With the diversification of people's needs, the members of the glasses family are becoming larger and larger. Looking up at the starry sky can’t do without a telescope. Observation of fine matter requires the help of a microscope. Swimming and diving are indispensable for goggles and diving goggles. Those with poor eyesight rely on myopia glasses to help them see clearly. Those with normal vision can use glasses to block the wind and sand, modify their appearance, and show their individuality. . In modern homes, glasses have become an indispensable small utensil. The glasses have a simple structure, consisting of two small glasses and a frame, which can be used when they are placed on the bridge of the nose and hooked to the ears.
From the name point of view, the glasses from the Ming Dynasty and before were called "叆叇" (sound love to wear) by the Chinese. This Arabic transliteration name reveals the historical information that the glasses came from the west. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, Western missionaries entered China by sea. They used telescopes and spectacles as media to spread their doctrines, and they also contributed to the eastern journey of spectacles. With the advent of Western spectacles and optical knowledge, smart Chinese began to produce spectacles along the southeast coast. During the Yongzheng and Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, glasses from the West and crystal glasses from China traveled east to Japan, not only providing eye-aid artifacts for locals, but also stimulating the formation of painting art such as "Ukiyo-e" and "Glasses-painting".
Traces of glasses on the Silk Road
In human body organs, eyes are very important. They are the key for people to recognize the world, learn knowledge, and explore the universe. With the popularization of paper and printing, the number of people who are literate and read continues to increase. In ancient times, without the aid of electrified lighting, people read at night or at night with the moon, or at night by candles, while the poor and good scholars could only borrow light from the wall and reflect the snow. The poor eyesight environment and the loss of vision caused by the existence of various visual impairments are plagued by people. Bai Juyi, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, once expressed his "dark eyes" with helpless emotion: "The early years of diligent reading and the hardship, the sadness of late years, and many tears. If you don't know if your eyes are damaged, how about self-consciousness?" Countless ancient scholars longed for it. Can have "blind the eyes to turn out the light, can detect the most subtle. Reading in the dark window, as if you are young" to help the eyes.
In 1850, the British archaeologist Austin Reyard unearthed a crystal stone with obvious artificial wear marks and magnifying glass function in a human site 3300 years ago in present-day Iran-Nimru German lens, which shows that mankind has discovered the function of magnification and refraction early on. However, it has been more than 2,000 years for mankind to manufacture light and convenient glasses from grinding lenses with magnifying functions. It was not until the mid-14th century that monocles appeared in Venice or Pisa, Italy. In 1352, the spectacles in the mural of "Readers with Spectacles in the Copy Room" painted by Cardinal Provence in the church of Treviso, Italy, are recognized as the earliest spectacles in the world. Later, with the improvement of mirror grinding technology and the optimization of the frame, the glasses began to be mass-produced, and they were passed from the Venetian to Germanic, and then spread to the whole of Europe through Northern Europe.
After the glasses were born in Europe, they traveled east to Persia soon. Regarding the Persian travel of glasses, in 2018, Dr. Hassan Saberi of Urmia Medical University of Iran pointed out in the article "The History of Early Persian Glasses Spread" that the word glasses did not appear in Persian dictionaries until the 15th century. According to the records, the poet Jamie was the first Persian to mention glasses. In one of his poems, Jamie used "foreign glass" to refer to "glasses". Soon thereafter, glasses also appeared in the gift list presented by the merchant group from Venice to Uzun Hassan, the ninth ruler of the Aries dynasty. In addition to written records, glasses also appeared in Persian paintings of this period. In 1565, in a painting by Mill Said Ali, an old man in blue clothes with glasses was kneeling on the ground and looking at a long scroll of text; the other painting with glasses was Mu En Painted by Musawar in 1673, there is a painter in red with glasses who is painting. Through literature research, Dr. Hassan Saberi believes that the time when glasses were introduced into Persia from Europe was the first half of the 15th century. By the time of the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1736), the use of glasses and other optical instruments had become more common in Persia. During Abbas I (1571-1629), French missionary Raphael Dumans also brought a telescope with two eyepieces to the city of Isfahan.
While traveling to Persia, the glasses continued eastward, traveling to India around the beginning of the 16th century. In Sumner’s Sanskrit poetry, the Hindu Brahman poet Viasaraya once wore glasses to read at the age of 74. The Indian historian, Kumar Agarwal, in his article "The Origin of Glasses in India", believes that the pair of glasses was brought to India by the Portuguese: "Portuguese merchants arrived in India in 1498 and established in Goa in 1510. Colonial stronghold. Around this time, the Portuguese gifted the glasses to the local ruler of the Vijaninagar empire-King Krishna Dewa Raya, and shortly thereafter, the king gave the glasses to the poet Via Saraya and others."
Glasses travel by sea and land
The ancient Chinese had a very early understanding of optics and lenses. For example, Mozi studied small hole imaging during the Spring and Autumn Period. In the "Huainanzi·Tai Clan Training" in the Spring and Autumn Period, there is also a saying "If you want to know far and near, you can't teach it with golden eyes." "Shoot fast" records. In this regard, Gao You in the Eastern Han Dynasty commented: "Golden eyes, deep eyes, so you can shoot far and near." Zhu Junsheng of the Qing Dynasty said in "Tongxun": "'Golden eyes, modern glasses and the like." 1980, Archaeology The staff unearthed a golden ring-embedded crystal magnifying glass in the tomb of the Guangling King Liu Jing of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Hanjiang, Jiangsu. The magnifying glass can still magnify the object 5 times after it has been in the dust for more than 2,000 years.
