Dr. Ali Akbar Sarfaraz is an archaeologist from

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. He was formerly a member of the Archaeological Service of Iran. In 1962, Sarfaraz was a member of a team which excavated an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

site in Yanik Tepe. The excavation uncovered an artifact made of bone and resembling a pair of spectacles buried with the body of a girl. If, as Sarfaraz hypothesized, this artifact once held lenses, they would represent the earliest known use of

corrective lens A corrective lens is a lens (i.e. a transmissive optical device) that is typically worn in front of the eye to improve daily vision. The most common use is to treat refractive errors: myopia, hypermetropia, astigmatism, and presbyopia. G ...

es. In 1976-77, Sarfaraz led a "rescue excavation" at Khatunban after artifacts plundered from the site were confiscated. In 1999, Sarfaraz directed the excavation of Charkhab Palace of Cyrus the Great.

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Iranian archaeologists {{Iran-stub