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The technology of the burning glass has been known since antiquity. Vases filled with water used to start fires were known in the ancient world.[citation needed] Burning lenses were used to cauterise wounds and to light sacred fires in temples.[citation needed] Plutarch refers to a burning mirror made of joined triangular metal mirrors installed at the temple of the Vestal Virgins. Aristophanes mentions the burning lens in his play The Clouds (424 BC).[1]