It is a common trope in comedy that if a clumsy person enters an antique shop, they are bound to knock over a precariously positioned and priceless Ming vase. For centuries, collectors in the West have sought out the rarest Chinese antiquities, of which Ming vases are just the most famous. As China has boomed economically recently, the prices of Chinese artworks have exploded.

This has led to many cases where people who were about to throw away an old pot or donate a cracked plate to a junk shop have suddenly discovered they are actually in possession of something worth a fortune. Here are ten cases where Chinese antiques turned out to be a windfall.

Related: 10 Amazing Antiques Roadshow Discoveries

10 £1 Million Collection in the Attic

Clearing out the attic can be one of the most annoying tasks for any homeowner. It’s dusty and full of spiders, and then you have to decide which of the things you have stored over the years is worth keeping and which should be put in the trash. Sometimes, though, you might just strike gold.

Edward Radcliffe became an antiques dealer just before WWII, and during his career, he built up a nice collection of Chinese antiques. Some of them were so exquisite that he lent them out to museums around the world. But for some reason, after he died, this collection was dumped in the attic and forgotten for over 50 years before his family decided to get it valued.

Among the stars of the collection was an enamel box made for the Xuande emperor of the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century. Finding one is phenomenally rare, as just four are known to exist in the world. The family must have been pleased when it was valued at 10,000 pounds at auction. They must have been beyond belief when the hammer went down, and it was sold for £288,000. With the rest of the collection selling as well, the whole lot made nearly 1 million pounds.^[1]

9 “Teapot”

The British love a cup of tea, so it is not unusual to find an elderly relative who has a teapot or two stored in their home. In 2020, a man finally sorted through the things his parents had stored in their attic. He found a plastic bag containing a tiny metal and enamel teapot, brought from China in the 1940s by his father. He thought of taking it to a charity shop. Instead, it was taken to an auctioneer who valued it at £100-150.

It soon became clear that it was actually something more special than a teapot. It turned out to be an imperial wine ewer made for the Qianlong emperor in the 18th century and one of only three in the world. On the day of the auction, nine bidders from around the world competed to own the minuscule masterpiece, and eventually, it sold for £380,000.

The owner, a construction worker, was thrilled with his sudden fortune. Asked what he would do with the money, he suggested he might buy a metal detector. With luck like his, who knows what treasures he might find.^[2]

8 Imperial Vase

Familiarity breeds contempt, so something we see every day tends to get overlooked. When an auctioneer visited a friend’s house one day, he noticed that an old vase they had just in their kitchen looked quite special. The tall vase had been bought for a few hundred pounds and was a pretty piece of porcelain – but to the owners, it was nothing too exciting.

It was only years later that the piece, made at the Imperial Court of the Qianlong emperor, was put up for sale, and collectors began to get excited. The rich blue vase is decorated with gold and silver and depicts cranes and bats flying against a cloudy sky. A vase of this age, with this decoration and in this size, caused a stir, and it was valued at around £100,000.

Bidding was fierce, and the vase was sold for £1.2 million. Not bad for an old thing shoved in the kitchen.^[3]

7 Loose Change Bowl

Pottery is a sturdy material but easily broken and damaged. For collectors of antiques, even the smallest chip can destroy the value of a piece, so most will do everything possible to protect their treasures. One family inherited a bowl owned by a well-known collector of Chinese antiques but did not give it the same care as he might have liked. They placed it in a guest room where friends would drop their keys and coins while they stayed.

It was only out of curiosity that they took the 9-inch (22.9-cm) wide turquoise glazed dish to an open day at an auctioneer’s event. It was immediately seen to have been produced for the early Ming Imperial Court. Known as a narcissus bowl, the object caused the valuers’ hands to shake, and the owners were happy to put it up for auction.

The bowl sold for £240,000. Hopefully, the new owner doesn’t toss metal objects into it.^[4]

6 Cracked Umbrella Stand

Sometimes, we are given things and don’t know what to do with them, but we hold onto them anyway for sentimental reasons. One couple in England had come into possession of a blue and white vase as a gift and thought no more of it for 50 years. They relegated it to a spare room, and since it was about the right size, they placed their umbrellas in it. Needless to say, this was not the right way to treat the vase.

The vase turned out to have been made for the court of the Qianlong emperor and had survived centuries mostly intact. Unfortunately, the years of being an umbrella stand had left their mark on the vase, with it being cracked and scarred on the inside. Despite the damage, it was still valued at around £500,000.

Buyers seemed able to overlook the hard life the vase had endured and ended up paying £765,000.^[5]

5 Umbrella Stand

There must be something about priceless Chinese vases that makes people look at them and think, “That would make an excellent umbrella stand.” When an expert from Christie’s auction house was made aware of a large, blue and white dragon vase that had once been an umbrella stand, he asked the French owners whether he could inspect it in person. As soon as he looked at it, he knew that the vase was a perfect example of 15th-century Ming Imperial pottery.

The umbrella stand phase of the vase’s life had miraculously left no trace on the flawless glaze. The large dragon motif was as fresh as the day it had been painted by the imperial artisans. When the vase was put up for auction in Hong Kong, excited bidding led to it reaching $20,447,642.^[6]

4 Yard Sale Bowl

Everyone likes a bargain, and there is nowhere you can pick up an excellent deal as easily as at a yard sale. People use yard sales to get rid of the various stuff they have accumulated over the years and generally just want it out of the house. For $35, you can grab a pretty bowl for your home—or one that might make you a fortune at auction.

When a buyer saw a small blue and white bowl at a yard sale, they liked it so much they didn’t bother to haggle over the $35 price tag. Almost straight away, they suspected they had bought something special and alerted an auction house. It was found that the bowl was Ming porcelain made in the early 15th century in a form called a lotus bowl—with only six examples in museums around the world.

The bowl sold for $721,800, a mere 29,000 times more than it was bought for.^[7]

3 Qianlong Vase

Thrift shops are great places to browse for unusual things because you never know what people have donated. You get to buy things cheap and also help a good cause. Sometimes, you really do find something special.

One shopper spotted a somewhat gaudy-looking vase with a yellow glaze and Chinese characters painted on it. It was only marked at £1 so they decided to buy it. Thinking it might be worth a little more than that, they put the vase on sale on eBay. However, as the price started to skyrocket, they removed it from the site and showed the vase to an auctioneer.

The vase was made at the court of the Qianlong emperor, and a mark on the base stated that it was not meant to be exported from the country. How it came to be in a charity shop in England is not known. At auction, the vase sold for £480,000. ^[8]

2 Brush Pot Donation

Thrift stores do not always let valuable antiques slip through their fingers. Volunteers who sort through donated objects are often given advice on spotting potentially important pieces and having them shown to experts. When one worker at St. Peter’s Hospice charity shop in Bristol, England, picked up a cracked old wooden pot that had been handed in and, for some reason, suspected it might be special—despite it not looking very promising.

