BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 02:32 PM

A chambered cairn on top of Ord Hill, which is between 5 and 6 thousand years old.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Rog Peek
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 02:45 PM

c. 1960 Furguson reel to reel tape recorder which I used to transfer my old reel to reel tape to CD, and which I use from time to time to do same for others.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 02:55 PM

FYI, the oldest man-made ( caused, anyway) feature visible from space ("naked" eye in orbit) is the Sahara Desert.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 02:56 PM

Ooh Roger, is it 4 track? I have hours of old carter Family stuff I need sorting out, if the tape still works that is.!
G

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: frogprince
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 03:05 PM

At home, either the bookcase/desk my mother bought about 1920, or a treadle sewing machine from my wife's family that I don't know an accurate date for.
I guess "at work" for me now would be when volunteering at the art gallery downtown. From there I can see the courthouse, built in 1836.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 04:42 PM

I live in the woods. I can't see anything man-made outside my house. It's all trees.

Inside my house, I have a hammered dulcimer and a tenor banjo that are both around 100 years old.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: cookster
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:12 PM

I have a penny dated 1919.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:21 PM

From my back bedroom window, the towers of Beverley Minster , built between 1200AD and 1400AD .

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:35 PM

Well, from where I'm sitting right now, just the building around me. Apartment house, built in 1910.

Of course, the atoms that make up the molecules that make up everything I can see right now, including my toenails, were cooked in the cores of stars billions of years ago. That includes all the man-made stuff.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: cookster
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:45 PM

wood filing cabinet fro the 40's.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Rog Peek
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:46 PM

yes John it is a 4track, I'll PM you

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 07:28 PM

My house, built in 1885, which is pretty old for this area considering it hadn't been settled too much earlier.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 09:56 PM

oops, oldest manmade things I can't see cos they're in a jewellery box!

A string of Egyptian beads c. 2000BCE & a string of Roman glass beads 1st-4th Century CE.

fancy forgetting them!

sandra

however, the oldest stuff in my place are 3 fossils & a small meteorite that was found in Arizona.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: GUEST,Billy Graham
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 10:16 PM

God!

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 10:18 PM

That last one was me. Devil made me do it. ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Cats
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 04:17 AM

Rillaton Barrow, early Bronze age where the famous Rillaton gold cup was found, the stone circle at Minions [The Hurlers] but only glimpses on a good day which are seriosly older and Jon who is going to be 59 this week!

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: goatfell
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 05:47 AM

the oldest manmade thing I can right now is my home town of Saltcoats in Ayrshire I don't know how long it's been here and along with Stevenston and Ardrossan we're known as the 3 toons.
because we're joined onto one another it's like one massive town but its three toons the gither

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 07:23 AM

I don't know about the oldest! But the biggest/tallest thing I can see is a gas tower which is visible from over 60 miles away.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: cookster
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:13 AM

my town which is 153 years old.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: cookster
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:30 AM

my house is 56 years old

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: JennyO
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:33 AM

Just saw another man-made thing that is pretty old - well, 50 years old anyway. "An Affair to Remember" was on Fox Classics. I first saw it when I was a kid, and it was a real tear-jerker. It still is (sniff).

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: cookster
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:35 AM

pocket watch which is 70yrs old.and a tea tray which was my great great grandmother's.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: 282RA
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 11:23 AM

I have a Latin book from 1477 on a shelf here at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: pattyClink
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:29 PM

Strip mall circa 1975, neighbor's house 1988. I'm gunning for the prize for 'youngest and tackiest' environment. Any competition?

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 02:42 AM

Nothing in Canada (man-made) is very old. In my house is a Musqueam cedar mat, copper doorknobs and hinges and a very old, coal burning fireplace insert.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Cats
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 05:35 AM

Perhaps we ought to have a how old is your house thread too? Mine is 408 years old.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 06:09 AM

mine is 91 years old!

wanna start the new thread?

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Cats
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 08:57 AM

No, you can!

