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50 Very Old Human Creations That Still Surprise Us Today, As Shared In This Online Group
We love to emphasize human development. And for good reason, it's amazing how far we've come in the last centuries, decades, and even years. Science advances in leaps, introducing one groundbreaking invention after the other, fueling our minds with thoughts about the next big thing.
But that doesn't mean that we were clueless in the past. If we were to dig a little bit in history, it would reveal that people have always had the capacity to outdo themselves. Yes, the tools might have been different and not so sophisticated, but some of the artifacts that survived the test of time still surprise us to this day.
Here's a collection of man-made things shared on arguably the biggest online history catalog, Museum of Artifacts. They definitely didn't lose the "wow" factor!
More info: Museum Of Artifacts | Reddit | Facebook | Instagram
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#1
An 8-mile long "canvas" filled with ice age drawings of extinct animals has been discovered in the Amazon rainforest.
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#2
Michelangelo's Moses is a marble sculpture made in 1513–15. One of the many details of this masterpiece is one very small muscle in the forearms that contracts only when lifting the pinky, otherwise it is invisible. Moses is lifting the pinky, therefore that tiny muscle is contracted.
Auntriarch 3 years ago
Not me, I may have that muscle but it will be covered...
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Lainie 3 years ago
Michelangelo was known for his absolutely accurate human anatomy in his works. He stole corpses and dissected them, so that he could have a complete insight into exactly where which organ stands and how a particular muscle behaves depending on movement. He was truly incredibly curious and strived for perfection.
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Vorknkx 3 years ago
BTW, Moses' head has small horns here due to an infamous translation error in the Bible that made it sound like horns came out of his forehead (whereas it should have been "light").
Josie Bisbano 3 years ago
Actually it is literally "ray" (as in ray of light).
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tuzdayschild 3 years ago
Because of a misinterpretation of the bible, many artists of this period give Moses horns. You see this a lot.
MizAdeleM 3 years ago
My father brought me to Rome when I was a child. He told me that when Michelangelo looked at the finished sculpture, it looked so lifelike to him, he tossed one of his tools at it, nicking the knee, and said, "Speak!" I imagine that is just a story, but my 8 year old self was impressed!
Kathryn Baylis 3 years ago (edited)
The way understand it, artists study anatomy, including tiny details of musculature. Also, sculptors are artists of touch as well as eye, so it’s not really that much of a stretch to think that Michaelangelo would’ve noticed (by eye or fingertip) that tiny muscle flex when he told his model to lift his pinky finger.
Banana Bear 3 years ago
We just got done learning about the renaissance in school, It was an amazing transformation in art and religion and other things! (I especially loved the art and the details!)
Nazda Pokmov 3 years ago
Only a master like Michelangelo would know that as he studied anatomy first before he became a painter and sculptor..
Lainie 3 years ago
Yeah, it's marble from Carrara. Absolutely one block of it.
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Tina B 3 years ago
Of course he used a model... he sculpted the human body.
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L Jennings 3 years ago (edited)
I don't see how this surprises people. Artists (and I'm using the true definition here) were craftsmen, the very best that the world had to offer. This ^^ is just excellent observation of musculature.
Cybele Spanjaard 3 years ago
A true observer to depicting reality. Most talented of all artists and inventors ( and forethought) in history.
Eseri Akullu 3 years ago
Mine moved, but after careful observation under a microscope, despite the fat layers
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Ceredwyn Ealanta 3 years ago
The Master at work. Michelangelo is noted for his mastery of the male form (his female figures are frequently rendered in a muscular fashion more like that of a fit male youth). Much of his work owes it's accuracy to his detailed sketches and notes taken from dissection of cadavers - indeed, he was noted as doing more such work than many who's jobs were being morticians of the time. Michaelangelo is noted as being a master of emotion - he wanted to show absolute sensations and energy, and these required accuracy and power in form to convey in the chosen medium.
Dorothy Parker 3 years ago
However the curls in Moses' hair convinced some in later generations that Jews had horns.
Hannah Edwards 3 years ago
I think he must have studied skinned bodies to get the musculature right.
#3
Wonderful 2000-year-old sapphire ring presumably belonged to Roman emperor Caligula, thought depicting his fourth wife Caesonia.
#4
In 1965, excavations in Mezhyrich, Ukraine, revealed the presence of 4 huts, made up of a total of 149 mammoth bones. These dwellings, which are about 15,000 years old, are some of the oldest shelters known to have been constructed by pre-historic man.
#5
A newspaper ad from 1865 of an 18 year old man looking for a wife.
