Siberian snow goggles from the Khanty, Nganasan, & Sakha
Toying with an idea here. The concept of the one-eyed Arimaspians has me curious if this was a nickname for people from the north who lived in places where snow goggles may have given the appearance of having a single eye. Given a far enough physical distance and passing through the gossip of enough different languages, by the time this info made it to the Greeks what began as a nickname may have sounded like these people were literal cyclopes. Just a thought. I assume people back then used eye protection from the snow, in some manner, just like people do today. Some of the snow goggles (both modern and historical) do give the appearance of a single giant eye, while others have two eye spots. I wasn't able to find much on this as far as historical info goes, and unfortunately I couldn't find images of the ancient grave finds the article talked about. The oldest of the discovered snow goggles being 2,000 years old from northeast Asia. I'm not sure if the initial black and white sketch is of the ancient goggles or not, the post didn't explicitly say. Below is whatever info I could find on historical snow glasses in Eurasia:
"In ancient times, like today, these goggles were made by skilled masters to combine effectiveness in blotting out the blinding light in some cases looking amazing.
Different ethnic groups across polar regions evolved their own distinctive style in snow goggles.
The most ancient known eyewear belong to the Old Bering Sea culture, the sites of which are located on the both sides of Bering Strait.
The oldest date for the culture - around 400 years BC - was obtained on Russian side, at Ekven graveyard, in Chukotka.
The peak of the culture is considered to be in second and third centuries AD.
At Ekven and also Uelen graveyards snow goggles made of bone were found, dating from the first to the fifth centuries AD.
Some were decorated with carvings, some not, and examples are shown here in these drawings.
Later the snow goggle tradition by Eskimos, for example the Inuits and Yupik, and the Chukchi people.
While there was an obvious practical use for the goggles, a variant of these ‘spectacles’ xxxx is believed to have been used by traditional shamans; for example a pair of goggles without holes of slips was found at Ekve
The Event and Dolgans people turned to metal in making the eyewear with copper or tin or silver goggles inserted into a half-mask made of reindeer skin or other pelt, or, later, cloth obtained from Russian incomers. Decorations with beads was also a feature.
The same type of goggles was also used by other Arctic people such as the Nganasan or Khanty. The British Museum even has some examples.
The tradition continues to this day and is thriving in Yakutia - also known as Sakha Republic, the largest region in the Russian Federation.
Going back in time, the Yakut people used a wide range of materials to make goggles - metal, birch bark, wood, bone, skin, and horsehair.
The goggles created from horsehair comprised strips of intricate net. A surviving 19th century example comes not from Yakutia but Tuva, the mountainous region in southern Siberia, now in a collection in the Irkutsk Museum of Local History.
Most of the metal goggles in Yakut collections are dated from between the 18th and early 20th centuries.
Again, some definitely had ritualistic uses: they were deployed by shamans, and not in everyday day life for use in snow.
Many Yakuts recall that their grandfathers had very simple goggles made of birch bark.
Local historian Prokopy Nagovitsyn said: 'The round shaped silver goggles began to make an appearance in 19th century, when there appeared many rich people.
‘The shape had a symbolic meaning - cross in the circle had been the symbol of the sun since neolithic times.
‘Yet the cross-shaped cuts are convenient not when you are in tundra, but when you, for example, climb steps.’
Most of the older goggles look rather simple - for example a metal strip with the small deepening for the nose and slots for sight. Others have two round metal discs with a slit to see through while blotting out most of the glare; these were fixed into a the mask of skin or fur."
-taken from SiberianTimes