The pot turned out to be a brush pot used in calligraphy and was made from bamboo around 1700, which perhaps explained why it was so cracked. Not only did the pot have a charmingly carved landscape scene on it, but it was also created by Gu Jue, one of the foremost bamboo workers at the time.

Luckily for the charity, this precious little object did not end up on their shelves and sell for a pittance. It went to auction and sold for £360,000, far outstripping the estimate of £15,000.^[9]

1 Shoebox Vase

If this list does nothing else, it should make you consider clearing out your attic. The ultimate case of a treasure lurking in the attic comes from France and involves one of the finest Chinese vases ever to be offered for sale.

Sotheby’s auctioneer might well have missed out on this discovery as the owner of the vase simply sent them an email saying she had found some Asian objects in her attic as she prepared to move but would not be able to send them any photographs. Some other details she provided suggested they might be worth looking at, so they invited her to bring them in. Riding on the metro, she carried the vase in a shoebox. The owners had relegated it to the attic after deciding it was “too pink” for their tastes.

The vase, with its animal motifs, was so lovely that even if it had been a copy of what it looked like, it still might have been worth €100,000. However, the experts recognized it as genuine. It really was a vase made for the Qianlong emperor’s birthday and given an auction estimate of €700,000. It blew past this when bidding started and finally sold for €16,182,800.^[10]

When you have a great idea, a patent can help you preserve and secure it so that the world knows it’s yours. Of course, not everyone wants a patent on something they created. For instance, Coca-Cola never patented their original formula because they were afraid someone could check out the patent and reverse engineer their own Coke after the patent ran out in 20 years. Instead, they kept it as a trade secret so no one would ever know it.

There are less selfish reasons to forgo a patent, as well. Sometimes a person or company finds value in releasing the patent so anyone in the world can use it for free? Why would anyone do that? Because, rare though it may be, altruism is an actual thing. 

10. Volvo Gave Away the Patent for the 3-Point Safety Belt 

In the modern world, it’s hard to imagine a car without seatbelts. But they weren’t always in cars and even after being introduced they weren’t mandatory to use. In fact, laws making seat belt use mandatory in the 1980s were met by angry protests from people who hated the idea. 

Remarkably, seat belts had been around for decades prior to laws making them a requirement and Volvo patented the three-point safety belt, the one most of us are familiar with that goes over the shoulder and clips into place at your side, in 1959. 

Engineer Nils Bohlin was the man who was behind the belt and the patent. His invention is in every single modern car in the world, so you can imagine what it might have been worth since 1959 to hold that patent. Over 92 million cars are made every year. 

Bohlin was not a man who wanted to exploit a life-saving invention, however. In 1959, only Volva had this technology. Bohlin and Volvo gave the technology freely to the industry and anyone who wanted to make use of it and other car companies took full advantage. This life saving technology has literally saved millions of people as a result. .

9. Toyota Released 24,000 Royalty-Free Patents for Electric Car-Related Tech

As much as we think of automakers as some of the biggest companies in the world that rake in billions, and they are, they do have random moments of goodness like with the Volvo story above. But they are not the only ones.

There’s a modern push to keep looking towards electric vehicles and alternative energy transportation. Not only does gasoline pollute, it’s simply not an infinite resource so one day we will have to do without it whether or not we like it.

Towards the goal of creating better electric cars and related technology, Toyota released a stunning 24,000 royalty-free patents related to electric car technology for anyone to use. This happened in 2019, but five years earlier Elon Musk and Tesla did the same thing, sharing their patents with the world to keep the electric car push going. 

Of course, things are not as full of sunshine as they seem in this situation as part of the Tesla pledge means that if another company uses Tesla’s patents, Tesla is free to use that other company’s patents as well. But on the surface it still sounds mostly altruistic, don’t you think?

8. The Diamond Match Company Released the Patent for Non-toxic Matches

Once upon a time a match was a remarkable piece of technology. It was fire you could form in seconds just with a quick moment of friction. No flint needed, nothing fancy at all. It wasn’t the smoothest road ever traveled, however. Early matches in the 19th century were made from white phosphorus and the horrible tales of how the chemical killed or mutilated people who worked with it are not for the squeamish. 

In 1910, the Diamond Match Company patented a brand new kind of match. How was it innovative? Well, it wasn’t poisonous. Not for nothing, but if you can make a product that people like that isn’t poisonous when all other versions are poisonous, you just made a winning product. 

These new matches were considered so important that William Howard Taft, the President of the United States, personally asked the Diamond Match Company to give up the patent. They did so for “humanity’s sake.” The result was the widespread manufacture and use of matches that finally didn’t have to mutilate people. 

7. Jonas Salk Refused to Patent the Polio Vaccine

Hopefully, most people still know the name of Jonas Salk. Born in 1914, he became a doctor in New York and studied viruses like the flu. He began working on a vaccine throughout the Second World War. When he eventually switched gears to polio, he had some success and in 1955 he had perfected a vaccine that proved effective in preventing polio.

Before Salk, about 16,000 people per year contracted polio, many of them suffering extreme paralysis and more. Today people simply don’t get the disease and it has been effectively eradicated because of Salk’s vaccine. 

While people called Salk a miracle worker for what he’d done, he refused to patent the vaccine. He was not interested in profit, what he was interested in was making sure everyone got vaccinated and no one got polio again. 

6. Joseph Roentgen Wouldn’t Patent X-Rays

In physics, a roentgen is a unit of measure applied to X-rays and gamma rays. Exposure at a level of 400 roentgen is potentially lethal. The name comes to us from Joseph Roentgen, the man who discovered X-rays back in 1895. Imagine, in a world where this technology had never been seen or even thought of, how he felt when he put his hand in the tube contraption he had made, blasted it with the invisible energy he had discovered, and got an x-ray image of the bones in his hand for the first time. The image became an international sensation.

A man of science, Roentgen understood the potential benefits to what he had discovered. As such, he refused to take out a patent on x-ray generating technology. He wanted it to be free to use around the world for the benefit of all humankind. Though he won the first ever Nobel Prize in physics in 1901, he gave the money to his university and took no honors or awards for what he did. 

5. The Inventors of Insulin Gave Their Patent Away for $1

One of Canada’s most famous citizens, Frederick Banting was the man who discovered insulin and saved countless lives. Working in London, Ontario in 1923, when he finally made his discovery he wanted no part in profiting from it or achieving any kind of fame. He refused to put his name on a patent at all.

Banting was not alone, of course. He had colleagues who helped develop insulin and the two other men – James Collip and Charles Best – put their names on the patent. Sounds like a case of stabbing your partner in the back, right? Well, they sold the patent to the University of Toronto for $1. The consensus was that it was unethical for a doctor to profit off of a discovery meant to save lives. 

