By Raza Mehdi
November 04, 2022
Archaeologists found chewing gum with tooth marks of a stone-age teenager on it, believed to be 9,000 years old. The dark-coloured gum was made of resin sweetened with honey. It was discovered at an excavation site outside Ellos, western Sweden.
Oldest Chewed Gum
A false toe dating back to 950 B.C. is the earliest prosthetic discovered in Cairo on the mummified body of an ancient Egyptian woman. Made out of wood and leather, experts believe that the "Cairo Toe" was also used as a practical walking device.
Oldest Prosthetic
A 5,500-year-old leather shoe was found in 2008 in excellent condition in the Areni-1 cave in Armenia. Named the Areni-1 shoe, it is the oldest one-piece leather footwear in the world known to researchers.
Oldest Footwear
The Shigir Idol is the earliest known wooden sculpture in the world. Carved during the Mesolithic period, researchers found the sculpture is 11,500 years old and may have stood more than 5 m (16 ft) high.
Oldest Wooden Statue
Found in Israel's Judean hills, this collection of sixteen Neolithic stone masks is 9,000 years old. The masks are between 11 and 12 inches in height. Early farmers are believed to have used them in ancestral rituals.
Oldest Masks
The Tarkhan Dress was excavated in 1913 in Egypt and is confirmed to be the oldest surviving piece of woven clothing all over the world. According to researchers, the dress was likely worn by a woman of royalty.
Oldest Woven Dress
The Hurrian Hymn No. 6 was etched on a clay tablet excavated in the Syrian city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) and is the oldest surviving work of notated music in the world. The tablet dates back to roughly 1,400 B.C. and contains an entire hymn as a tribute to Nikkal, the moon god's wife.
Oldest Written Song
The Speyer wine bottle is a sealed vessel presumed to contain wine and named after its excavation site near Speyer, Germany. It is considered the world's oldest known bottle of wine, dating back to the 4th century.
Oldest Unopened Wine Bottle
History might claim the iconic smiley face – evident from the discovery of a 3700-year-old Hittite pot with a smiley painted on it. It was unearthed when scientists were investigating a site in Turkey which dated back to 1700 BC.
Oldest Emoji
This clay tablet from the ancient Sumerian city-state of Ur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) is almost 4,000 years old. That makes it the oldest known written customer complaint. The message is from a man named Nanni griping to a merchant named Ea-Nasir.
Oldest Customer Service Complaint