Blog: The Precursors of Sunglasses

It is said that the Roman emperor Nero liked to watch gladiator fights with emeralds. These, however, appear to have worked rather like mirrors.[2] Flat panes of smoky quartz which offered no corrective powers but did protect the eyes from glare were used in China in the 12th century or possibly earlier. Contemporary documents describe the use of such crystals by judges in Chinese courts to conceal their facial expressions while questioning witnesses.

James Ayscough began experimenting with tinted lenses in spectacles in the mid-18th century, around 1752. These were not “suglasses” as such; Ayscough believed blue- or green-tinted glass could correct for specific vision impairments. Protection from the sun’s rays was not a concern of his.

Yellow/Amber and brown-tinted spectacles were also a commonly-prescribed item for people with syphilis in the 19th[dubious – discuss] and early 20th centuries because of the sensitivity to light that was one of the symptoms of the disease.

In prehistoric and historic time, Inuit peoples wore flattened walrus ivory “glasses ,” seeing through narrow slits, in order to block the harmful reflected rays of the sun.