Fast forward to 2021 and a vial of insulin that cost $12 in Canada was almost $100 in the US so Banting’s dream of insulin being free to everyone didn’t fully work out, but the formulations have improved and diabetics have a much better quality of life so at least that’s something. 

4. Ben Franklin Refused to Patent Anything

When we talk about famous inventors from history, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla often top the lists, but Ben Franklin is usually mentioned, too. He invented things like bifocals, catheters and swim fins, basically everything you need for a really weird party. 

Franklin patented none of his inventions even when they were offered to him. Some of his inventions, like the Franklin Stove and bifocals definitely could have made him money, but that was not why he invented things.

He once said “that as we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.” Or, in other words, everyone benefits when we all share.

3. The Inventor of Chicken Nuggets Gave the Recipe Away

Ahh, the humble chicken nugget. We eat around 2.3 billion chicken nuggets per year so it’s safe to say these golden bites are well-liked. Just imagine what the patent on nugget technology would be worth had anyone wanted to take one out.

Some people wrongly assume chicken nuggets were gifted to the world by McDonalds, but they were not. A scientist named Robert Baker is the nugget genius behind it all who created the technology to make them in the 1960s. But why?

Chicken demand grew during WWII when other meat was scarce, so poultry production went up. Post war, meat wasn’t being rationed, people could get pork and beef again and chicken demand tanked. Chickens became impractical because roasting a whole one took time and you either needed a few to feed a family or you had too much to feed an individual.

Baker’s job was to find new ways to eat chicken. He came up with chicken wieners and other ideas but the molded, breaded ground white chicken idea was his true hit, just not right away. It wasn’t until the 70s when people started turning their back on red meat because it was considered unhealthy that new ways to eat chicken grew in demand. The nugget finally had its moment. It was thought to be less fatty, better for your heart, and all that jazz.

Of course, a chicken nugget isn’t healthy, but people focused more on the chicken and less on the nugget and the rest is history. Baker, for his part, did the opposite of patenting his method of making nuggets. He mailed the recipe to hundreds of food production companies.

2. Semyon Korsakov Developed Machine System for Information Storage

The timeline of computers is long and, often, kind of dull. Early machines that used punch card systems for data storage are not nearly as exciting as a modern gaming computer by any means, but they were a step on the path to what we have today.

Semyon Korsakov was a Russian statistician in 1817. He became interested in the idea of “machines for the comparison of ideas.” This took the form of a punch card system which helped search for information. In very, very rudimentary terms he was setting the stage for modern artificial intelligence. His invention was announced in 1832 as a machine for comparing ideas. 

Korsakov thought the idea would be helpful to people, so he didn’t bother seeking a patent, instead making it freely available for any who wanted it. Sadly, the idea was mostly rejected at the time since no one could see the benefit in using a machine to access large amounts of information. 

1. Daguerreotype Technology was Given Free to the World Except England

Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre was the inventor of one of the earliest kinds of photographs, the daguerreotype. They were images on silvered copper plates and, in 1839, they were revolutionary in their clarity. 

Daguerreotypes took the world by storm, and people all around the world were making them. Daguerre and France had made use of the technology free to the world with one small exception. He took out a single patent in England, meaning everyone in the world but the English were free to use it. 

Because the British had to pay, it also prompted experimentation with novel forms of the technology which spurred the photo industry forward even more.

Two of the same exact objects. There is only one difference. One you can buy at Walmart for $2.97. The other sells for $632,369 at a 2018 auction. What is this object, you ask? A baseball. The only difference? A signature. Well, 11 signatures, to be exact, but we’ll get into that in a bit.

Autographs are some of the most sought-after pieces of memorabilia in the world. Sometimes they’ll cost you nothing, and other times millions. This is a list of the top ten highest-priced autographed objects ever sold, and you’ll be surprised who made the list and who didn’t.

Signatures like William Shakespeare’s don’t appear on the list because they’ve never “legally” been sold, even though the estimated value is $5 million. And John Hancock’s John Hancock didn’t even make the cut. A letter signed by him sold for $10,745, which isn’t even a fraction of the lowest-priced object on this list.

Here are the top ten most valuable signed objects ever sold.

Related: 10 Most Expensive Items Sold That Don’t Actually Exist

10 Ulysses First Edition–$460,500

Irish writer James Joyce wrote Ulysses after World War I, and it was published in 1922. The acclaimed novel follows protagonist Leopold Bloom through an ordinary day in Dublin. Perhaps the book’s most famous anecdote was the fact that it was banned even before it was published. Joyce sent copies of some chapters to New York, where it was deemed too obscene for the public audience—there were a few scenes where masturbation and sexual fantasies were depicted.

Although this did not deter Joyce’s readers. Ulysses became so popular that fans were paying fifty bucks a pop for a copy in the 1920s (around $800 today). Out of the one-hundred first-edition copies, Joyce only signed two. One of these sold at auction for $460,500 in 2002. Looks like the public grew even more excessively fond of Joyce’s salacious depictions over the years.^[1]

9 Hall of Fame Baseball–$632,369

The first and only baseball on the list. A baseball with not one but eleven signatures of the 25 original members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The list includes legends such as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Cy Young, and Honus Wagner. The most expensive autographed baseball in the world almost doubled the previous record holder; a lowly Babe Ruth signed baseball that sold for $388,000 back in 2012.

The $632,369 ball sold in 2018 and was signed by the eleven Hall of Famers in 1939 at the first induction ceremony to celebrate the opening of the actual Hall of Fame building. Unfortunately, the other fourteen original members couldn’t make the ceremony because they weren’t alive.

Fun fact: The most expensive baseball ever sold was Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball, which broke the single-season record in 1998. Shortly after McGwire broke the record, comic book artist Todd Macfarlene purchased the ball for $3 million! The only reason it’s not on our list is that it’s not signed by McGwire.

Second fun fact: The St. Louis Cardinals originally offered the fan who caught the ball, Phil Ozersky, a signed bat, ball, and jersey for the ball. The fan only had one counteroffer—to meet McGwire. McGwire turned him down. A decision that made Ozersky a multi-millionaire.^[2]

8 Founding Father’s Signature–$722,500

Who has the most valuable signature on the Declaration of Independence? Ben Franklin? Thomas Jefferson? John Hancock? Fifty-six signatures. Some were presidents. Others have monuments and museums dedicated to them. One of their names is pretty much interchangeable with the word “signature.” Although, none of these men have a more valuable autograph than this man who signed the Declaration.

Button Gwinnett is his name. Button was a representative of Congress from Georgia and a Founding Father of the United States of America. He has the most sought-after signature out of any of the founding fathers, mainly because his autograph is the rarest of them all.

