FIRST PROSTHETIC EYE
Artificial Eye in Burnt City and Theoretical Understanding of How Vision Works
ROME — A 5,000-year-old golden artificial eye that once stared out mesmerisingly from the face of a female soothsayer or priestess in ancient Persia has been unearthed by Iranian and Italian archaeologists.
The eyeball , the earliest artificial eye found ,would have transfixed those who saw it, convincing them that the woman ,thought to have been strikingly tall ,had occult powers and could see into the future, archaeologists said.
The archeology team of the Burnt City, supervised by Dr. Seyed Mansour Seyed Sejjadi, made a significant discovery in 2007.
In this excavation, they discovered world’s oldest artificial eye that belonged to a woman of 28-32 years. The artificial eye, discovered in an ancient grave, was in the left eye socket of the woman. The archeology team estimated the age of the eye between 2900 and 2800 BC. This artificial eye should be considered as the first ocular prosthesis in the medical history.
Face of 5000 year old Iranian woman reconstructed
This is a great scientific achievement which shows that Persians used innovative medical equipment 5,000 years ago, Baqaei said during the opening ceremony of the exhibition.
The unique discovery was the result of excavations in the Burnt City in 2006, when archaeologists found an artificial eyeball on a 1.82-meter- tall female skeleton, much taller than ordinary women of her time, and dated back to between 2900 and 2800 BCE.
The eyeball had a hemispherical form with a diameter of just over 2.5 cm and was made of very light material. The surface was covered with a thin golden layer, engraved with a central circle to represent the iris.
The eye was held in place with a golden thread, which went through tiny holes drilled on both sides of the eye.
Microscopic studies showed that the eye socket bore imprints of the golden thread, which suggest that the eyeball had been worn during its owner’s lifetime.
Mysterious Civilisation in 3,000 BC – Burnt City
Shahr-e Soukhteh, meaning ‘Burnt City’, is located at the junction of Bronze Age trade routes crossing the Iranian plateau.
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