Test Your Knowledge of the World's Oldest Surviving Things

The Venice Film Festival was first held in August 1932 as part of the Venice Biennale, also one of the oldest art exhibitions. Other than pauses during World War II and the 1970s (owing to social unrest in Italy), the festival has become a stalwart in the cinema calendar. The festival's highest award is the Golden Lion, which was first introduced in 1949. Recent recipients include "Nomadland," "Roma," and "The Shape of Water.”

There are European medical schools that date back to the 11th and 12th centuries, but in the United States, there are four medical schools that were founded in the 18th century, the oldest of which is the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Also known as Penn Med, it was founded in Philadelphia in 1765.

The French fashion house Hermès, established by Thierry Hermès in 1837, is the oldest still in operation today. Initially, the brand made luxury saddles and equestrian accessories, but it eventually shifted its focus to leather bags. Its first bag was made to hold saddles, but soon it was making stylish handbags. Today its most recognizable bags are the Kelly (named in honor of Grace Kelly) and the Birkin (named after English actress and singer Jane Birkin).

The oldest continuously operating business requires an industry with longevity — such as building Buddhist temples. Kongo Gumi has managed to sustain operations in Japan since 578 CE. Headquartered in Osaka, the company was founded by a Korean immigrant commissioned to build a temple in Japan by Prince Shotoku. Until it was acquired in 2006 by construction conglomerate Takamatsu, Kongo Gumi was the oldest family-operated business in the world. However, it remains working on temples and shrines after more than 1,400 years.

The sazerac, invented in New Orleans in 1838 by local apothecary Antoine Peychaud, is considered America's oldest cocktail (and the official cocktail of New Orleans). The cocktail was originally known as "Peychaud's brandy toddy" but was renamed "sazerac" after it became the official cocktail of Sazerac Coffee House in New Orleans. The original recipe called for brandy. Today, the sazerac recipe substitutes rye whiskey for the brandy, and also includes Peychaud's bitters, herbsaint (or absinthe), sugar, and a lemon twist.

Historians believe the ancient Egyptian game Senet is the oldest board game in the world. They know the game dates back to about 3500 BCE because it has been found in predynastic and First Dynasty tombs. However, the original rules of gameplay are unknown. The board consists of rectangular planks of wood, limestone, or ceramic earthenware with squares and symbols painted in bright, colorful glaze.

In 1992, construction workers building a road between Folkestone and Dover in southeast England discovered the remains of a large, ancient vessel made of oak and plant stems. The boat was later dated to the Bronze Age — roughly 3,500 years ago. In order to excavate it, archaeologists had to cut it apart and reassemble it. After seven years of research and conservation, it went on display at the Dover Museum. Although it’s not the oldest boat ever uncovered — older funerary boats have been discovered in Egypt, but they were never actually used on water — it is the oldest seagoing boat found so far.

The oldest working mechanical clock is the Medieval Clock at the Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire, England. The faceless, wrought-iron mechanism is thought to date back to 1386, although there is some debate about its exact age. The clock was designed to ring a bell every hour to notify parishioners of service times. It no longer chimes on the hour, but, after an extensive restoration in 1956, it functions basically as it did more than six centuries ago. The clock is wound by hand, and large wheels and weights operate the mechanism.

The oldest-known surviving map of the world was created in the ancient city of Babylon between 700 and 500 BCE. Known as both the Imago Mundi and the Babylonian Map of the World, the map was carved on a small tablet and shows Babylon as a rectangle in the center, surrounded by other lands, including Assyria and Elam. Beyond them is a salty sea in a ring, and then eight other marked regions.

Around 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce did something no one had ever done before: He took a picture of the view outside his window in Burgundy, France. There were experiments with chemicals and light and optics going on around the world at that time, but Niépce’s project has endured. He set up a camera obscura, or pinhole camera, and trained it on his studio window. The camera’s view was cast on a specially treated pewter plate, and, hours later, it produced the first known permanent photograph — or “heliograph” as Niépce called it. The image is on display at a museum at the University of Texas-Austin.

The oldest European book with its binding intact is the St. Cuthbert Gospel, a small leather-bound copy of the gospel of St. John. It was discovered in 1104 when St. Cuthbert’s coffin in Durham Cathedral was opened. The book was created in the late eighth century and stashed in the coffin of St. Cuthbert (who died in 678 CE) for safekeeping. The remarkable object is held at the British Library in London.

One of the most popular exhibits at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., is a tiny sliver of moon rock. The ancient 3.8 billion-year-old rock was collected by the crew of Apollo 17 in 1972 and was gifted to the museum in 1976. In an innovative move, museum director Farouk El-Baz persuaded NASA to let the public actually touch the sample, giving people the rare chance to handle a piece of moon rock.

Thirty-three shell beads discovered in 2021 in a cave in Morocco represent the oldest pieces of jewelry in the world, dating back to between 142,000 and 150,000 years ago. The shells have holes deliberately fashioned to be worn as beads. Researchers think that the shells would have been worn as adornment and used as a way for people to express their identity.

The Lydians, an ancient tribe from modern-day Turkey, were the first people to mint coins. The coins were made from electrum, an alloy of gold and silver, and featured an embossed lion’s head — the symbol of the Lydian kings. First minted around 600 BCE, the coins held great value, representing a month’s salary, and were thought equivalent in value to about 11 sheep.

When James V was refurbishing Stirling Castle in Scotland in the 1540s, someone must have kicked a soccer ball (football to the Scots) high into the air, and it became lodged in the rafters. The ball, made from pig’s bladder, was retrieved in 1981 by builders working at the castle, and it was identified as the oldest surviving soccer ball by some margin. The next oldest ball dates to the 18th century.

A wood-and-leather false toe found buried with an Egyptian mummy is the oldest known surviving prosthetic. The woman it was buried with is thought to have lived between 950 BCE and 710 BCE. A volunteer with missing toes tested the prosthetic, and researchers concluded that the false big toe would have made walking in traditional Egyptian sandals much easier.

The world’s oldest unopened bottle of wine was discovered in Germany, dating back to the fourth century, sometime between 325 and 359 CE. The 1.5-liter glass bottle was found buried in the tomb of a Roman nobleman. A layer of oil and a thick wax stopper ensured that the contents remained undisturbed. The ancient bottle is on display at the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer, Germany.

The pianoforte (commonly known as the piano) was invented in the late 17th century by Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy. Only three Cristofori pianos have survived, the oldest of which is on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met’s piano was built in 1720 and has just 54 keys rather than the 88 seen on a modern piano. By the end of the 18th century, pianos had become one of the most popular instruments in Western music.

In 1649, after Charles I had been overthrown, the English Parliament destroyed the medieval crown jewels. Only one object survived — a spoon dating to the 12th century. The Coronation Spoon was purchased for 16 shillings by one of Charles I’s staff, and when the monarchy was restored, he returned it. The crown, sceptre, and orb in the modern crown jewels were all remade in 1661 for the coronation of Charles II.

The tiny Venus of Hohle Fels is just 6 centimeters high and is the oldest known representation of a human figure in art. It was discovered in a cave in southern Germany and it’s estimated to be at least 35,000 years old. The prehistoric artistic figure is carved from mammoth ivory and is an exaggerated female form, leading experts to speculate that it represents a symbol of fertility.

Called a "living fossil” by some botanists, the ginkgo tree has been around — and more or less unchanged — for over 200 million years. That puts it alive and thriving when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Archaeologists and botanists know that the ginkgo has remained fairly unchanged due to 200 million-year-old fossils with leaves that look surprisingly similar to contemporary ginkgo fan-shaped leaves.