Only 51 are known to be in existence. In 2010, a Button Gwinnett signature sold for $722,500. After losing a 1777 election, he challenged the winner to a duel. Button died three days later after sustaining a fatal injury. I guess he should have cut his losses after the election.^[3]

7 John Lennon’s Double Fantasy–$850,000

Double Fantasy, an album by Beatles legend John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, was released on November 17, 1980. Thirty years later, a copy signed by Lennon sold for $850,000. At the time, this was the highest amount ever paid for a single record. It would later be broken by Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shoalin–only one copy was ever produced.

Was it Lennon’s most famous piece of work? No. Was it his greatest critically acclaimed album? Not even close. Did the copy belong to Mark David Chapman? Yes, it did. Mark David Chapman shot and murdered John Lennon on December 8, 1980, just hours after Lennon signed Chapman’s personal copy of Double Fantasy.^[4]

6 Babe Ruth’s Yankee Contract–$2,300,000

Babe Ruth—a name synonymous with America’s favorite pastime. A name when anyone hears it immediately thinks, “greatest baseball player of all time.” Babe Ruth—the Babe, the Sultan of Swat, the Great Bambino—was traded to the New York Yankees from the Boston Red Sox 102 years ago. You might think the Red Sox got back a haul of promising players, considering they just traded arguably the best baseball player of all time. Wrong.

The Red Sox traded The Babe for $100,000 so Harry Frazee, owner of the Red Sox, could help finance his Broadway musical No, No Nanette. Ninety-eight years later, the contract that Babe Ruth signed sold for over 20 times what the Yankees paid for the Bambino. Before the trade, the Red Sox had won five out of the first 15 World Series ever played. The Yankees had zero. After the trade, the Yankees won 27 World Series Titles. The Red Sox wouldn’t win another one for the next 86 years. This is the Curse of the Great Bambino.^[5]

5 “Reach Out to Asia” Fender Stratocaster–$2,700,000

When the “Reach Out to Asia” Fender Stratocaster sold for $2.7 million at a charity event in 2006, it was the most expensive guitar in the world. Kurt Cobain’s Martin 1959 D-18E sold for $6 million, and David Gilmour’s black Fender Stratocaster sold for $3.9 million in 2019.

This one-of-a-kind guitar was signed by 19 rock superstars, including Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Mick Jagger. Bryan Adams had the original idea for the guitar, and the proceeds from the auction went to the aid of the tsunami victims from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.^[6]

4 Einstein’s “God Letter” Letter–$2,892,500

After a four-minute bidding war over the phone, a letter written and signed by Albert Einstein 68 years ago sold for almost $2.9 million in 2018. This beat a previous record for a letter written by Einstein that sold for $2.1 million in 2002. That letter warned President Roosevelt of the possibility “of the construction of extremely powerful bombs” that led to the creation of the Manhattan Project.

The God Letter, written a year before Einstein’s death, illustrates his belief that there is no god who plays a role in normal everyday life. The mastermind behind the theory of relativity says he is proud to be a Jew in the letter but also declares that he was anything but enthralled with Judaism. The letter was written to Eric Gutkind, who wrote Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt a year before Einstein wrote his letter. It’s safe to say Einstein had quite a lot on his mind.^[7]

3 1864 Lincoln Letter–$3,400,000

A handwritten letter that Sotheby’s auction house proclaimed to be “arguably Lincoln’s most personal and powerful statement on God, slavery, and emancipation” sold for $3.4 million during a 2008 auction. The 16th president of the United States wrote this letter replying to a group of 195 children that petitioned that he free “all the little slave children in this country” from slavery.

Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (the next item on this list) a year before this letter was written. Still, it wasn’t until the 13th Amendment of the Constitution was officially ratified in 1865, eight months after his assassination, that slavery was formally abolished throughout the country.^[8]

2 Robert Kennedy’s Copy of the Emancipation Proclamation–$3,778,500

In 1964, 101 years after Abraham Lincoln signed the document, Robert Kennedy bought a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation for $9,500. It’s one of forty-eight original signed copies. About half of these survive today. Fourteen are in public institutions, and the rest are privately owned. When it went on sale in 2010, experts estimated it would sell for around $1.5 million. It sold for $3,778,500.

The second-highest sale of an original copy of the Emancipation Proclamation went for a little over two million in 2012. The fact that John F. Kennedy’s brother owned this one definitely played a part in its record sale. Safe to say Bobby Kennedy’s investment wasn’t a bad one, although he never got to see the profits due to his assassination in 1968.^[9]

1 George Washington’s Act of Congress–$9,800,000

If you had $10,000,000, what would you buy? A 30,000-square-foot vacation home on a private island? A luxury superyacht? A 100-second spot for a Super Bowl commercial? A bidder at Christie’s New York salesroom spent just under ten million on George Washington’s personal copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Both of them were signed by Washington. When it was sold in 2012, it broke the record of any American book or document sold.

A new record was set just one year ago. There were a total of an estimated 500 printed copies of the original Constitution. Today, only 13 remain. One of these sold for $43.2 million in 2021, which broke the record for the most expensive document or book ever sold in auction. This was only a copy, of which copies were produced for delegates such as James Madison, Ben Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. There wasn’t an original signature on it, which is why it doesn’t make the cut for this list. Still, $43.2 million is nothing to sneeze at.

Fun Fact: It was later known to the public that the successful bidder who purchased George Washginton’s Act of Congress was the non-profit Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union—the corporation that maintains the historic Mount Vernon estate in Virginia that was Washington’s home. You can imagine the absurd amount George Washington’s personally signed Constitution would sell for today if the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union ever decided to sell.^[10]

Throughout most of human history, gold has been one of the most prized substances. People tried to transmute lead into it, it’s been the basis of national economies, and it looks great in jewelry.

Despite its rarity and intrinsic value, gold is hardly the most valuable substance available to us. These ten things will cost you far more than a gram of gold (around $57 in August 2021), and they are inherently more valuable.

10 Caterpillar Fungus

Caterpillar fungus is one of the most aptly-named things on this planet, and all you have to do is look at it to understand why. It’s a fungus that grows from the soil with a wormlike protrusion. Dig that up, and you’ll find a part that looks exactly like a caterpillar. It’s got an even better name in Tibet, where it’s known as yartsa gunbu, or “summer grass, winter worm.”

The reason the fungus looks like a caterpillar is because it actually is a caterpillar. “This caterpillar will bury itself down a couple inches into the soil. Meanwhile, it doesn’t know it, but this fungus is digesting it from within, and then in the spring this … tissue erupts out the head.”

The remaining caterpillar bit is the valuable part, and you can probably guess why. Caterpillar fungus is known as the Viagra of the Himalayas. A 15th century Tibetan medicinal text referred to as “An Ocean of Aphrodisiacal Qualities.”

