[Fred Nerks]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/380186.stm (snip)

By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
If one Italian scientist is correct then the telescope was not invented sometime in the 16th century by Dutch spectacle makers, but by ancient Assyrian astronomers nearly three thousand years earlier.



BBC News' Dominic Hughes: This could mean that the telescope was invented two and a half thousand years earlier
According to Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome, a rock crystal lens, currently on show in the British museum, could rewrite the history of science. He believes that it could explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy.

But experts on Assyrian archaeology are unconvinced. They say that the lens is of such low quality that it would have been a poor aid to vision.

Magnifying glass

It is called the Nimrud lens and it was found in 1850 by the legendary archaeologist Sir John Layard, during an epic series of excavations at the palace of Nimrud in what is now Iraq.

Also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/702478.stm

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the URL update. Actually, it might make a good standalone topic. :')

[ApplegateRanch]

But experts on Assyrian archaeology are unconvinced. They say that the lens is of such low quality that it would have been a poor aid to vision.

And I hate to think what my camera and telescope lenses will look like, after they have been buried in the sand for a few millennia.