Most of the really old ancient artifacts that we have were dug up out of the ground or found in tombs. But presumably there are some things that were valuable enough that they were kept intact and passed from person to person throughout the ages.
My request is for nominations for the oldest artifact that was never lost and rediscovered but which had always been a known possession of some person or organization since its creation. I complete list of provenance is not required, ownership transferred through purchase theft or conquest is OK, But if was ever buried in a tomb or concealed in a wall it doesn’t count.
The best I’ve found so far that might qualify was is a drinking vessel from the forbidden city that was made between 1600 and 1000 BCE, but I was wondering if there were any other contenders?
That’s a interesting question. (but not one that I have a ready answer to).
I guess it’d be something from somewhere like ancient Egypt, perhaps gifted/plundered through Greece/Rome/Byzantium etc. but somehow constantly “out there” and on display or specifically treasured.
That doesn’t count, since it was built by a culture which has entirely disappeared. Stonehenge predates the Druids, who were the main religious faction in Britain when the Romans came; but the Druids had no more idea about the purpose of Stonehenge than the Romans had. So somewhere between the building of this monument and the arrival of the Druids this monument (or rather its raison d’etre) was ‘lost’.
If we’re okay with monuments and things in the land as well as portable artefacts provided there is continuity, then I’d nominate any of the many thousands of cultural sites, particularly rock art sites, created by the Aboriginal people of Australia. Some of them have been in continuous use for cultural activities for potentially tens of millenia. While there might have been localised loss of specific knowledge the sites have been maintained for that sort of duration. If that’s too broad, then the art and art panels of some sites will have been in continuous use for that sort of time.
I was thinking more in terms of portable objects, but this is an interesting twist and the fact that it was continuously occupied and maintained for tens of thousands of years definitely makes it likely undisputed champion in that category. So lets narrow it a bit to artifacts that I could take home in a pickup and put in my garage without having to chisel it out of a rock face.
Specific items that have retained conscious ownership - How old is that stone under the Scottish throne? There are copies of the Magna Carta from 1215 in the government archives. The Vatican will have items in its archives from before 1000AD, as will plenty of monasteries. I recall the remains of a bishop in a glass coffin in a church in Milan from the 600’s.
the Codex Sinaiticus is a Bible from St. Catherines monastery in Egypt believed to date to the mid-350’s; that monastery also has a lette from Mohammed giving them protection. The Trukish Topkapis museum has the sword and a lock of hair from Mohammed (600’s).
The monateries of Tibet have some pretty old books and artifacts, from well before 1000AD. Not sure what’s floating around in Chinese museums but they’ve had a continuous culture for millennia.
The Curia Julia in the Forum dates from 44 BC. It sounds like it’s got a bit of the Building of Theseus going on, but then what 2067 year old building wouldn’t?
No matter if the great pyramids were ever completely covered in sand or not (which I highly doubt anyway), they definitely never were forgotten. Herodotus wrote about them in the 5th century BC, and I’m sure the Egyptians always knew they were there since they had been built.
Was the Holy Lance (the specific one that’s part of the Imperial Regalia of the Roman emperor) ever lost? If not, it seems to have been around since 922 or thereabouts…
There’s also a Holy Lance in Rome that’s first been mentioned in 570 AD, but it’s history seems somewhat unclear at certain points. It’s probably been owned by someone during those times, but then we get into the question of what it means for an item to have been ‘lost’…
I agree that that doesn’t make it provably not lost - it’s theoretically possible that it’s been lost, although I consider it unlikely since it’s just out there in the open in hospitable terrain.
And I agree that Stonehenge doesn’t fit the OP, because it definitely hasn’t been a “known possession of some person or organization since its creation.”
But just because its known use has been lost, doesn’t mean that it itself has been lost, because the White Horse of Uffington has been in known use for thousands of years - otherwise it would have been overgrown with grass and indeed temporarily lost, and that hasn’t happened unintentionally since it has been known to exist.
Indeed, the maintenance of the White Horse either despite not knowing its original use - or perhaps its original use was just a distinctive piece of art - casts doubt in my mind as to whether people do remember the purpose of other long-maintained artifacts. Some very long oral traditions have proved to have some truth to them, but before written records, “time immemorial” was any time before your grandparents were children, so any given generation couldn’t be sure if the traditions they were passing on were 100 or 1000 years old.
However, since there is no reason to doubt that the native Australians have been in continuous possession of their sites for thousands of years, I’d say that one of their sites probably counts if immovable artifacts count.
Oops, on re-reading I noticed that I had a brain fart and that the matter weren’t the pyramids, but the Sphinx. But my point stands that even the Sphinx never was forgotten completely.
Some crowns are kept for a very long time. The copper-age crown probably does not fulfill the OP’s criteria, as it was found in a cave, but the iron crown of Lombardy (4th or 5th century) in Italy has been kept continuously in the Cathedral of Monza. The Korean Crowns of Silla (5th to 7th century) in South Korea are kept in the Gyeongju National Museum and can be well traced, I believe.
Some books are surprisingly old as well, from the list in the article I reckon the Codex Sinaiticus (c. 330 – 360 AD) fulfills the conditions, the Garima Gospels (c. 330 – 650 AD) and the Book of Kells (c. 800 AD - I have seen that in person!) sure do.
There’s a claim that the Ark of the Covenant was never lost but resides in a church in Ethiopia in direct, unbroken possession from the 10th Century BCE when it was removed from the Temple of Solomon. Of course no one will ever be able to prove this.