You may think that a black truffle is the most valuable fungus, but it doesn’t compare to the caterpillar fungus. Black truffles can go for around $1.76 per gram, while the far rarer caterpillar fungus reaches about $110 per gram. That makes it nearly twice as valuable as gold.

9 Iridium

Iridium is one of the rarest elements found in the Earth’s crust. Instead, it is primarily found in meteorites. The extinction of the dinosaurs via a massive impact 65 million years ago was identified via a layer of iridium found in the layers of the Earth.

The metal was first discovered in 1803, and it is silvery-white, though incredibly hard and brittle. It’s the second-densest metal known to exist, and it’s rare (on this planet). Still, it does exist, and it has numerous uses in various industries.

Iridium is prized for its corrosion resistance, making it ideal as a hardening agent for alloys containing platinum. It has other commercial uses that saw its value increase exponentially in the early 2000s. That’s when flat-screen LED televisions were becoming popular, and iridium is a principal component.

Iridium is expensive due to its rarity. Since we can’t mine asteroids (yet), finding it is labor-intensive and costly. Iridium trades for around $6,100 per ounce or around $215 per gram. That makes this scarce metal about 3.75 times more valuable than gold.

8 Rhodium

Depending on market fluctuations, rhodium is often the most expensive metal in the world. It’s a silvery-white metal found in the platinum group of noble metals, and it’s naturally corrosion-resistant and chemically inert. You’ve probably got a little rhodium and didn’t know it, as it’s used as a catalyst in a car’s three-way catalytic converter.

That accounts for about 80% of its use globally, but there’s another use that might come your way. Rhodium’s anti-corrosion properties make it ideal for coating substances like white gold and sterling silver, so there’s a good chance you’ve come in contact with rhodium at one time or another.

Still, the automobile industry is the primary consumer of rhodium, and the need for this rare metal often drives its price up. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, rhodium went for around $950 per gram, but it has since cooled a little bit. By mid-August 2021, a single gram of rhodium will set you back around $550.

Another reason for Rhodium’s value is its rarity, as it’s the rarest of the platinum group metals. It can be found in only one part per 200 million in the Earth’s crust. By comparison, gold can be found in around 0.5-5 parts per million, depending on the mining methods used in its extraction.

7 Snake Venom

Most people probably think of snake venom as a bad thing, as it can cause severe injury and/or death. That’s what happens if a deadly snake injects its precious venom into an unsuspecting person. Still, there’s more than one use for snake venom.

Snake venom is needed to make antivenom, and it has other medicinal uses. It can be used as a powerful pain reliever, it can break up blood clots, and reduce blood pressure, so it’s not exactly taken for granted. Harvesting it isn’t exactly easy (snakes have to be “milked”), so it’s an expensive process.

Some snake venom is more valuable than others, and you can probably guess why. The most expensive snake venoms come from the deadliest snakes. The King Cobra’s venom contains a powerful pain reliever, and its venom costs around $153,000 per gallon, or $3,785 per gram.

The Coral Snake, which is the snake with the second-strongest venom (next to the Black Mamba), has venom that costs $4,000 per gram. That makes it just shy of 11 times as valuable as the shiny stuff.

6 Da Hong Pao Tea

You probably didn’t expect to find something like tea on a list, but you’ve probably never heard of Da Hong Pao tea. The Chinese tea is made from the leaves of the Da Hong Pao tree, and the process is stringent in adherence to tradition. It’s also strictly monitored by the Chinese government.

There are only six remaining mother Da Hong Pai trees remaining in the world. They grow on a cliff of the Wuyi Mountain, and they are considered a national treasure. Harvesting and processing the leaves requires seven steps: picking, withering, cooling, making, stir-fry, kneading, and baking.

Da Hong Pao tea is green/brown in color and smells of orchids. It’s said to have a long-lasting aftertaste. Unlike most teas, Da Hong Pai tea can be steeped nine times. It has been used to treat several illnesses, as it contains various compounds that aid in blood circulation.

Because the trees are so rare — there are only six, after all — the price per gram of tea is $1,400, with a pot going for around $10,000. In 2002, 20 grams of Da Hong Pao sold for $28,000. When Nixon opened up relations with China, he was given 200 grams of the stuff. A single gram of this tea costs nearly 25 times what you’d have to pay for a gram of gold.

5 Plutonium

Unless you have a spare DeLorean sitting around with a flux capacitor, odds are, you’ll never come in contact with plutonium. That’s a good thing, seeing as this rare metal is incredibly radioactive. It can accumulate in a person’s bones and is dangerous to handle. Of course, that doesn’t make it worthless, as it’s very valuable.

Because plutonium-239 and 241 are fissile, they can be used to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. This makes plutonium a core element in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. It can be synthesized and often is, as its rarity makes collecting it difficult.

It was first discovered in 1938, but it wasn’t until 1940 that it was synthesized via the Manhattan Project. While it can be (and often is) synthesized, it does occur naturally. It can be found in trace elements of natural uranium-238, but this is rare, as it only occurs when the uranium is exposed to the neutrons emitted by other decaying uranium-238 atoms.

Regardless of how it is obtained, its value is incredibly high. If you’re working in an industry that requires plutonium (and that’s the only reason anyone would want this stuff), you’ll have to spend about $4,000 per gram. That makes it around 70 times more expensive than a gram of gold.

4 Red Diamonds

Gram for gram, diamonds are more valuable than gold. Still, when you think of one of these precious gems, you likely picture the clear variety. Those are considered common in the world of diamonds, with different colored diamonds standing as the truly valuable options.

Red diamonds are scarce, but not just in terms of diamonds; they are the rarest gemstones on the planet. Only about 30 of them are known to exist/have been found, and the majority of them weigh less than half a carat (around 0.1 gram).

Depending on the market conditions, red diamonds have been known to fetch as much as $1 million per carat ($5 million per gram). The largest of these gems sold in 2011 for $8 million, and it was only 5.11 carats in size, making it slightly heavier than a gram of gold.

In contrast to everyone’s favorite shiny metal, red diamonds are 87,719 times more valuable than gold. Granted, this would change if someone dug up thousands of the little gems, but that’s unlikely to happen, as they are ridiculously rare.

3 Californium

Californium is a synthetic element first discovered in 1950. It was named after California because it was created at the University of California Radiation Laboratory. The element has numerous practical applications, and while it is synthesized, the process produces very little, making it relatively costly.

Californium is the most expensive chemical used as a valuable trading commodity. It does occur naturally, but because the most common isotope has a half-life of 2.6 years, it’s not found in any sizable quantity in the Earth’s crust. When it was first produced, only about 5,000 atoms were created with a half-life of 44 minutes.

