It is believed that this amazing artifact proves that our ancestors were ahead of their time. The technique of making the cup is so perfect that its craftsmen were already at that time familiar with what we call nanotechnology today. The ancient Roman Cup of Lycurgus carries the secret of a distant time for us, the power of thought and the imagination of ancient scientists. Presumably it was made in 4 AD.
This unusual and unique bowl, made of dichroic glass, can change its color depending on the lighting - for example, from green to bright red. This unusual effect is due to the fact that dichroic glass contains small amounts of colloidal gold and silver.
The height of this vessel is 165 mm and the diameter is 132 mm. The goblet fits into the category of vessels called diatrets, these are glass products usually made in the shape of a bell and consisting of two glass walls. The inner part of the vessel is the body, decorated on top with a carved patterned "mesh", also made of glass.
The ancient Romans used unusual glass in the manufacture of the cup - dichroic, which has the ability to change its color. Under normal room lighting, such glass gives off a red color, but when the ambient light changes, it changes color to green. An unusual vessel and its mysterious properties have always attracted the attention of scientists from different countries. Many of them made their own hypotheses, their arguments were not scientifically substantiated, and all attempts to unravel the secret of the mysterious change in the color of glass turned out to be in vain. Only in 1990 did scientists find out that such an unusual effect is created because dichroic glass contains silver and colloidal gold in very small quantities. A London-based archaeologist named Ian Freestone, who examined the cup, said the creation of the cup was an "amazing feat." When viewing the cup from different sides,while in a static position, its color changes.
After examining the shards of glass with a microscope, it became clear that the Romans at that time were able to impregnate it with tiny particles of silver and gold, crushed to a size of 50 nanometers in diameter. For comparison, it can be noted that the salt crystal is about a thousand times larger than these particles. Thus, they came to the conclusion that the cup was created using a technology that is now widely known throughout the world under the name "nano technology". The concept itself is interpreted as control over the manipulation of materials at the atomic and molecular levels. The findings of experts based on facts confirmed the version that the Romans were the very first people on earth to apply nano technology in practice. Nanotechnology expert engineer Liu Gang Logan claimsthat the Romans used nanoparticles in the manufacture of such works of art quite intelligently. Naturally, scientists could not thoroughly study the original Lycurgus Cup, which is kept in the British Museum, which has a history of about 1600 years. For these purposes, they recreated an exact copy of it and tested on it a version of the change in glass color when the vessel was filled with various liquids.
“This is an amazingly advanced technology for the time,” said Ian Freestone, archaeologist at University College London. This delicate work suggests that the ancient Romans mastered it very well.
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The principle of the technology is as follows: in the light, the electrons of precious metals begin to vibrate, changing the color of the goblet depending on the location of the light source. University of Illinois nanotechnology engineer Liu Gang Logan and his team of researchers drew attention to the enormous potential of this method in the field of medicine - for the diagnosis of human diseases.
The team leader notes: “The ancient Romans knew how to use nanoparticles in works of art. We want to find practical applications for this technology."
The researchers hypothesized that as the goblet was filled with liquids, its color would change due to the different vibration of the electrons (modern home pregnancy tests also use individual nanoparticles that change the color of the control strip).
Naturally, the scientists couldn't experiment with the valuable artifact, so they used a plastic plate about the size of a postage stamp, which was coated with nanoparticles of gold and silver through billions of tiny pores. Thus, they got a miniature copy of the Lycurgus Cup. The researchers applied various substances to the plate: water, oil, solutions of sugar and salt. As it turned out, when these substances entered the pores of the plate, its color changed. For example, a light green color was obtained when water entered its pores, and red when oil entered.
The prototype turned out to be 100 times more sensitive to changes in the salt level in solution than the commercial sensor, which is now common today, created for similar tests. I would like to believe that scientists will soon create portable devices based on newly discovered technologies that can detect pathogens in human saliva or urine samples, as well as prevent terrorists from transporting dangerous liquids on airplanes.
The artifact of the 4th century AD Lycurgus Cup was most likely used only on special occasions. Its walls depict Lycurgus himself, trapped in grape vines. According to legend, the vines strangled the ruler of Thrace for atrocities against the Greek god of wine, Dionysus. If scientists are able to create modern testing devices on the basis of ancient technology, then we can say that it is Lycurgus' turn to set traps.
According to scientists, these studies can benefit all of humanity. The knowledge gained in these studies will help develop medicine in the field of diagnosing various diseases and even prevent acts of terrorism to some extent. Experiments conducted by scientists may contribute to the development of devices for detecting pathogenic microorganisms in saliva or urine.
American physicists have proposed using the technology of making colored glass, which was used by the Romans at the beginning of the 4th century AD, to create chemical sensors and diagnose diseases. A study of the technology is published in Advanced Optical Materials and is briefed by Smithsonian and Forbes.
The chemical sensor created by the authors is a plastic plate in which about a billion nanoscale holes are made. The walls of each hole carry gold and silver nanoparticles, whose surface electrons play a central role in the detection process.
When one or another substance is bound inside the holes, the resonant frequency of plasmons (a quasiparticle that reflects the vibrations of free electrons in a metal) on the surface of nanoparticles changes, which leads to a change in the wavelength of light passing through the plate. The method resembles surface plasmon resonance (SPR), but, in contrast, leads to a much more significant shift in the wavelength of light - about 200 nanometers. The processing of such a signal does not require sophisticated equipment, so the binding of a substance can be detected even with the naked eye.
The sensitivity of the sensor to various types of substances (including those whose presence is of diagnostic value in medicine) is ensured by immobilization of specific antibodies on the surface of the holes.
The device of the chemical detector was, according to scientists, prompted by the unusual properties of the Roman Cup of Lycurgus stored in the British Museum. Made of glass with the addition of a powder of nano-sized particles of gold and silver, the goblet looks green in reflected light and red in transmitted light. This is because metal nanoparticles change the wavelength of light depending on the angle of incidence. Based on this, the authors decided to call the device "a matrix of nanoscale Lycurgus cup arrays" (nanoLCA).