Thinking about the Bronze Age nerd who had a serious special interest in ants, and probably kept a colony in a clay jar as pets driving their family crazy... observing them and learning that each colony has a queen, that they store grain in underground chambers, and probably many other interesting ant facts which they would have told everyone incessantly so they became common knowledge.
@PetraOleum@futurebird the first recorded one was in 1900 as far as I can tell, and transparent glass has been a thing since the 1500s so my guess is somewhere between 1500 and 1900, depending on who the person was and how much access they had to transparent glass
Partially translucent glass has been a thing for a while longer though, but you couldn't really see clearly through it
one could keep ants in wood or clay containers and simply open it from time to time to learn what they are doing.
With some species it's even possible to do this without disturbing the ants if you do not create any wind currents, or breathe CO2 on this which would alert them to the change.
You can also do this with chilled ants, since many ants fall asleep when too cold.
And I'm just getting excited imagining a Bronze age ant nerds talking everyone's ears off in a dead language.
Think of all the cool ant facts lost to time because many ant nerds of yore did not have the means to write them down, or get them embedded in songs & plays or ritual! (We must rediscover them all!)
In truth this why it is not enough to study ants & write papers, we also must have dramas & music: which may outlast a fire or solar flare!
I think I can better understand why Pica keeps starting cults... it's because she can't write and wants to preserve the knowledge she cares about. Sadly this "knowledge" is just "cats are wonderful" and "pica is a wonderful cat, pet her and feed her now"