Oskar vanZandt 3 years ago
Hard worker... I like how he's non-specific about the kind of woman he's looking for. I think he might have done it. Hope he found himself a lovely "person of the female persuasion" to spend his life with.
#6
The Veiled Christ, a 1753 marble sculpture by Giuseppe Sanmartino exhibited in the Cappella Sansevero in Naples. Due to its incredible detail, there was a legend that said that the statue was covered by real veil and slowly transformed over time into marble via chemical processes.
Supernatural 3 years ago
Is there a sculptor alive today that could create something like this? Using the same tools??..
#7
1,500-year-old Ceramic Maya Figurine with Removable Helmet, from El Perú-Waka', Petén, Guatemala.
#8
First ever drawings of the moon made by Galileo Galeili after observing it through his telescope in 1609.
#9
Prague's astrological clock is the oldest still functioning clock in the world, 1410.
#10
In the small village of Nashtifan, Iran, some of the oldest windmills in the world still spin. Made of natural clay, straw, and wood, the windmills have been milling grain for flour for an estimated 1,000 years.
#11
An early example of a successful cranioplasty (Peru, ca. 400 CE). The patient survived, as evidenced by the well-healed in situ cranioplasty made from a gold inlay. Now on display at the Gold Museum of Peru and Weapons of the World in Lima.
#12
A 17th-century Ottoman three-mast tent made of silk and gilded leather. Now on display at the Turkish Chamber in the Dresden Armoury.
#13
Detail of the Hercules armor of the Emperor Maximilian II of Austria. Made in 1555, it's now on display at the Kunsthistorisches museum in Vienna.
#14
Bowl with Fish, Iran, probably Kashan (late 13th–mid-14th century).
#15
2300 years old Scythian woman's boot preserved in the frozen ground of the Altai Mountains.
#16
A Viking era ring inscribed with the words 'for Allah', found in the grave of a woman who was buried 1200 years ago in Birka, 25 km west of modern-day Stockholm. The ring constitutes a unique material evidence of direct contact between the Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate.
Burs 3 years ago
This is for the people who pretend to be educated while complaining about “diversity” in media or books set in the past. We used to travel much more than we think and while we weren’t as diverse as now, things were not as simple as old media portrays. For example there were black citizens in medieval- renaissance Europe, mostly ex slaves or their descendants from AlAndalus (Arabian country in the Iberian peninsula). Some quite successful, Like Juan de Pareja (Velazquez’s servant and later apprentice).
#17
Ancient ‘Beware of Dog’ Sign From 2,000 Years Ago. A mosaic in front of a Roman poet's house in Pompeii, 1st Century AD. "Cave Canem"/caveat canine/beware of dog.
#18
Samurai helmet (kabuko) shaped like an octopus. 1700s, Japan.
#19
An ancient Egyptian gold ring with a carnelian bezel in form of a cat. From the Third Intermediate Period (1070–712 BC), it's now in the collection of the British Museum.
#20
2000-year-old Roman face cream/lotion. Dating back to II AD. Object was found in the temple complex dedicated to Mars. It's world's oldest cosmetic face cream and it has finger marks in the lid.
Ksenia M 3 years ago
Googled it: The researchers report in this week's Nature that the two major components, each making up about 40% of the total, were starch and animal fat, which probably came from the carcass of a cow or goat. They think the starch was added to reduce the greasy feeling of fat on the skin. It is still used for the same purpose today in body lotions and hand creams. The remaining ingredient was synthetic tin oxide (or cassiterite). Although it is greyish in its natural state, it would have coloured the cream white"
#21
Incan Wall, a fine example of master Stonemasonry. Cuzco, 1400's.
#22
Small sculpture of death with a bow made in 1520 Germany.
#23
"Ratto di Proserpina" is a large Baroque marble sculptural group by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1621 and 1622. Bernini was only 23 years old at its completion. Now on display at the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
#24
Detail from the "unswept floor" mosaic made by Heraclitus, showing a mouse eating a walnut. 2nd century CE, now on display at the Vatican Museums.
#25
3400 yo painter's palette from ancient Egypt, Amenhotep III era.
Maddie Star ⭐ 3 years ago (edited)
as an artist, I love this... how amazing. Really is a treasure, it must have been worth a fortune in its time let alone now
#26
A Roman bathhouse still in use after 2,000 years in Khenchela, Algeria.
#27
Mourning clothes worn by count Magnus Brahe at the funeral of king Karl XIV Johan of Sweden in 1844.
#28
Elaborate Ottoman-era birdhouses resembling miniature palaces and mosques.
#29
Ivory carving of a skull and coiled snake with carnelian eyes. Japan, Edo period, 1860.
