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I just realized that I haven't ever heard of or seen an ancient bug book. I mean, surely some nerd 150 BCE must have drawn all the various bugs, found commonalities, then tried to classify them. Maybe such documents were just too hard to copy compared to prayer texts and just didn't survive. Also, no magnifying lenses.
@androidarts Looking it up, I see that magnifying lenses have been around for thousands of years - but used for lighting fires with sunlight rather than viewing small things.
However, the easiest useful magnifying lens would leave little or no archaeological evidence - a water drop lens.
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/get-naked/experiments/drop-magnifier
If some random nerd in 150 BCE wanted to get a good magnified look at tiny insect details, I'd bet they'd use a water drop magnifier.
@isaackuo @androidarts With no access to transparent material, how would they hold the water drop above the specimen ?
@Extelec @androidarts One method is to punch a hole in something (could be a leaf, even), and place the water drop in the hole. Another is to form a small loop with, say a pine needle, and place the water droplet in the loop.
But they did have access to transparent material - natural transparent crystals in particular.