•
Baghdad Battery: A ceramic vase, a copper tube, and an iron rod made in
Parthian or
Sassanid Persia, discovered in 1936. Fringe theorists have hypothesized that it may have been used as a
galvanic cell for
electroplating, though no electroplated artifacts from this era have been found. The "battery" strongly resembles another type of object with a known purpose – storage vessels for sacred
scrolls from nearby
Seleucia on the Tigris. •
Dorchester Pot: A metal pot claimed to have been blasted out of solid rock in 1852. Mainstream commentators identify it as a Victorian-era candlestick or pipe holder. • Kingoodie artifact: An object resembling a corroded nail, said to have been encased in solid rock. It was handled a number of times before being reported and there are no photographs of it. •
Lake Winnipesaukee mystery stone: Originally thought to be a record of a treaty between tribes, subsequent analysis has called its authenticity into question. •
Sivatherium of
Kish: An ornamental
war chariot figurine discovered in the
Sumerian ruins of Kish, in what is now central
Iraq, in 1928. The figurine, dated to the
Early Dynastic I period (2800–2750 BCE), depicts a quadrupedal mammal with branched horns, a
nose ring, and a rope tied to the ring. Because of the shape of the horns,
Edwin Colbert identified it in 1936 as a depiction of a late-surviving, possibly domesticated
Sivatherium, a vaguely
moose-like relative of the
giraffe that lived in
North Africa and
India during the
Pleistocene but was believed to have become extinct early in the
Holocene extinction event.
Henry Field and
Berthold Laufer instead argued that it represented a captive
Persian fallow deer and that the
antlers had broken over the years. The missing antlers were indeed found in the
Field Museum's storeroom in 1977. After restoration in 1985, it was conclusively identified as a depiction of a
Caspian red deer (
Cervus elaphus maral). •
Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head: A
terracotta offering head seemingly of
Roman appearance found beneath three intact floors of a burial site in
Mexico and dated between 1476 and 1510. There are disputed claims that its dating is older. Ancient Roman or Norse provenance has not been excluded. • The
Westford Knight: A pattern, variously interpreted as a carving or a natural feature, or a combination of both, located on a glacial boulder in
Westford,
Massachusetts in the United States. Pseudohistorical interpretations have labeled it as evidence of pre-Columbian contact with
Medieval Europe. •
Nimrud lens; 8th-century BC piece of
rock crystal which was unearthed in 1850 by
Austen Henry Layard at the
Assyrian palace of
Nimrud in modern-day
Iraq. which may have been used as a
magnifying glass or as a
burning-glass to start fires by concentrating sunlight, or it may have been a piece of decorative inlay.
Giovanni Pettinato speculated that it may have been a telescope, although experts remained unconvinced. •
Sabu disk: a disk of notable precision apparently from ancient times in
Saqqara. Its purpose is unknown. It has been described as an out-of-place artifact by fringe theorists. •
Abydos helicopter: A
pareidolia based on
palimpsest carving in an ancient Egyptian temple. •
Dendera Lamps: Supposed to depict light bulbs, but made in Ptolemaic Egypt, debunked by the analysis of the
epigraphic text. The
motif actually represents a
lotus flower. • Iron Man (
Eiserner Mann): An old iron pillar, said to be a unique oddity in
Germany, but consistent with medieval methods of ironworking. •
Iron pillar of Delhi: A "rust-proof" iron pillar which supposedly demonstrates more advanced metallurgy than was available in India before 1000 CE. •
London Hammer: Also known as the "London Artifact", a hammer made of iron and wood that was found in
London, Texas, in 1936. Part of the hammer is encased in "400-million-year-old" ("
Ordovician era") rock. In 1985, anthropologist John R. Cole hypothesized that the stone surrounding the hammer is a recent carbonate soil concretion. •
Meister Print: A supposed human footprint from the
Cambrian period, long before humans existed, which has been debunked as the result of a natural geologic process known as
spall formation. •
Pacal's sarcophagus lid: Described by
Erich von Däniken as a depiction of a spaceship's cockpit. •
Piri Reis map: Several authors, such as
pseudohistorian Gavin Menzies and
pseudoscientist Charles Hapgood, have suggested that this map, compiled by the
Turkish admiral
Piri Reis, showed
Antarctica long before it was discovered (cf.
Terra Australis). •
Quimbaya airplanes: Golden objects found in
Colombia and made by the
Quimbaya civilization, which have been alleged to represent modern airplanes. In the
Gold Museum, Bogotá, they are described as figures of birds and insects. Some of the artifacts have also been debunked as forgeries. •
Saqqara Bird: Supposedly depicts a glider, but made in Ancient Egypt. •
Shakōkidogū: Small humanoid and animal
figurines made during the late
Jōmon period (14,000–400 BCE) of prehistoric Japan, said to resemble extraterrestrial astronauts. •
Stone spheres of Costa Rica: Inaccurately described as being perfectly spherical, and therefore demonstrating greater stone-working skill in
pre-Columbian times than has previously been known. •
Fuente Magna, a large stone vessel that was discovered in
Bolivia in 1950, with many engravings on its inside that have been compared to
Sumerian cuneiform writing. Archeologist and historian of the
Near East Alexander H. Joffe has described the patterns as "geometric filler or deliberate gibberish" and thought the face on the interior resembles local
Tiwanaku culture. He suggested it could be a fake or a local oddity. == Natural objects mistaken for artifacts ==