It’s primarily produced by two labs, the Scientific Center of Atomic Reactors in Russia and the Oak Ridge Atomic Reactors in the U.S. Californium has a variety of uses in various industries. Some isotopes emit neutrons, and this is often used to start up nuclear reactors. It can also be used in certain treatments of brain and cervical cancer.

Because it’s challenging to produce in large quantities, a single gram of Californium sells for around $27 million. The prices do fluctuate, but that’s the average. Californium’s value on the commodities market makes it around 473,684 times more valuable than gold.

2 Francium

Francium was the last element on the Periodic Table that was first discovered in nature. Still, it can be synthesized, which is good because this stuff is so rare it almost doesn’t exist. It has been estimated that there are only ever around 20 to 30 grams of francium in the Earth’s crust at any given time.

It occurs in trace amounts in thorium and uranium, but it has a half-life of only 22 minutes, so it’s constantly decaying. It’s also radioactive and difficult to create through synthesis. The largest sample ever produced or isolated consisted of 300,000 atoms. That may seem like a lot, but it’s still too small to observe.

Because francium is so rare, and because it decays so rapidly, it has no commercial uses. Its only current use is scientific research, though it may prove useful in diagnostic testing for certain types of cancer. Despite its lack of commercial use, its rarity makes it valuable.

The price for a single gram of francium is around $1 billion. That’s a billion dollars for something that vanishes from existence in less than an hour. Still, it has uses in research, so it has value. A single gram of francium will cost 17,543,859 times more than a gram of gold.

1 Antimatter

Antimatter is the stuff of science fiction for most people, but it is real and has been known to exist since the early 20th century. Antimatter is any matter composed of antiparticles of any corresponding particles of ordinary matter. It can be created with particle accelerators, but the problem with antimatter is that whenever it comes into contact with matter, both are annihilated.

It cannot be stored in a normal container, so it must be kept in electric and magnetic fields. There are various methods, but it isn’t easy. The longest anyone was able to store it was 405 days, though efforts are being made to improve on this.

Producing antimatter via a particle accelerator is expensive, and the amount produced is infinitesimally small. It has numerous practical and theoretical applications, including medical imaging and spacecraft propulsion.

Antimatter isn’t exactly a tradable commodity, but NASA has given it a value. In 1999, NASA estimated that a single gram of antihydrogen cost around $62.5 trillion per gram. That’s a ridiculously high number that makes it the most expensive thing known to exist. Compared to gold, antimatter is 1,096,491,228,070 times more valuable.

In the world of comic book collecting, there are a few holy grails—the first appearances of Superman (Action Comics #1, 1938) and Batman (Detective Comics #27, 1939) and the birth of the Marvel universe (Marvel Comics #1, 1939) chief among them. Their value comes not only from being the origins of the superhero genre but also from their extreme rarity.

That makes it all the more incredible that some lucky people have found these valuable books stashed away in their homes. You’d probably be more likely to win the lottery than to have these sitting around your house, but check your attic anyway. Let’s take a look at ten times that extremely rare and valuable comic books were found in an unsuspecting home.

Related: Video: 10 Comic Book Heroes Who Could Theoretically Exist

10 Superman Saves the House from Foreclosure

In 2010, a married couple in the American South was in a financial crunch. They had taken out a second mortgage on their home to start a new business, which had failed in the economic turmoil we now know as the Great Recession. Behind on their payments, the bank was ready to foreclose. With their hearts breaking, they started packing up in preparation for losing their home and having to move. While looking for good packing boxes in their basement, they stumbled across a handful of comic books. Most were unexceptional, but one was a find that would change their lives.

It was a copy of Action Comics #1, the 1938 comic that introduced Superman to the world. The couple, who chose to remain anonymous due to expected windfall from their stroke of luck, contacted comics auction house ComicConnect, who helped them get the book sold. Graded a 5.0 (Very Fine/Good) by the experts at Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), the lucky couple’s Action #1 ended up selling for $436,000. Superman was able to add saving a home from foreclosure to his already impressive resume.^[1]

9 Priceless Treasures Saved from the Trash

In early 1977 in Boulder, Colorado, Chuck Rozanski took a phone call at this Mile High Comics store that would change his life—and the field of comic book collecting. A realtor called to say he was trying to sell a house, but a large collection of comics needed to be disposed of immediately. Once Rozanski made his way to the home, he was shown a basement completely filled with stacks of comics—and he had to take all of them if he wanted to make a deal.

The collection had been assembled by Edgar Church, a commercial illustrator who bought nearly every American comic book published between 1937 and 1957 in an effort to help him keep up with the trends in his field. Church’s family wanted the comics gone as soon as possible so that they could sell the home. It seems most of the comics were looked at once, had a date penciled on them, and were then stored away. The result is what CGC calls “the most remarkable collection of vintage comic books ever discovered.” Featuring all the key issues of the era in some of the best conditions that have ever surfaced, the Edgar Church/Mile High Collection set the modern standards for grading and pricing rare comic books.^[2]

8 The Action Comics #1 Used as Insulation

In 2013, contractor David Gonzalez and his wife Deanna purchased a fixer-upper home in Elbow Lake, Minnesota, for $10,100. While knocking down a wall, he found that newspapers had been used as makeshift insulation. Amid the newspapers was an unbelievable find—a copy of Action Comics #1. The home had been built in 1938, the same year that the first Superman comic hit newsstands.

While not in mint condition, it’s still such a rare, valuable, and iconic book that it was bound to fetch a handsome sum. Unfortunately, an argument over the book’s value between Gonzalez and a relative led to the back cover being ripped off. That took the condition down from an estimated CGC rating of 3.0 to a 1.5. “That was a $75,000 tear,” said Stephen Fisher of ComicConnect after the comic sold for $175,000.^[3]

7 The Previously Unknown Comic Book

The massively successful comic book and movie studio we know today as Marvel has its roots in a company known as Timely Comics, founded in 1939. In the fall of that year, Timely published Marvel Comics #1, featuring Marvel characters still in print today, such as the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. Timely eventually evolved into Marvel Comics, and it was accepted that their legacy had started with Timely’s Marvel Comics #1. That was until a previously unknown comic was discovered in the home of an art studio head in 1974.

Lloyd Jacquet was the head of Funnies, Inc., the studio that provided the artwork for Timely’s comics in 1939. Upon his passing in 1974, his heirs prepared an estate sale, and they found among his possessions six copies of the previously unknown Motion Pictures Funnies Weekly #1. Once it was discovered that this comic had the same Sub-Mariner story that ran in Marvel Comics #1, it threw into question the history of Marvel. What was this book, and where did it come from? It turns out it was to be a giveaway at movie theaters. Once that idea went nowhere, the included stories were eventually sold to Timely for use in their early comics. Probably the rarest comic book ever found in a home closet, it’s also an important document of early Marvel history.^[4]

6 Nicolas Cage’s Comic in the Storage Unit

Despite it being the most valuable comic book in the world and extremely rare, with only about 100 copies known to exist still, Action Comics #1 keeps showing up in the strangest places. This copy was technically not found in a home, but where you keep things that don’t fit in your house.

