BBC News had this story about Jost Haas, the last maker of glass eyes in the UK. Did you know that the earliest known evidence of use of an ocular prosthesis* comes from the body of a woman from Iran, dating back to 2900-2800 BCE, buried with a prosthesis made of bitumen paste, covered in gold. Glass eyes only began to be produced by the Venetians in the late sixteenth century; nowadays, they are more commonly made from synthetic materials and may have all sorts of exciting features - even devices which imitate the reaction of a normal pupil to light.
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*A glass eye, except dating from the pre-glass era.
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