did they have magnifying glasses back then?
Nope. It would’ve all been by eye.
damn!
Yeah, whoever made these had some crazy eyesight! That’s probably like, 20/10 vision or better.
I like to think this is what people did for a living when they were extremely myopic, back before glasses were around.
I know it’s entirely wishful thinking, but it’s a common medical issue that would probably be extremely helpful for this sort of thing!
How did anyone find this? Did someone go above and beyond, or is it normal practice to look for things this small?
They were on the site of an archaeological dig including a huge necropolis. Archaeological digs look for anything that’s not obviously just dirt, even down to the tiniest shards of pottery. Apparently a tiny shard of pottery is how this whole site was rediscovered!
I’m sure we’ve probably lost many other tiny masterpieces to mistaking something for chunk of mud or clay though in places we didn’t realise the significance of.
More awesome photos of artifacts from Gonur Depe by Kenneth Garrett who took the OP photo
Wikipedia on Gonur Depe in Turkmenistan
Italian National Geographic article of the finds, auto-translate is good though
Impressive
let’s see Paul Allen’s miniatures?