In 2011, a beautiful copy showed up in an abandoned California storage unit. The person who bought the unit’s contents at auction immediately knew there was something up with this lucky find. After some investigation, it was determined to be the copy stolen from actor Nicolas Cage in January 2000.

Cage is an avowed fan of Superman and comics in general. At one point, he had two holy grails in his collection—pristine copies of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27, the first appearances of Superman and Batman, respectively. Both were stolen from his house on January 21, 2000. Although he had sold the rest of his comics collection in the interim, he wanted his copy back when it resurfaced in 2011. Since his insurance company had covered the theft, it’s unclear if he was ever reunited with it. The “storage unit” Action Comics #1 went up for auction in 2011. However, it’s unknown if the seller was Cage, his insurance company, or the winner of the storage unit auction.^[5]

5 The Allentown Pedigree

CGC recognizes outstanding collections of vintage comics that were originally purchased at newsstands and preserved by the original owner as “Pedigree Collections.” As of this writing, CGC has only granted the title to 61 collections. One of the most prized pedigrees was literally found in a closet, having sat there, forgotten for decades. Everyone has heard a story about a great comic book collection that Mom threw away, but what if Mom had actually boxed them up and saved them?

That’s the story behind the Allentown Pedigree, named for the Pennsylvania town where they came from. The original owner, who remains anonymous, had purchased a mere 135 comics in his youth. In that relatively small collection were several key issues such as Detective Comics #27, Marvel Comics #1, Captain America #1, and Batman #1. This places the collection’s origins from 1939 to 1941, when the original owner’s mother boxed them up and put them in the closet, where they remained undiscovered until 1987. At that time, two comics dealers purchased them. Even though the collection has been broken up and sold to many different owners over the years, the Allentown Pedigree is still recognized today as one of the highest-graded collections of Golden Age comics.^[6]

4 Treasure in the Hoarder House

We’ve all seen the houses of hoarders on TV, and it’s safe to say most of us would not want to go in to find out what’s in there for ourselves. In 2017, Rene Nezhoda, owner of a thrift store in the San Diego area, decided it was worth entering a Los Angeles-area hoarder house because of the collectibles purported to be inside. His efforts paid off, as the house was indeed filled with rarities of all kinds, including some very desirable 1960s comic books.

The treasures among the trash included a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man and one of the most valuable Silver Age comic books. There is a video of Nezhoda in a hazmat suit, working his way through many comic books and other valuable collectibles—and some other artifacts of a hoarder house. “There were also rats and rat poop,” Rene said. “I’ve bought a lot of collections and houses in my life, and I have never been overwhelmed, but this house makes me overwhelmed.”^[7]

3 The $3.5 Million Closet Find

In 2011, Heritage Auctions put up for sale an incredible collection of 345 vintage comic books that ended up selling for $3.5 million. Amazingly, they had only been recently unearthed from a closet, where they had sat for decades. After the death of his great-aunt, Michael Rorrer of Oxnard, California, traveled to her Virginia home to help settle her affairs. It was there, in a basement closet, that he found the long-forgotten comics.

Among the collection were several key issues, including Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27, and Batman #1. They had originally belonged to his great-uncle, Billy Wright, who originally bought them over a nine-year period. So impressive was this batch of comics that CGC made it one of the newest additions to its distinguished Pedigree Collection list. The Billy Wright Pedigree is a potent reminder to always check basements and closets for any treasures that may be hiding in your family’s homes.^[8]

2 Batman in the Attic

For most homeowners, the prospect of bats in the attic would be a big problem. But when the bat in question is the iconic Batman, in his rare and extremely valuable first appearance, it’s a reason for celebration. In 2007, a Pennsylvania man was cleaning out his attic when he stumbled upon a near-mint copy of Detective Comics #27, the comic that introduced the Caped Crusader to the world. He then sold the book to Todd McDevitt, the owner of New Dimension Comics.

McDevitt said he had been saving up since 1986 for when a really rare and valuable comic came through his shop. Reports following the 2007 sale said McDevitt was keeping his enviable find in a bank vault. It’s unknown if he has since sold it, but with copies of Detective #27 now going for as much as $1.5 million, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had put it up for auction since then.^[9]

1 The Promise Collection

The newest CGC Pedigree Collection is one of the largest, with over 5,000 Golden Age comics. It also has one of the most touching origin stories. It concerns a pair of anonymous brothers, known only as Robert and Junie. In the early 1950s, Robert was drafted into the Army to fight in Korea. Junie, his younger brother, soon followed and enlisted in the Army as well. Junie asked his brother for one thing—that if he didn’t make it home, he wanted Robert to take care of his comic book collections. Robert promised that he would. Sadly, Junie was killed in combat at age 21. Robert kept his promise, boxing up all the comics and storing them in the attic of their family home. And there they were forgotten about.

Nearly seven decades later, the comics were rediscovered in the attic. Realizing the enormity of Junie’s collection, the family transferred them to protective plastic bags while creating a catalog of its contents in a spreadsheet. In honor of Robert’s vow to his brother, CGC gave the pedigree the Promise Collection name. In 2021, some of the collection started to make it to the auction market, with the phenomenal condition of nearly all the books attracting major attention from collectors.^[10]

The Giza Pyramids were constructed about 4,500 years ago. As breathtaking as these monuments are, they are not the oldest. Other archaeological sites are far more ancient than the Giza complex. This list looks at the most intriguing candidates known for their uniqueness or historical importance, including the largest human-made landscape and how avocados led to the discovery of a massive, peculiar megalithic complex.

10 The Tel Tsaf Charcoal—7,000 Years Old

The remains of a prehistoric village still exist in Israel. Located in the Jordan Valley, something sets it apart from other settlements of the same age. That something was charcoal. Sure, it sounds boring, but when archaeologists tested the scorched stuff, they discovered that the wood was 7,000 years old. But there was more.

The wood belonged to olive and fig trees. This was rather surprising. The specimens were the result of fruit tree cultivation, proving that olive and fig horticulture flourished long before the pyramids.

The find provided the earliest example of this type of farming but also showed that the trees didn’t just provide food and firewood for the villagers. It made them rich. Most of the homes had silos that could store massive amounts of crops, more than each family could ever need for their own personal use. This strongly suggested that the village did long-distance trading with dried figs and olive oil.^[1]

9 The Janera Complex—7,000 Years Old

In 2022, developers wanted to plant avocado trees. They had their eye on a patch of land in Huelva, Spain. Before they could plant anything, however, a permit was required, which called for a land survey. As the surveyors discovered one stone after the other, it became clear that they were walking through a massive megalithic complex.

