13 Of History"s Oldest Objects

It’s strange to think about but there’s a chance that the everyday objects you use right now will provide a lot of excitement for future archaeologists. When we have a look at ancient societies, we often base what we know about their everyday lives on what we can recover from their time.

While this can often take the form of texts or pieces of art telling us how our ancestors kept themselves busy and the tools they used to do it, we really strike gold when we find the tools themselves.

With such discoveries, we can get a feel for the technology ancient people enjoyed, especially when it turns out that products we thought we were so brilliant for creating have been around for centuries.

In fact, everything on this list is at least 1,000 years old and some of them date back to times we have a hard time even imagining. So let’s have a look at these 13 items with age-old stories to tell.

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1. The oldest wooden wheel has been around for over 5,000 years.

It dates back to 3,200 B.C. and was discovered in Slovenia back in 2002. Based on the square hole in the center, archaeologists have concluded that it rotated on that big axle you see pictured with it. 

2. We’re not sure on the exact age of this dress, but it’s definitely the world’s oldest.

The dress was buried with one of ancient Egypt’s wealthier citizens between 5,100 and 5,600 years ago. This was a spellbinding find for archaeologists since most pieces of clothing, especially any this fancy, don’t survive for longer than 2,000 years. 

3. Someone chewed this gum 5,000 years ago.

It’s made of birch bark tar and someone living in ancient Finland likely used it to treat a gum infection. This kind of gum was also used as a glue to repair pots, but archaeologists have found clear teeth marks in this particular piece.

4. These masks may look creepy, but they were dear to someone’s heart 9,000 years ago.

Experts believe that early farmers in what is now Israel wore these stone masks to remember important ancestors and assert their claims to the lands they were toiling over. The people who lived back then didn’t have a writing system to speak of, so the masks were a key part of passing on their oral history.