Artifacts

I was at a small archaeological dig in northern England the other day when the incident occurred. A friend of mine by the name of Charles Batton had invited me out there to see what he had been doing. Archeology was his life’s work, and he was always eager to share it with anyone who would give him a few minutes of their time. Personally I see nothing exciting about small, broken shards of pottery, but then, what do I know?

Charles did not know that I would be coming that day, but he still spotted me within seconds of my arrival. As soon as he saw me he ran over to me and pumped my arm enthusiastically. “I’m so glad you came!” he said. “So what do you think? Isn’t this great?”

I looked around the site. My uneducated eye saw a number of neatly-dug pits, some scattered equipment, a tent, and a group of six tired and dirty college students. The sky overhead was overcast and threatening to rain – a fact that did not seem lost on the students who were carefully digging with what looked like toothbrushes. I pitied them.

“Come on – over here!” Charles said, pulling on my arm and dragging me over to the tent. “This is where we’re storing all of the valuable relics that we’ve discovered. Wait ’till you see them!” He opened the tent flap and walked inside, and I reluctantly followed. Inside it was a long table that was covered with rows and rows of small, dirty objects – mostly pottery shards, from what I could tell. A young lady was standing next to it writing in a journal.

“Hello, Lily,” Charles said, addressing the young lady. She looked up and he introduced me to her. “I’m cataloging these artifacts,” Lily said.

“Wonderful,” I replied. “How – interesting. I’m sure you’re making some great discoveries.”

“Oh yes, absolutely,” she said. “This dig dates back to the times when the Roman occupied this part of England. We think that – ”

My mind drifted. I looked over the artifacts they had spent all summer digging up and once again thanked the Lord that I had not become an archaeologist. Then I spotted something.

“What’s this?” I said, picking up a flat, circular glass object from the table.

Charles shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. It was probably some ritual object that was used in religious ceremonies.”

“Really! How odd. It looks like a glass lens to me.” I held it over a pottery shard and peered through it. “Hey, Charles, look at this – it enlarges things! Now that really is amazing. Were the Romans big into magnifying lenses?”

“Of course not!” he said. “Don’t be silly. It’s just a ritual object – we find them all the time. They must have served some ceremonial purpose.”

“But if I hold it over things it magnifies them,” I said. “How could it not be a magnifying lens? Isn’t that what magnifying lenses do?”

Charles sighed. “Look. Lenses were not invented until many centuries after the Roman civilization collapsed – not until the Middle Ages, in fact. The Romans did not have lenses. That artifact, therefore, must be nothing more than a ceremonial object.”

“So,” I said, “you’re telling me that ancient people commonly made pieces of ceremonial glass that just happened to act as a good magnifying lens, and nobody noticed that they had any other use for a thousand years?”

“You’re not listening to me!” he said. “You don’t understand. The Romans – let me say this one more time – did not have glass lenses. We know beyond question that lenses were not invented until the Middle Ages. Since lenses were not developed until the Middle Ages the Romans couldn’t possibly have had them, so that object cannot be a magnifying lens. It’s as simple as that.”

“Oh. But how do you know that they didn’t?”

“They just didn’t, and that’s all there is to it. You just don’t understand.”

I look at the glass object in my hand and peered through it again. “I suppose not,” I said.