Glowing Stones
Famously, there are two main traditional understandings for the word צהר (Tzohar) used with regards to the description of the Ark: 1. Window. 2. Glowing gemstone used for light.
Presumably, the second interpretation is based on a wordplay on זהר (Zohar), which means "glow" or "aura". However, I admit that the logic of the second interpretation was never clear to me. Glowing gemstones are for movies and comics, right (at its base form, you draw the gem and add radial lines around it)?
Wrong! As it turns out, multiple sources from the Roman, Byzantine and early medieval periods, both Jewish and non-Jewish, record the existence of various types of stones that glow in the dark. Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber wrote an article on the topic over 40 years ago. And, there is even a Wikipedia article on luminous gemstones. The wiki article dismisses most such sources as unrealistic (as it is often wont to do). I recall, however, seeing sometime in the past, a suggestion by a serious scholar raising the possibility that the ancients had telescopic devices. This despite the official invention of the telescope being dated to the 17th century (see here). Unfortunately I don't recall where I saw this suggestion, but I vaguely recall that it was in response to descriptions of telescopic devices in Chazalic sources. I hope I'll find it again and update this post.
The point is, let's not be so quick to dismiss the ancients. It's certainly possible that knowledge of certain sciences were lost with the upheavals the world went through over the ages, especially with the fall of the Roman-Byzantine Empire, which was not a pretty process. How exactly do glowing gems actually fit into such events? Seems that that remains to be seen.
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