What ancients can teach — a useful magic

For centuries, till recently, the 1,600-year-old Lycurgus Cup was all but magical.column

For centuries, till recently, the 1,600-year-old Lycurgus Cup was all but magical.

2 min readOct 27, 2026 06:42 AM IST First published on: Oct 27, 2026 at 06:42 AM IST

Science fiction aficionados, among others, know of Arthur C Clarke’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s dictum, more often than not, applies to speculation about humanity’s future — its influence is visible in the Dune series, Star Wars, and many other sci-fi classics. Sometimes, though, its obverse is deployed rather unthinkingly. Tales of magical weapons, flying carriages and dragons in myth and lore are seen as evidence of long-forgotten science and a glorious past. Then again, the past can contain science that’s almost magical.

For centuries, till recently, the 1,600-year-old Lycurgus Cup was all but magical. The Roman artefact changes colour depending on the position of the light source: Under normal light, it is red; lit from behind, emerald green. It is only now that scientists from the University of Sheffield have reportedly managed to reverse-engineer the process that went into making the remarkable chalice that features Dionysus and King Lycurgus (from the Iliad) using a fragment of the vessel that sits in the British Museum.

There is, indeed, much to learn from the ancients. Apart from the optical engineering in the Lycurgus Cup, there’s Roman Concrete, used to build the Pantheon and Colosseum, which hasn’t quite been recreated to date. The town planning, sewage and drainage systems of the Indus Valley Civilisation should inspire many a modern metropolis to do better. The magic of the past, then, may not lie in myths of magical weapons and flying chariots, but in achievements that are more useful than “glorious”.