Nimrud lens [SEP] collection
lens is on display in the British Museum.
Interpretation.
The function of the lens is not clear, with some authors suggesting that it was used as an optical lens and others suggesting a decorative function.
Assyrian craftsmen made intricate engravings and could have used a magnifying lens in their work. The discoverer of the lens noted that he had found very small inscriptions on Assyrian artefacts which he suspected had been achieved with the aid of a lens.
Italian scientist Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome has proposed that
Nimrud lens
The Nimrud lens, also called Layard lens, is a 3000-year-old piece of rock crystal, which was unearthed in 1850 by Austen Henry Layard at the Assyrian palace of Nimrud, in modern-day Iraq. It may have been used as a magnifying glass, or as a burning-glass to start fires by concentrating sunlight, or it may have been a piece of decorative inlay.
Description.
The lens is slightly oval and was roughly ground, perhaps on a lapidary wheel. It has