Dating of actual art from sites is not possible as I understand it as it does not contain organic material, and the actual art was probably not done using materials and techniques sufficiently permanent to be very old. The reality is likely to be that the art seen today is relatively recent - by the standards of this thread.
The extremely long timelines apply merely to signs of human occupation (charcoal, in particular) and to well buried artefacts found with that charcoal. Presumably people were drawing on rock walls for all or some of the millennia that the sites have been occupied, but that is not to say any given drawing has survived for anything close to that long.
I’m not well-versed with the Australian case, but lots of rock art is securely millennia old, even in the absence of organics. For instance, plenty of Fennoscandian rock art from the later Stone Age (c. 4 - 6 000 BP) can be dated to the Stone Age through shore displacement, as well as the natural formation of thin, varnish-like quartz layer on top of the art, simultaneously protecting and sealing the art, originally rendered in hematite, with probably an animal-based binder.
The thing is, the culture which produced the Australian rock art is still extant, still attaches cultural significance to the rock art and - this is the point - still maintains it. It’s mostly in locations where it would not survive exposure to the elements if not maintained. It’s because of this history of continuous use and maintanance that these artefacts fit the OP’s stipulation that the artefacts must never have been “lost”
But this means that, although the figures, designs, paintings, what have you, have been there for many thousands of years, the actual molecules of pigment that can be seen today may not have been . Does this mean that they are not the same artefact as the first rock art to be made there, in the sense of never stepping in the same river twice? Some of the pigment is original; this can be shown by e.g. carbon dating fossilised wasp nests that overlie some of the pigment. But most of it cannot be dated this way.
And, further, we can’t know that, over the millenia, the figures, designs, etc may not have changed somewhat. Some components of the art we can see now may have been introduced along the way; there’s no way of telling.
Myself, I’d say that this doesn’t matter. Other artefacts mentioned in the thread may have been maintained, repaired, refashioned along they way; not all of the artistry that goes into making them artefacts has to be equally old.
For the values of “lost” presented here, the naturally-preserved yet exposed rock art doesn’t quite cut it, but it’s still “less lost” than the Ice Age cave art, for instance: there was no need to really find the former, it was always there to be seen and looked at, and we know it had meaning for a very long time post-creation, even if / when the meaning didn’t stay exactly the same.
Famously, present-day Siberian shamans were brought on certain Nordic Stone Age sites to hear their interpretation, based on the common North Eurasian indigenous cosmology. Arguably, the knowledge and appreciation of the symbolism in the rock art was never (completely) lost.
The knowledge and significance of much Australian rock art has not been lost. The cultures that made it it are still extant and the art still cultural significance, value, meaning, etc to them, as it always has done, and it still has a role in their cultural practices.
So it’s not right to say that “it had meaning for a very long-time post-creation” if that implies that at some point it ceased to have meaning. It has not.
To my mind, the example in the OP is probably one of the most interesting. Which particular bowl are you referring to, and how do we know it has never been ‘lost’?
How many other portable artifacts are still in use after so many years, and have never been buried and excavated in an archaeologists’ dig? Among the British Crown Jewels, the oldest artifact is the Coronation Spoon, dating back to the 1100’s, although the sapphire in the Imperial State crown is supposed to have been owned by Edward the Confessor in 1066. There are crowns in Europe that are older, including the crown of the Holy Roman Empire which dates back to the 900’s.
In York, the Horn of Ulf appears to have never been lost; dating back to Viking times (before 1066), it was apparently used as a symbol of land ownership then passed into the collection of the Minster. Even this was lost in the Civil War but recovered shortly after.
I’m sure that some of the artifacts in the holy places and palaces of China and India are much older than this, but sometimes they may have been ‘lost’ for an indeterminate time by burial as a ‘hoard’ in times of conflict then dug up again later, or buried for a while as grave goods then recovered. .
I know this is the received wisdom, but it’s also an extraordinary claim.
How do we know that the culture who made the art originally is the same as (or more likely, ancestral to) the culture in the area now?
How do we know that the signficance of the rock art is the same as it was when the art was created? It seems far more likely that even if the culture is continuous, its meaning has shifted over time organically. (I’d still consider that to meet the terms of the OP, though.) How on earth could this be established, other than taking people’s word for it? And their word is only an indication of their belief, not of fact. Perhaps the meaning has shifted entirely. Perhaps one group moved away or died off 700 years ago and another group came in, and ascribed new meaning. Do we know this did not occur?
It is common for people to claim a very long oral tradition for their own group, and archeologists and geologists and such (who have no training in oral tradition) sometimes agree, based on rather broad evidence, and the popular press certainly likes this idea. At the end of the day, while I’d like it to be true, I worry about it.
To me, accepting this claim at face value is a little uncomfortably like accepting the idea that Indigenous people are guardians of lost wisdom and other ideas that are more about Westerners’ Romantic notions than actual facts.
