One thing we just can’t get around, and always seem to be fighting against nonetheless, is age. Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking, or so the song goes.
Not everything weathers the passage of time equally, of course. Some things just don’t last . The items and sites below are not of that variety, however. Many have stood up far, far longer, and in better shape, than you would expect.
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This soda can turned up in the attic of someone’s house.
Which looks like a pretty good spot for it to have sat, because it looks like it’s been there for about 40 years. These cans with the states on them were produced as a bicentennial promotion back in 1976.
In the 8th century, artists and masons carved this temple out of one solid piece of rock.
To build Kailasa Temple , workers had to excavate more than 200,000 tons of rock. Now, more than 1,200 years later, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and hasn’t lost even an ounce of its ability to inspire awe.
Ireland is home to a large tomb that’s older than the Great Pyramids.
Newgrange is also about 1,000 years older than Stonehenge. Constructed by Stone Age farmers, the tomb is aligned such that sunlight shines through the passage and into the chamber at sunrise around the winter solstice.
This medicine chest still has some of its original ingredients, in their original bottles, intact.
And, having been produced some time between 1562 and 1566, it’s over 450 years old. Mind you, this medicine chest was also made for a fabulously wealthy Italian governor, so no expense was spared.
This nurse’s kit is much more recent than that medicine chest, but still quite interesting.
At about 100 years old, it looks like it’s still in excellent condition, and contains vials intended to hold things like cocaine tablets.
Just below a road in Rome, an ancient road lay buried for centuries.
The road still bears a name referring to its destination — Laurentina Road for the road to Laurentum — although that place has long since changed its name.
Just like the movies!
As we know from Jurassic Park , amber is a wonderful preservation medium, as it’s often found with things that are millions of years old contained within it. In this case, it’s the 99-million-year-old skull of one of the smallest dinosaurs ever discovered, which still has more than 100 teeth.
And then there’s this lizard.
You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but this thing is 54 million years old.
Trees don’t necessarily have to be big when they’re old.
Yes, the biggest tend to be the oldest, but this bonsai tree is a remarkable 150 years old.
Just imagine how many people must have had to care and tend to it for it to reach such an advanced age, and look so good doing it.
This katana is about 1,000 years old.
And with not a speck of rust on it, it still shines like it’s fresh off the forge. Something tells me it can cut more than warm butter, too.
Believe it or not, this room is more than a century old.
It’s the central control room in a power station in Budapest that opened in 1914. They sure don’t make them like this anymore!
Apparently, cents used to be available in paper bill form.
Of course, in 1923, 25 cents could actually buy you something, even in Canada.
But this bill looks like it’s in great shape for something that must have been passed around plenty back when it was worth something.
Somebody just found this penny from 1899 when they were out for a stroll.
You would expect considerably more wear on a 120-year-old penny, wouldn’t you? Especially one that someone just stumbled upon on the street.
Somebody actually used this dollar bill in a store in 2020.
I guess that technically speaking, it’s legal tender. It was produced to be legal tender anyway, but you would think the owner would either hold onto it or sell it to a dealer rather than spend it on candy at the gas station.
This crab roamed Italy about three million years ago.
What a fossil! It looks like it could have been crawling around yesterday.
This ring would have been like a calculator watch for the 17th century.
Okay, so that tiny abacus isn’t exactly practical, but neither was your Casio back in the ’80s, for that matter.
This hearty specimen is 36,000 years old.
This steppe bison, nicknamed “Blue Babe,” was pulled out of the permafrost in 1979 and now resides in the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska.
This old roadster is still chugging along quite nicely.
It’s unlikely to be the original 1911 Marmon Wasp because that’s in a museum, but there’s still something otherworldly about seeing this thing on the street.
You have to love how its owner gets into it with the old-timey headgear, too.
Chances are, few of us even sharpen razors anymore.
But back in the day, if you needed to sharpen your razor, you might have done it with one of these cool hand-crank contraptions.
During sewer construction in Rome, workers discovered this large mosaic below the surface.
Even though it will need some reconstruction, it won’t need as much as you’d expect for something pushing 2,000 years old.
Those Romans sure knew how to build things.
This is the gymnasium in the ancient city of Sardes, and it was one of the largest gyms in the entire empire. Honestly, if my gym looked like this, I would go more often.
Early humans carved these bison out of cave rocks in France about 14,000 years ago.
Even if they’re not exactly Michelangelo’s David , considering the tools they would have had to work with, this is incredible work.
This is a 113-year-old door latch that only just stopped working.
And apparently, after the owner disassembled and re-assembled it, the latch started working again. That’s some quality craftsmanship right there!
This hammer has been passed down in one family for at least 12 generations.
And yes, the years show, but it still has the ability to drive more than a few nails left in it.
Archaeologists discovered this serpentine mask at the base of a pyramid in Mexico.
Would you even guess that it’s about 2,000 years old just looking at it?
This memento ring, with a “hologram” effect, is almost 2,000 years old.
A Roman noblewoman commissioned this piece to commemorate her son, who died at 18. Just goes to show you how little things change on general.
This odd-looking device would have been helpful to scholars when it was built 300 years ago.
It allows you to open and scroll through seven different books at once.
Amazingly, you can still make out a hieroglyph tattoo on this
Oddly, so far, all of the tattoos found on mummies have only been on female mummies. Tattoos have been discovered on mummies as old as 5,000 years.
This ancient Roman dagger is about 2,000 years old.
And yes, it was found crusted over with a thick layer of oxidation, but a thorough restoration process revealed what was hidden underneath, and it’s a beauty.
Likewise, this ancient Egyptian dress needed some restoration.
The 4,500-year-old dress was discovered in many pieces, but the pieces themselves were able to be reassembled into the full article.
This article of clothing isn’t quite as old, but it’s still impressive nonetheless.
Pretty close to the original Levi’s jeans, this pair of pants was found in an old mine 136 years after they were left there.
One of the must-see sights in Prague is this astronomical clock.
It still shines and wows crowds like the day it was installed back in 1410.
