If you could possess one historical and one mythical /fictional artifact

sxt

And display it in your home...

I think thors hammer would look pretty cool in a display cabinet above the mantlepiece.

Van goghs mulberry tree painting

Frynge

Gutenberg bible

Lindsey Logan's dignity.

Ipso

An Claidheamh Solas and the pulleys the alines used to build the pyramids.

Are Am Eye

The Jade Monkey.

LirW

Nike of Samothrace. My favourite sculpture.

TheValeyard

The Spear of Destiny.


Real and mythical combined into one. Although I prefer the mythical where I can control space and time and indeed the world.

fergiesfolly

Spirit of St.Louis. Beautiful machine. Hard to hang over the fireplace though.
Excaliber.

Ten of Swords

The Dzopa Stones

Ulysses Gaze

Aladdin's Lamp.

3 wishes and a Mantlepiece ornament.

Donald Trump

The Holy Stone of Clonrickard

Blazer

The Mona Lisa and Excalibur.

Archeron

The mask of Tutankhamun still on the body as a coffee table would be nice.

Wibbs

Leonardo DaVinci's full set of notebooks. All those cool musings and inventions we know about like helicopters and parachutes and art and gears and observations on the natural world and canal gates and architecture and weapons and anatomy? They all came from his notebooks. Problem is soon after his death those entrusted with them screwed up and lost them, or sold them off piecemeal. So as it is now we only have under a quarter of the original set. Christ knows what the rest contained.

Single object? Probably the Lion man of Hohlenstein.



One of the oldest works of figurative sculpture in human history(there's a tiny Venus figure that vies for the title) at 35-40,000 years old. From the earliest Modern Humans in Europe. About a foot(30cms) tall, carved from mammoth ivory with flint tools. A right bugger of a task*. It's a tad neat and easy to nail modern human thought and all that made us, us right down to today to this period* and an object like this, but it's compelling one.

An object that sums us up as the toolmaker, the handaxe, a tool in use for over a million years would be another, but I've a fair few of them, so I am embarrassingly sorted there. To hold such an object in the hand is for me at least very humbling and adds major perspective.










*years back and because I'm slightly bonkers - well when I say slightly - I decided to have a go at carving bits of Hawthorn wood with flint tools I made myself. Hawthorn is a hard wood, but it's nothing close to ivory and it was a bloody longwinded effort I can tell you.


**the more we dig the more we find that at least in very rare instances and places even earlier peoples that weren't modern humans, going back 100's of 1000's of years may have had a basic inkling of what we might call "art". EG Neandertal cave paintings and stone structures.

o1s1n

The Antikythera mechanism would be an interesting conversation piece to have on the coffee table.

Wouldn't mind having the Elgin Marbles running around the interior of my apartment :pac:

JohnnyFlash

The Golden Arse relic from the lost Inca village of Licky Bumbum.

Cheerful Spring

Jesus Christ cup ( if it cures illness and **** all in)

Historical Tara Brooch

indioblack

o1s1n wrote: »

Wouldn't mind having the Elgin Marbles running around the interior of my apartment :pac:

The Greeks want 'em back - anybody would think they owned them.

MurmanskRun

Wibbs wrote: »

An object that sums us up as the toolmaker, the handaxe, a tool in use for over a million years would be another

An Acheulean axe, Wibbs? Awesome! (I'm re-reading Bryson's "Short History" atm, just finished the "Restless Ape" chapter.)

On topic, any of the suspected "lost" Shakespearean plays, notably "Love’s Labour Won".

Edit: Duh, mythical. Aladdin's magic lamp*

* I had to google the correct spelling of Aladdin. One L, two Ds? Two L's, two Ds? Worryingly google's auto-suggest tells me that "Aladdin's magic lube" is a thing :O

Historical: The Bible, first ever tablet/written form.

Mythical: Magic Carpet.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Probably Brutus's Gladius (Roman sword used by Brutus).

Mythical, Cleopatra's butt plug.

ninja 12

I'm not sure what mythical /fictional artifact I'd pick .


For historical , maybe something like this Anubis statue from Tomb of Tutankhamun -


Not sure why , but I've always liked them . Besides , dogs are cool

Wibbs wrote: »

Leonardo DaVinci's full set of notebooks. All those cool musings and inventions we know about like helicopters and parachutes and art and gears and observations on the natural world and canal gates and architecture and weapons and anatomy? They all came from his notebooks. Problem is soon after his death those entrusted with them screwed up and lost them, or sold them off piecemeal. So as it is now we only have under a quarter of the original set. Christ knows what the rest contained.

