Beautiful things from the past

Beautiful things from the past 🧵

Gold ring from the 1700s adorned with stars and the inscription "Many are thee stars I see yet in my eye no star like thee".

2. An elegant 2,000-year-old Roman shoe found in a well at Saalburg, a fort that once protected the boundary between the Roman Empire and the Germanic territories.

3. Musical Knives

Dating to the early 1500s, these knives from Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum have musical scores engraved on their blades.

Each knife matched a vocal range (soprano, tenor, etc.), letting banquet guests sing together before or after meals.

4. The bookwheel

A stunning 300-year-old library tool that enabled a researcher to have seven books open at once.

Comedian Mark Normand dubbed it "the original too many tabs open."

5. A replica of Newton's second reflecting telescope which was presented to the Royal Society in 1672.

6. A love letter from 1913 that opens up to form an art gallery.

On January 10, 1913, American illustrator Alfred Joseph Frueh wrote to his wife Giuliette Fanciulli, using the letter as a small "map" to guide her through an art gallery she was about to visit.

7. Roman ring with the inscription "Anima Dulcis Vivas Mecum" (May you live with me sweet soul), 4th century AD.

8. A stunning antique Adam and Eve apple with an inscription that translates to "I am your half".

9. A 16th Century ring that transforms into an astronomical sphere.

10. A masterpiece of optical illusion

This mind-bending gate leads to the grounds of the Theresian Academy, a private boarding and day school founded in 1746 by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.

11. This plate from 1661, decorated with the inscription "You and I are Earth," was found in a London Sewer.

After surviving harsh times, it ended up in a Wellcome Collection called "Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life."

After all, everything belongs to the Earth.

12. A french medieval songbook

The Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu is a heart-shaped hymnbook commissioned by French noble Bishop Jean de Montchenu between 1460 and 1477.

It features love songs in French and Italian by 15th-century composers.

13. The robot bar designed by Fratelli Borghesani Mobili

14. Ombra della sera (Italian for "Shadow of the Evening") is an over 2,000-year-old Etruscan bronze statue from the town of Velathri, now known as Volterra, Italy.

Archaeologists estimate that it dates back to the third century BC.

15. The insane flexibility of this 15th century armor

16. A stunning silver locket from the 1600s with Cupid and the inscription "No heart more true than mine to you."

17. An incredible gold purse from the Ottoman Empire with its original coins still inside

18. An original victorian doll house from the 1880s

19. Ancient Egyptian amethyst pendant in the shape of a cat, approximately 664-30 BC.

20. An automatic candle snuffer

A clever 19th-century device designed to sit atop a burning candle and automatically cut off its oxygen supply after a set period.

21. Renaissance ''ring with castle'', in gold, diamonds and enamel, late 16th century.

22. Amethyst grapes with jade leaves.

China, Qing dynasty, 19th century.

23. This Italian carved mahogany  writing  desk that belonged to King Carlo Alberto

24. A magnificent axe with heart-shaped holes in the blade. Japan, 14th century.

25. Buried treasure, including nearly 200 Roman coins, found in a terra-cotta pot in Tuscany, Italy.

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