Nanotechnology of the 4th century
- Alexandria or Rome, about 290-325. It made a special piece of glass and metal called The Licurgo Cup, probably in more than one place of the Roman Empire. According to the experts, the Copa process involved three factories that would prepare a glass block beforehand in countries such as Palestine or Egypt. Carved in glass, the king of the Likur Trlucks appears surrounded by vine, and the god Bako and his two followers laugh at the king, who was conceived for celebrations of worship of Baco.
The Kaiola Cup or special Diatretum is the Licurgorgo, the only type that has come to us in its entirety and the only one of this time. But the main thing is that it's made of dichroic glass. Thanks to a curious material, when the light is in front, the cup is greenish and opaque, but if illuminated from behind it is reddened and translucent by the effect of superficial plasma resonance.
Starting in 1990, and only through transmission electron microscopes, researchers were able to see why the glass produces this effect: glass has gold and silver nanoparticles, about 50 nanometers, that is, a thousand times smaller than salt grains. And these particles are spread like colloids. That is, the artists/scientists who made the cup used nanotechnology, not knowing what nanotechnology is.
Nowadays, the manufacturing of this type of dichronic glass requires a measured and responsible process. But to what extent did they control and understand this process in the fourth century?
Some believe that the effect was fortuitous when the gold and silver powder was unexpectedly contaminated with glass. And the authors may not know that glass, in addition to silver, had gold, as Roman silver often had small portions of gold.
But even though the Likurgo Cup is the only Roman piece of dichronic glass, more fragments of this type of glass of the same time have also been found, although the color difference is not so obvious and spectacular. It must therefore be thought that they controlled the process in part and were able to repeat it over and over again.
What they did not know is that seventeen centuries later the cup would become a source of inspiration for the study of nanoplasmosis, a technology that would allow, among other things, to perform pregnancy tests, diagnose diseases and identify biological risks.
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