Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Out Of Place Artifacts

I was surprised to discover that the wikipedia article on OOPArts (Out Of Place Artifacts) is pretty thorough. Well worth a read-through and click-through of the various sub articles. If this article had existed back when I was running continuum, I'd have worked several of these into the story.

Validated cases

  • The Maine Penny found in Blue Hill, Maine. An 11th century Norse coin found in an American Indian shell midden. Over 20,000 objects were found over a 15-year period at the Goddard site in Blue Hill. The sole OOPArt was the coin.[3][4] One hypothesis is that it may have been brought to the site from a Viking settlement in Newfoundland by seagoing Native Americans.
  • The Iron pillar in India, dating around to AD 423.
  • The Antikythera mechanism, a geared device manufactured ca. 100 BC, believed to be an orrery for predicting the motion of the sun, moon and planets.
  • Tablets and artifacts discovered in Glozel, France in the 1920s and '30s, some of which were inscribed with an unknown, undeciphered alphabet.
Other parts of the article provide similar links to more controversial OOPArts, ones that are still debated, like the Baghdad Battery that they used to electroplate on mythbusters.

See also

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I am pretty sure the coin was found in Brooklin, Maine, which is near Blue Hill, but not part of it.

rbbergstrom said...

I was quoting wikipedia - the encyclopedia anyone can edit... so if you'd like you could go fix wikipedia's article.