If anyone knows of any evidence for the claim, I’d be pleased to hear it.
The head of the Sphinx was probably known for much longer than we know about and possibly it’s existence was always known by someone since it was first carved. I gather that a lot of history about the Sphinx and the creation of the body is unclear, and even the shape of the head may have changed significantly after it’s initial form, and definitely has changed in several ways since then. That brings into question the unique existence of the artifact over time. The same might be the problem for Australian rock art if it had been modified over time. Carried to an extreme you end up with the Ship of Theseus.
I remember reading that the Crown Jewels were melted down after the English Revolution, and that’s the reason only the Coronation Spoon dates from before that. It’s too bad, because it would have been interesting to see the pre-revolution Crown Jewels.
This disqualifies my suggestion, but here it is anyway: The Foundation Stone (that rock at the center of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem). It has to be over 3,000 years old (as an object not as stone) and I don’t think it’s ever been lost.
Also, the Coronation Spoon, which dates from the 2nd half of the 12th century, was not in King John’s treasure. John’s treasure, along with most of his baggage, was lost in the Wash‡ in 1216, as he was crossing from King’s Lynn to Swineshead Abbey.
Around (as an artifact, rather than a hunk o’ rock) since at least 1296. But the Stone of Scone doesn’t qualify for the OP, as it was stolen and hidden by a group of young Scottish nationalist students on Christmas Day of 1950. Four months later, it was discovered sitting on the altar of Arbroath Abbey.
As it turns out, historians know the identity of the nationalists, and the course of the Stone’s journey from Westminister Abbey to Arbroath; but it was definitely “lost” for a time.
I spoke with the Pope and he assured me (thru a translator) that his Church had the Ark in their Church in Africa. And if you can’t believe a Pope, who can you believe?
Like the Ship of Theseus?
I would count that as hidden, not lost. The students knew where it was all the time. Many items have been hidden, that doesnt count as lost and later found, or as the OP puts it "
Wise to be distrustful. But, you might not be aware of genetic research over the past few years showing the stability of Aboriginal gene markers in place for millenia, which is the first independent line supporting stability of people and knowledge. The second is the mythical context for these sites is not one off or unique - they are part of complex ritual landscapes, one of whose whose main roles was to guarantee the stability of cultural knowledge. The third is that the continuity of use of the rockshelters for cultural practice is the claim and the superpositioning of successive art styles shows that continuity.
Of course we can’t say that unrecorded events severed the intangible link at the centre of the claim, but that can only remain speculative.
I don’t intend to derail the thread, and happy if it sticks to objects. Your response was cautious and sceptical, but raised points that others might take as established fact, so always handy to explain.
Thanks, and thanks for taking my comment in the spirit I intended. Edit: and I wasn’t aware of all the evidence. Circumstantial, but enough to be I think a good argument for cultural continuity.
I don’t think that disqualifies it, as “stolen” is not the same. I take the OP to mean it wasn’t abandoned, lost in the wash/Wash, buried and location forgotten.
For example, some of the original windows of Salibury cathedral were removed and buried to save them from the Puritan Parlimentarian purges, but the people who hid them never forgot where they were, and dug them up as soon as the king was restored. Same as the stone changing hands, illicitly, for a time. Someone knew of it and had it even if others had no idea.
The point is - it was highly likely that the aboriginal sites were in fact known and used continuously for millennia. Unlike cave drawings, they are pretty open and visible. But we have limited evidence that there was not a period where for a few hundred years or longer the locations were ignored in favour of other forms of worship or celebration, or abandoned due to climate change? It’s preponderance of evidence but not absolute proof. However, oral history probably makes it a real contender in this category, that it’s been in use at least more than the other European contenders for 1000 years, or than Roman or Egyptian locations for 4,000 to 2,000 years.
I’m quite skeptical it is true is there is no complete list of provenance.
Googling this, it is almost depressing how little in the way of portable objects got through the Middle Ages without being lost, hidden, modified, or banged up. You might think that there would be at least one museum or church or synagogue or house that had never been sacked over the past 1,500 years or so, and where some cups or pottery or dishes were lovingly passed down generation through generation, but AFAIK, no. The first place I would have looked is a museum, but no pre-Renaissance museums survive.
I found a blogger post trying to answer the question. Here are his candidates:
The Fairy Flag, held in Dunvegan Castle was already described as ‘ancient’ when it was written about in the 1400’s. Dunvegan says that their experts claim the flag dates to somewhere between the 4th and 7th centuries, and I believe has been at Dunvegan since the 1100’s.
The Imperial Regalia of Japan. They date back to 680AD. Only a possible because there are rumors that they were once stolen and then recaptured.
Artifacts in the Forbidden City in China. When the government took over, they catalogued more than one million pieces, some as old as 6,000 years. But it’s almost impossible to find which ones were lost and found, etc.