I was lucky to see a collection of DaVinci's drawings ( including the original image of his Vitruvian Man ) in Venice in 2013 .

I booked a trip for my wife and I , and by sheer coincidence , there was an exhibition on in Venice .

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-23877065
https://www.venetoinside.com/events-in-veneto/event/leonardo-da-vinci-luomo-universale/

They had pieces shipped in from other collections for it .

Amazing to see .

Ubbquittious

Cyrus cylinder would be nice to have sitting around the place

Beanntraigheach

Trump's hair.
Legend says it's the source of all his power.

Crowned with it I'd be unstoppable. Then I'd show yez. I'd show yez all! *maniacal laughter*

maninasia

Aladdin's Lamp

Historical - would prefer to see the objects being used or invented at the time. So Archimedes death ray mirror . Archimedes screw. Ancient ships. Pirate towns. Ancient palaces and temples in Rome and Greece . Newgrange and Stonehenge in their glory days.
Meeting the people.

maninasia

Aladdin's Lamp

Historical - would prefer to see the objects being used or invented at the time. So Archimedes death ray mirror . Archimedes screw. Ancient ships. Pirate towns. Ancient palaces and temples in Rome and Greece . Newgrange and Stonehenge in their glory days. The monks working on the book of Kells.
Meeting the people.
Also would be more.interested in extinct animals of all types but especially other human species.

tricky D

Any clock John Harrison made/designed.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

notsoyoungwan

Historical: the entrance stone to Newgrange. That’d look fab in my garden.

Mythical- not sure, nothing springs to mind, tbh.

Sal Butamol

Historical: Crooked Hillary's emails

Mythical: Russian Hackers

DEFTLEFTHAND

Ferdia's good looks and CuChullains steelly determination.

chopperbyrne

Historical - Newgrange Entrance Stone.

Fictional - The Infinity Gauntlet.

Wibbs

Forgot mythical. That's easy for me. A Tardis.



It would mean I could go anywhere or anywhen I wanted to and see cool stuff. And it's more roomy than a nuclear powered DeLorean.

Greybottle

Hitler's Diaries would be a nice coffee table book.

Along with the Voynich manuscript

Fourier

Deleted User wrote: »

Historical: The Bible, first ever tablet/written form.

That would most likely be Ezra's personal copy produce at the rebuilt temple in the mid 450s BC with other members of the priestly cast. He had been order by Cyrus the Great of Persia to create a standard form of the Israelite religion.

Ten of Swords

Any, or all, of the Amber Room. Looted at the end of WW2, no trace since.

Roger Hassenforder

A tie fighter for going to town
&
A tiger tank.

For going to town

JustAThought

Historical : I'd like the private luxury steam train the Tzar and Tzarina of Russia used travel in complete with gold cutlery and Fabarge knicknacks. Woukd be lovely in the garden as a retreat. If things got bad and I had to sell the house I just could just endlessly travel around the country in it and want for nothing.

Fictional. The salmon of knowledge. Then I would posess all knowledge could get a job as anything (QC, neurosurgeon,stockbroker, actuary) and make a fortune with no training,skill or effort.

PlaneSpeeking

JustAThought wrote: »

Historical : I'd like the private luxury steam train the Tzar and Tzarina of Russia used travel in complete with gold cutlery and Fabarge knicknacks. Woukd be lovely in the garden as a retreat. If things got bad and I had to sell the house I just could just endlessly travel around the country in it and want for nothing.

Fictional. The salmon of knowledge. Then I would posess all knowledge could get a job as anything (QC, neurosurgeon,stockbroker, actuary) and make a fortune with no training,skill or effort.

To be honest you could get the baps out and go into "reality" TV and do that - but I would stick with the fish!!!

branie2

The One Ring

Steve F

tricky D wrote: »

Any clock John Harrison made/designed.



" And the bid is at 3 and a half MILLION pounds"

(Rodney faints)

RiderOnTheStorm

Real (picked for conversation value and love of subject):
Miamioto Mushashi's sword (greatest swordman ever)
Steve McQueen's bike from The Great Escape (stil think he might make it over the wire)
Jesus Christ's foreskin (He went bodily to heaven, but His fs is surely around somewhere as it was cut off years before)
Lee Harvey Oswolds rifle (cause, y'know...JFK is cool)
The Irish flag from GPO 1916

Fantasy -
The One Ring (drat - beaten to it!)
Light Saber from Star Wars
My own hour-glass from Deaths great library
The time tunnel from the tv show The Time Tunnel
A knife-missile (from Ian M Banks "Culture" novels)