#30
A gun hidden within a bible, made for Francesco Morozini, Doge of Venice (1619-1694). The owner of the bible could pull the silk bookmark to shoot while the book was still closed. Now on display at the Museo Correr in Venice.
#31
Stockings, 1830, cotton/silk.
Gin. No tonic 3 years ago
The left's on the right and the right's on the left. It hurts my brain!
#32
An amateur treasure hunter with a metal detector turned up a Medieval, gold ring that was set with a sapphire stone in Sherwood Forest—haunt of the legendary (or real) Robin Hood. Experts have examined the ring and believe it may date to the 14 th century.
#33
14000 years old bisons sculptures found in Le Tuc d'Audoubert cave. Ariege, France.
#34
Two books I picked up from the Goodwill where I work. The one on the left was printed in 1711 and is a collection of Pliny the Younger’s letters. The one on the right was printed in 1771 and is a school book about Greek Mythology.
#35
Abuna Yemata Guh is a monolithic church located in the Tigray Region, Ethiopia. It is situated at a height of 2,580 metres (its entrance is highlighted by a red circle) and has to be climbed on foot to reach. It is notable for its wall paintings dating back to the 5th century.
#36
An Inuit otter amulet. Engraved and pigmented ivory, c.1870-1880.
#37
2000 year-old glass mosaics, from the ancient city of Zeugma in Turkey.
#38
Crystal spearhead found in a 5,000-year-old megalithic tomb in Spain. The tomb had the remains of 25 individuals, several of whom had consumed a poisonous substance.
#39
A Roman toddler's footprint in a red clay tile, imprinted as it was drying ~2000 years ago. Vaison-la-Romaine (ancient Vasio Vocontiorum).
#40
One of the 4000-year-old well-preserved wagons unearthed in the Lchashen village in the vicinity of Lake Sevan. Made of oak, they are the oldest known wagons in the world. Now on display at the History Museum of Armenia.
#41
Chand Baori, the largest and deepest stepwell in India. It consists of 3500 narrow steps over 13 stories and extends 30 m into the ground. The oldest parts of the stepwell date from the 8th century, while the upper stories with the columned arcade around it were built in the 18th century.
#42
The Da Vinci Globe, dated 1504, is the oldest known globe to show the New World. Engraved with immaculate detail on two conjoined lower halves of ostrich eggs.
#43
Thirteen-year-old Israeli goes foraging for mushrooms, stumbles upon a Byzantine burial inscription.
#44
The ceiling of the 2000 years old hypostyle hall of the temple of Hathor in Dendera, Egypt.
#45
(1528-29) German hunting knife that's also a gun, that's also a calendar.
#46
9000 year old cave painting in Tassili cave Algeria. Depicting a shaman during psychedelic mushroom use.
#47
Oldest surviving pair of Levis jeans, 1879.
Jayne Kyra 3 years ago
My thighs managed to rub friction holes into every pair of jeans I own, except for Levi´s and Mustang.
#48
A cabin on board the Aachen, a 19th-century steamship hit by a torpedo in July 1915. Now located at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
#49
Breastplate Armor of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1549.
Tiina Wiik Yksityinen 3 years ago
Many interesting details that say something about the time, like Virgin Mary standing on a crest moon. This was in the time when Ottomans had spread their empire deep into Europe, but were eventually forced to retreat, so the battle of Christianity vs. Islam was a defining theme of the era.
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What do you think ?
Debbie 3 years ago
Starting counting years BC and AC feels wrong now. It really shows that some thought that the center of creation, but there was so much more before that. Beautiful civilizations with art, respect for women, engineers. We aren't that different, they weren't dirty people with rags. We haven't progressed that much from them. Maybe even deteriorated, with the amount of waste and pollution we create. in 1000 years what will they find of us? Heaps of garbage? Dirty diapers in piles? Plastic rubbish? We call the industrial age a dark/dirty time, but it still continues. It's not black coal smoke now, but brightly coloured plastic.
Chich 3 years ago
We should agree on a start from the beginning of the Holocene, which would make this 11021 or so.
Load More Replies...
Monika Lachova 3 years ago
Now, that was cool stuff! More of such articles on BP rather than social issues please.
Zoe's Mom 3 years ago (edited)
Everything was made with such pride and beauty and one stands in awe. I espeically love the silver items made.
Thundercuss 3 years ago
Mass production has really deadened people's appreciation of artistry and craftsmanship.
Load More Replies...
bubbles 3 years ago
This was one of the more beautiful posts I have seen in a while. It's so easy for me to forget or ignore how much man is capable of and has accomplished, and this post slapped some appreciation into me! Time is a wondrous thing but the ability to withstand it is something that one can only admire in awe.