The La Torre-La Janera site, aged at roughly 7,000 years, contained over 500 standing stones, although many are still believed to be buried. The sheer number guaranteed its place among the biggest complexes in Europe, but one feature set Janera apart. It held the most diverse collection of different megalithic structures found anywhere in the Iberian Peninsula.

Most other sites consist only of dolmens or stone circles. But this complex contained a striking collection of dolmens, circles, mounds, enclosures, the said 500-plus standing stones, and cists (casket-like stone boxes).^[2]

8 The Vinor Roundel—7,000 Years Old

The oldest evidence of architecture in Europe is a mysterious group of earthworks called roundels. Hundreds dot the landscape across Central Europe, and as their name suggests, they are round structures. In the Czech Republic, the Vinor Roundel was discovered by construction diggers in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2022 that the ruins were fully excavated.

The structure is enigmatic, but researchers believe it might’ve been the handiwork of a Stone Age community that used the roundel as a meeting place 7,000 years ago. This particular building measured 180 feet (55 meters) in diameter and had three entrances. The people probably belonged to the Stroked Pottery culture. They were farmers and accomplished longhouse builders who flourished in the area between 4900 BC and 4400 BC.^[3]

7 The Arma Veirana Grave—10,000 Years Old

In 2017, researchers made a sad discovery. While digging in Italy’s Arma Veirana cave, they uncovered the grave of a baby girl. Despite the tragic circumstances, it piqued their interest. In Europe, such ancient infant graves are extremely rare. The baby, whom they affectionately called “Neve,” stood out for another reason. Her grave was 10,000 years old, making her the oldest female child discovered in Europe.

But Neve had one more surprise for the researchers. Her burial provided an answer to a simple but hexing question, “How did people carry their infants back then?” A fair guess was that people used animal skins or degradable fabrics to make baby slings, which could explain why none have survived to modern times. Neve was the first proof of this.

In 2022, a new study examined the shells surrounding her remains. Their position and her body posture strongly suggested that she’d been buried in a shell-decorated baby sling, probably the same one used by Neve’s parents to carry her around during her short life.^[4]

6 The Wurdi Youang Stones—11,000 Years Old

The Wurdi Youang stone arrangement is located west of Melbourne, Australia. This ancient place consists of 90 carefully arranged blocks of basalt, a feature that gives the site a distinct Stonehenge-like flavor. However, the Wurdi Youang stones are much smaller. The tallest ones are no higher than a person’s waist.

Although the true purpose of the arrangement remains unknown, researchers are confident that Aboriginal astronomers used the stones to track the movement of the sun and mark the solstices.

Stonehenge might be taller, but it’s not the oldest. In 2016, geologists and other experts studied the site and concluded that it could be as old as 11,000 years. If true, that will make Wurdi Youang the world’s first observatory.^[5]

5 The LSU Mounds—11,000 Years Old

If you blink, your brain might dismiss the LSU mounds as landscaping features. Especially because the pair can be found on the Louisiana State University campus—not where one would expect to find the earliest human-made structures in the Americas. But sure enough, these grassy, well-manicured peaks go back 11,000 years.

Well, at least one of them does. When researchers recently clambered up the 20-foot (6-meter) slopes, they extracted cores filled with ancient clay, ash, plants, and animal bones. These bits dated the so-called Mound B as the record breaker. Mound A was 7,500 years old.

The builders didn’t scrape the heaps together in one day. Research shows that indigenous people spent thousands of years building them up, constantly adding layers of clay and burning organic material on the mounds. Interestingly, about 6,000 years ago, when both mounds were completed, they also lined up with a bright star called Arcturus.^[6]

4 The Kimberley Gwion Gallery—12,000 Years Old

In Western Australia, there is a collection of rock art unique to the Kimberley region. Done in the Gwion style, the Aboriginal art shows human figures adorned with anklets, bracelets, and headdresses. When it was first discovered, the work was clearly ancient, but putting a date on the gallery wasn’t easy. For a while, experts tentatively tagged it at 17,000 years old.

In 2020, scientists noticed wasp nests in the area. They were old, but any art behind them was bound to be older. On the other hand, any art on top of the muddy constructions would be younger than the nests.

This time bracket gave researchers a way to box in the real date. They tested over 100 nests, and the results put the gallery at 12,000 years. While it’s younger than initially thought, the artwork remains about seven millennia older than the Giza pyramids.^[7]

3 The Powars II Quarry—13,000 Years Old

Located in the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, the Powars II quarry isn’t a new discovery. Archaeologists briefly documented the site in the 1980s but failed to recognize its importance. But in recent years, another team returned and realized that Powars II was 13,000 years old. This made it the oldest red ochre quarry in the Americas.

The excavation uncovered mining tools, bones, weapons, and beads. This cache contained thousands of items that also flagged Powars II as one of the densest Paleoindian records in existence.

Interestingly, the quarry wasn’t a locals-only enterprise. Some of the artifacts also showed that people traveled from great distances away to pull the precious red pigment from the mountain. Experts believe that ochre found at other archaeological sites across the American mid-continent probably came from this quarry.^[8]

2 The East Kalimantan Grave—31,000 Years Old

In 2020, archaeologists found a skeleton in a Borneo limestone cave. The left foot was missing. Normally, an incomplete skeleton is enough to ruin a researcher’s day since critical information can be lost. However, in this case, the team was delighted.

Around 31,000 years ago, the person had their foot skillfully amputated, and they lived for almost a decade afterward. This was bizarre. The surgeons lived before the advent of agriculture and permanent settlements, two factors hailed by historians as the catalyst for complex medical advancements.

It’s already amazing that the skeleton could be the world’s oldest case of medical amputation. But how did these hunter-gatherers have the knowledge to recognize when to remove a limb for health reasons and the skill to provide pain relief during and after major surgery, avoid the veins and nerves, stem major bleeding, and prevent post-operative infection?^[9]

1 Messak Settafet—Prehistory

In 2011, researchers visited the Sahara desert to have another look at the Messak Settafet escarpment. Measuring 217 miles (350 kilometers) long and running, on average, 37 miles (60 kilometers) wide, the sandstone outcrop is not entirely natural.

The site contains ancient stone artifacts, but that’s not the surprising bit. The quality of the rock would’ve been a magnet for prehistoric toolmakers. What’s noteworthy, however, is the number of abandoned tools at Messak Settafet. The 2011 team discovered an average of 75 million artifacts per 0.38 square mile (1 square kilometer).

This carpet of tools is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of humans and earlier hominids carving pieces from the escarpment for weapons and tools, abandoning some along the way, and also making Messak Settafet the oldest human-made landscape on Earth.^[10]