(In Pics) Five Inventions that are Waaay Older than you Think

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

As a species, it would seem that we feel pretty good about ourselves. But surrounded by the latest on entertainment, labor-saving devices and clever-clever tech, you might easily be duped into thinking that all these brilliant ideas are clustered around the last few decades of human development.

But this would be an mistake indeed. It turns out that a fair few things which we associate with the modern world have in fact been in existence for far longer. It seems that, when it came to innovation or practical need, our forebears were just as quick to come up with something brilliant.

Here are five things you may not realize were invented a long time ago.

1. 3D Movies: 1922

*The above still is from the* *movie* The Power of Love which was released in theatres in 1922. However this movie did something none before had tried: it was presented in 3D. Full bore, red and blue cardboard spectacles, 3D a century ago. In truth, audiences at *New York’s* *Astor Theatre had been able to see 3D motion picture shorts for a few years by this point, the first being shown in 1915 (Internet Archive /* *Public Domain*)

2. Oreo: 1912

*The above is a 1922* *US newspaper* advertisement which includes Oreo “sandwich” cookies (at 30c a pound, no less) but in truth the Oreo dates to a decade earlier. First invented in New York in 1912, the original Oreo was a close copy of another cookie, the Hydrox which was invented four years prior. They were sold in novelty metal and glass canisters, and the very first person to purchase a jar of Oreos was a grocer from Hoboken, *New Jersey* *(A&P /* *Public Domain*)

3. The Condom: Bronze Age Crete

The above condom dates to 1813 and comes with an instruction manual. It was also reusable, which doesn’t really bear thinking about. However the ultimate genesis of the condom can be traced to a much, much earlier time: the *Palace* *of King Minos in* *Bronze Age* Crete. Greek mythology described King Minos as having semen filled with snakes and scorpions, which was preventing his wife from conceiving. Minos was said to have used a pig’s bladder to catch these scorpions, making this also the first documented time where a condom use resulted in pregnancy (MatthiasKabel / *CC BY-SA 3.0*)

4. Cymbal: 2300 BC

*This is an ancient* *Greek* cymbal, working exactly the way modern cymbals do, but dated from 500 BC. It seems that we have been keen on the sound of cymbals for a very long time however, for they had been around for almost two millennia by the time the Greeks started making theirs. Cymbals appear across many civilizations, are mentioned in the *Bible, and probably were first invented in the early Bronze Age: the earliest which survives is from 2300 BC (Marsyas /* *CC BY-SA 2.5*)

5. Chewing Gum: Stone Age

Chewing gum is a very strange invention, in that we cannot really call it that at all. It seems to have not been “invented” at all, but rather came about from behavioral habits which date back at least to the *Neolithic. 5,000 year-old chewing gum from the tar of the birch tree has been found in* *Finland, complete with Neolithic tooth impressions. However it was certainly the US who invented the modern chewing gum in the mid-19th century, probably inspired by the* *Native American* *habit of chewing spruce sap. The above advert is from 1910 (Unknown Author /* *Public Domain*)

Top Image: Don’t worry, iphones and ear buds aren’t that old. But there are some other modern inventions that have been around far longer than you might think. Source: Staras / Adobe Stock.

By Joseph Green

References

Joseph Green

Joseph Green is editor for Historic Mysteries, which combines his background in English Literature with a lifelong fascination for the strange and the unexplained. Read More