of Syracuse in 212 by the Roman fleet, he managed to set fire to the Roman triremes, focusing and directing the sun's rays at them with the help of huge, presumably metal mirrors?
- To be honest, this story, from the time of history lessons at school, caused me strong doubts.
Firstly, creating such mirrors is not a matter of one day, even if we assume that the ancient Greeks possessed the technology that is now lost. And there, after all, it was a matter of several hours: the besieging squadron will not wait.
Secondly, in order to set fire to something with the help of a focused sun beam, it takes time, and the ships will not wait for this again - they are moving!
Yes, the entire Roman fleet was burned, as some ancient authors indicate, but it seems to me that some other weapon was used by Archimedes (or someone else, it doesn't matter). Perhaps these were some kind of rocket launchers with incendiary shells.
The fact that ancient civilizations possessed long-forgotten knowledge is no longer in doubt. Except for the conservative-minded representatives of official science. (Laughs)
- But in 1973 the Greek scientist Ioannis Sakas conducted an experiment proving the possibility of setting fire to the fleet with the help of mirrors!
- What were the details of this experiment? Sakas sent seventy men with beautifully polished one-meter bronze mirrors, and three minutes later they set fire to a small wooden ship.
But, firstly, it was done from a distance of 50 meters, and in the case of Syracuse, the distance was much greater.
Secondly, the ship stood still and awaited its fate.
Thirdly, we again run into quantity: it is unlikely that the besieged in Syracuse had time to make so many mirrors at a cosmic pace!
- Now let's move on to the glasses. When do you think they appeared - if we assume that our history is not at all what the textbooks represent?
- There is an English scientist of Jewish origin, an expert on ancient Jewish history - Michael Weizmann.
He conducted research and suggested that totafot (phylactery in Greek, tefillin in Hebrew), an object fixed on the forehead during Jewish worship (which can be read about in the Book of Exodus and Deuteronomy), originates in ancient Egypt.
There, this word was used to designate an object that was placed between the eyes. Weizmann argues that in this case we are talking about glasses. I can assume that this could be the same head mirror that we, ophthalmologists, use.
However, the glasses - either in the form of an object that corrects vision, or in the form of lenses for magnifying objects in small or jewelry work, the ancient Egyptians knew for sure.
Too many archaeologists find objects that cannot be decorated in any way, if you do not use some kind of optical instruments.
For example, microscopic drawings on the handle of an ivory knife found in the tomb of Umm al-Kabb in Abydos in the nineties by Dr. Gunther Dreyer, director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo.
This knife is almost five and a half thousand years old. The microscopic pattern on it is an alternation of figures of animals and people.
Their heads are about one millimeter in size. Can you create such a drawing without a magnifying glass ?! Definitely not.
Robert Temple believes that in Ancient Egypt optical instruments were definitely used, and not only for the needs of jewelers, but also for more practical purposes: for calculating time, for orienting buildings and structures to the cardinal points, for astronomical observations and calculations.
Most likely, they were also used in religious ceremonies: to create light and optical effects. The priests needed to impress the flock! (Laughs.)
The fact that the ancient Egyptians were familiar with optics is also evidenced by their statues, created during the third to fifth dynasties. These statues had domed quartz lenses inserted into their eye sockets, amazingly finished and polished. They gave the statues the effect of living eyes. And quartz in Egypt was not just a lot, but a lot.
I think that the so-called Eye of Horus (or the Eye of Horus, the famous Egyptian amulet) is also nothing more than an optical device.
- What can you say about the so-called Layard lens?
- This is another proof in favor of the hypothesis that the ancients were very familiar with optics.
Today, the lens, found by Austin Henry Layard in 1849 during excavations in Iraq in one of the halls of the palace in Kalhu, also known as the city of Nimrud, is kept in the British Museum.
By the way, one must be fair: not all scientists disown the idea that optical instruments could have been known in ancient times. Experts from the British Museum admit that this piece of concave glass, dating from about 800 BC, is a lens. Its thickness is only five millimeters. And this lens is only part of the amazing finds from the excavations of the times of the Assyrian king Sargon.
- What was it used for?
- British experts believe that neither more nor less for the correction of astigmatism. This is evidenced by the numerous cuts on the flat surface and its diopter graduation. It is different on this lens in different parts of it - from 4 to 7 units, and the levels of diopter increase range from 1.25 to 2.
Such lenses have been found from time to time, but have been completely misinterpreted. Even Schliemann found them in large numbers (about fifty pieces) during the excavation of Tory.
Today, lenses like these, mostly made of rock crystal, are found throughout the Mediterranean coastline and in the Middle East.
Two were found in Gordion, the ancient capital of King Midas in central Turkey, about thirty in Ephesus, sixteen in the ruins of Carthage, about twenty in Heraklion in Crete.
One of the Cretan lenses can magnify seven times! And with impeccable accuracy. If the lens is removed from the object under consideration, it increases it twenty times, albeit with distortion.
In Crete, lenses were manufactured in such quantities that we can talk about their mass production. The Minoan workshop found there serves as proof of this.
Ephesian lenses, on the contrary, reduced the image by seventy percent.
- It turns out that the lenses were only in the southern and eastern countries?
- Well, why not? They were also found in Scandinavian countries, and there are many - more than a hundred. I think that among the artifacts already found after the book "The Crystal Sun" by Robert Temple, lenses will be "found" that were previously characterized as anything, but not as optical instruments.
- Many researchers characterize such finds that do not fit into the views of official science as traces of alien technologies. How do you feel about this point of view?
- With a laugh. I do not deny the presence of aliens or extinct powerful purely terrestrial civilizations, but I am more than sure that all these findings are more than natural.
They only confirm the opinion of many scientists that our civilization developed at a completely natural pace, its evolution was quite normal and was based on the laws of physics and new technologies discovered in ancient times, as well as the laws of nature.
There is nothing fantastic in this, all the knowledge of the ancients was obtained by trial and error.
Yes, with the decline of the Roman Empire, many knowledge was forgotten and mankind had to reinvent the wheel in the Middle Ages, but who said that it is necessary now to disown the idea that the ancients were no more stupid than us?