Thundercuss 3 years ago
This is the most fascinating collection of items I have ever seen. I'm simply floored.
Juan-Carlos Saez 3 years ago
Long time no seeing a wonderful thread. All pieces are incredible important culturally aesthetically and of great curiosity, congratulations!
Maria Batsouri 3 years ago
The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It is estimated that it was created 87 B.C.
Akash Pujari 3 years ago
this is something i like to know ,its good to know somrthing new once in a while
Becky Samuel 3 years ago
Look around at the amazing quantity of art, music, literature, poetry, etc that is now available for almost every living person to appreciate. These works were produced for the elites in a time when most people woupd never travel more than a few miles from their birthplace, and none of this would have been accessible to the common man. We just don't appreciate how spoiled we truly are.
Load More Replies...
Allen Lavine 3 years ago
Just think of all the history we never discover yet all the inventions we haven't invented yet we are nothing more than a footnote in history. Because yesterday I heard Dave Chapelle say something about Emmett Till. He said the lady that said till complemented her said on her death bed that she lied. But that lie cause a person to lose there life, but that death really helped the civil rights movement what I'm saying even doe we are only a footnote I. History sometimes a footnote can leave a foot print
Juds Conne 3 years ago
This is the best article to date... pun intended. I have read about many of these items, dates and histories, but seeing them together is wonderful.
eric smith 3 years ago
wow such beautiful and wonderful artifacts so much patience and persaverica and care in their work... it's so amazing what our past has left us to admire O.O
Unwelcomed Guest 3 years ago
I’m going to inscribe twitters most popular post into stone just so future generations will know of the real difference we made at this time
Debbie 3 years ago
Starting counting years BC and AC feels wrong now. It really shows that some thought that the center of creation, but there was so much more before that. Beautiful civilizations with art, respect for women, engineers. We aren't that different, they weren't dirty people with rags. We haven't progressed that much from them. Maybe even deteriorated, with the amount of waste and pollution we create. in 1000 years what will they find of us? Heaps of garbage? Dirty diapers in piles? Plastic rubbish? We call the industrial age a dark/dirty time, but it still continues. It's not black coal smoke now, but brightly coloured plastic.
Chich 3 years ago
We should agree on a start from the beginning of the Holocene, which would make this 11021 or so.
Load More Replies... Monika Lachova 3 years ago
Now, that was cool stuff! More of such articles on BP rather than social issues please.
Zoe's Mom 3 years ago (edited)
Everything was made with such pride and beauty and one stands in awe. I espeically love the silver items made.
Thundercuss 3 years ago
Mass production has really deadened people's appreciation of artistry and craftsmanship.
Load More Replies... bubbles 3 years ago
This was one of the more beautiful posts I have seen in a while. It's so easy for me to forget or ignore how much man is capable of and has accomplished, and this post slapped some appreciation into me! Time is a wondrous thing but the ability to withstand it is something that one can only admire in awe.
Thundercuss 3 years ago
This is the most fascinating collection of items I have ever seen. I'm simply floored.
Juan-Carlos Saez 3 years ago
Long time no seeing a wonderful thread. All pieces are incredible important culturally aesthetically and of great curiosity, congratulations!
Maria Batsouri 3 years ago
The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It is estimated that it was created 87 B.C.
Akash Pujari 3 years ago
this is something i like to know ,its good to know somrthing new once in a while
Becky Samuel 3 years ago
Look around at the amazing quantity of art, music, literature, poetry, etc that is now available for almost every living person to appreciate. These works were produced for the elites in a time when most people woupd never travel more than a few miles from their birthplace, and none of this would have been accessible to the common man. We just don't appreciate how spoiled we truly are.
Load More Replies... Allen Lavine 3 years ago
Just think of all the history we never discover yet all the inventions we haven't invented yet we are nothing more than a footnote in history. Because yesterday I heard Dave Chapelle say something about Emmett Till. He said the lady that said till complemented her said on her death bed that she lied. But that lie cause a person to lose there life, but that death really helped the civil rights movement what I'm saying even doe we are only a footnote I. History sometimes a footnote can leave a foot print
Juds Conne 3 years ago
This is the best article to date... pun intended. I have read about many of these items, dates and histories, but seeing them together is wonderful.
eric smith 3 years ago
wow such beautiful and wonderful artifacts so much patience and persaverica and care in their work... it's so amazing what our past has left us to admire O.O
Unwelcomed Guest 3 years ago
I’m going to inscribe twitters most popular post into stone just so future generations will know of the real difference we made at this time
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