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Text | Qing Yufei
Edit | Qing Yufei
Preface
Glasses are an extremely common tool in daily life, with the purpose of correcting vision, protecting the eyes and decorating.
Nowadays, more and more people are wearing glasses because of myopia, and glasses are also an indispensable part of the life of myopia patients.
But what most people don't know is that glasses were actually available in ancient times, and there were not a few people who wore them.
The ancients also had short-sightedness, and glasses were not as recent as we thought.
So, what do their glasses look like, and what are the materials of their glasses?
1. Did ancient people really have myopia?
In ancient times, most people could not read, and not many people could afford to read.
At that time, there was no influence of today's computers and mobile phones, and it was easy for us to have the illusion that ancient people did not have myopia.
The reasons mentioned above objectively play a certain preventive role.
In fact, there were very few myopia in ancient times, but there were still some people who were born with myopia or often used their eyes.
In ancient times, there were not many myopia patients, and the harm of myopia was small compared to other life-threatening diseases, but it still made life very inconvenient.
At that time, if you were a common man with little money and no power, you would probably spend your whole life in fog.
However, if the family has money or is appreciated by the emperor, they may receive a special reward from the emperor, which is glasses.
At that time, glasses needed a good horse to be exchanged, and in this way, a pair of glasses was equivalent to a luxury car in modern times.
The ancients began to use glasses very early, and according to research, our ancestors began to use glasses in the Southern Song Dynasty.
At that time, glasses were called susceptibles, and they were used to help people read, and when they were worn, they could solve the vision problems of people with myopia.
But why didn't everyone have one when they already had glasses like they do now?
This is because at that time, glasses were very expensive to build, and they were simply not affordable for ordinary people.
As a result, glasses were considered a rare and noble thing at the time, and could even be seen as a status symbol.
In ancient books and paintings, we can also see that basically only princes and nobles wear glasses, and ordinary people can't afford to wear them.
In addition to ancient books and paintings, the early use of glasses is also recorded in the travelogues of some travelers.
The most famous of these is the account of the Italian adventurer Marco Polo, who, in his Travels, detailed how ancient Chinese people read with glasses.
In "The Travels of Marco Polo", Marco Polo described the roughly oval shape of glasses in ancient China, which is somewhat similar to the shape we have today.
The delicate lenses are set in a tortoise shell frame, and then the copper temples are snapped into the sideburns, or the glasses are attached directly to the cap.
It can be seen that the frames of the ancients are still different from what we see today, which can be said to be unique.
It can be seen that in ancient times, there would also be myopia, and in ancient times, there would also be people with certain conditions to wear glasses.
His travelogues also dispel the widely circulated belief that ancient spectacles were imported from the West.
But in fact, seeing all kinds of evidence, we can find that the glasses are independently made by China itself, and the glasses also condense the painstaking efforts and wisdom of the ancients.
What was the material of ancient glasses?
In general, glasses consist of spectacle lenses and spectacle frames, and their materials were very popular in ancient times.
According to records, there are many lens materials for ancient glasses, such as crystal, quartz, topaz or amethyst grinding.
What's more, rare treasures such as agate, natural diamonds, and emeralds are even used to make lenses, which is really luxurious
Once the raw materials have been chosen, the natural materials are further processed and finely ground to obtain usable lenses.
However, the materials mentioned above are all natural gemstones.
Their stock is very scarce, and the price is also expensive, let alone wearing them by ordinary people, it is a fantasy to even think about it.
Ordinary people could not afford to wear them, so they were given to ministers by the emperor as good things, and owning glasses became a symbol of social status.
The materials mentioned above are not affordable for ordinary people, so were there any "cheap" glasses in ancient times? The answer is yes.
Where there is demand, there is a market, and the same is true for the eyewear industry.
At that time, many craftsmen studied its replacement materials because of the high cost, and the most famous one was of course Sun Yunqiu.
As early as the Southern Song Dynasty, there was an eyeglasses manufacturing expert named Sun Yunqiu, who devoted himself to the glasses manufacturing industry.
He is committed to replacing expensive materials with affordable ones, so that glasses go off the altar.
And with his perseverance, he really did it.
He not only found out the replacement material for the lenses, but also studied the prototype of the first modern glasses.
That is to hold the glasses on the bridge of your nose, not in your hand or in your arms.
His research has brought down the price of glasses and provided great convenience to people.
After that, Sun Yunqiu did not stop his research, he also used the principle of convex and concave lens refraction, and developed various spectacle lenses such as reading glasses and myopia lenses to meet the needs of all kinds of people.
This looks no different from today's configuration glasses, which shows that Sun Yunqiu's skills and vision are not inferior to today, and he is a great talent.
In the Ming Dynasty, glasses went down the altar, and the material became cheaper and easier to obtain.
According to records, around 1730, there were already workshops specializing in the production of eyeglasses in the prosperous and wealthy Suzhou.
This shows that glasses have become a commodity circulating in the market, and a tool that ordinary people can afford.
There are many people wearing glasses in the downtown area of the Ming Dynasty painting "Nandu Fanhui Picture Scroll", which shows that people use glasses very frequently.
After that, the shape and material of the glasses kept changing, and over time, slowly changed into what we see today.
Today, the function and shape of glasses have become very perfect, and the process of making glasses is also very mature, and it has become a complete business chain.
From the perspective of the whole world, the decorative and practical nature of eyewear is perfectly combined, and they play their role well with solemnity and solemnity, or playful and cute.
Although today's glasses production has indeed been influenced by some Western culture, the research and contribution of the Chinese people to the development of glasses cannot be forgotten.