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 09:29 AM

The Garth mountain Garth about 2000BC

More in the foreground, Llandaff cathedral Circa 1107

Moving to a different upstairs room, Cardiff Castle Parts of which are approx 2000 years old (Roman occupation First century A.D.) But all I can see from here is the 'Norman' Keep (11th century)

And all within walking distance: 2-3 hours for the top of The Garth, 10 Minutes The Cathedral, 20 minutes The Castle

CHEERS
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 10:20 AM

From my office: the Landguard Fort, partly dating back to 1540, the only UK fortification to have been called upon to repel a Dutch invasion on the land, and later rebuilt for the Napoleonic wars, WW1 and WW2. We have long memories on this part of the coast, and keep it good and ready in case the Dutch or French get uppity again.

From home: the Control Tower of Martlesham Heath aerodrome, Royal Flying Corps field pre-1914, later RAF (WW1) & USAF (WW2).

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 01:17 PM

Bible printed about 1500

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Metchosin
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 01:38 PM

Well as a resident of the "New World", as I look about my office, almost every man-made object about me, except for my barometer and an old Lea & Perrins bottle, has probably been around for less than 15 years, although I can see a couple of studs in the space awaiting the new bookcase that were probably milled about 35 years ago. My departed stepfather's barometer, on the other hand, is "Old World", manufactured by MW Dunscombe, Optician, Bristol, c. 1855 and a fine, functioning piece it is too.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Metchosin
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 01:52 PM

Ooops...maybe I lie. The door leaning against my house, I can see from my office window, was made in the 1890's and the french door leading into the office was made in the 1930s. The door knob was manufactured sometime between 1895 and 1898 and although I can't see it from here, my bathtub is circa 1902 or 03. I guess they are still not as old as the barometer, but at least the doors were manufactured here.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 02:21 PM

Sitting here in my home office the oldest thing in sight is probably my dynamite box.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: HuwG
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 03:13 PM

OK, looking out of back room window upstairs while standing on a chair, Melandra Castle, a Roman auxilia fort first occupied c. 80 AD.

Indoors, some bookcases and other furniture inherited from my mother's grandfather, which makes them 120 years old. House itself built 1908. I'll have a party for it next year.

At work; I still pull pints in a pub built 1834. Most interior fittings are late nineteenth century.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 05:34 PM

We can see the Folly Tower, recently re-erected (they took it down during the last world war because it might have been a landmark for bombers looking for the munitions factories) but supposedly once a Roman watch tower. Maybe.

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Rowan
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 07:40 PM

At home (which I started building in 1991) the landscape outside the house shows effects of Aboriginal occupation that predate white settlement and there are isolated bits of tools that predate the microlith (~5000ybp) tradition but the oldest whitefella thing is probably the remnants of the salt lick (~1880s) next to the house. Salt licks were located where the sheep naturally camped overnight (mostly the warmest overnight spot on the property, here in the Tablelands) so that's a major reason for locating the house here; the topsoil (with all its additions from the sheep camp) was relocated while doing the cut for the house and now forms the garden.

The oldest man made thing inside the house is a toss up between a Lachenal Anglo and a microscope, both ~1860. The oldest woman made thing known to be so is some knitting of my mother's from when I was born.

At work I can see an Aboriginal quarry site, undated so far, from my office in a weatherboard on brick building built in 1959; we're being relocated from it (the fellow controlling the buildings is fearful of anything to do with heritage and wants to demolish it before it becomes 50 years old and eligible - in his dreams - for heritage listing) inot a brick building built in 1961. The oldest anthropogenic object in my office is an Achulean hand axe ("Unfair!" you cry, as I'm an archaeologist; fair enough) but discounting that, a theodolite (Troughton) or a 4x5" full movement camera (Plaubel), neither of which I've dated but probably from the 1930s.

In the office, the oldest thing that I've made, is the housing and its accoutrements I made in 1970 for a max-min thermometer my supervisor could hoist into the canopy of the Eucalyptus regnans forest he used as his study area. I had to climb 150' up into the canopy to place its pulley system, so he understood I'd like it as a keepsake when he'd finished.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest manmade thing you can see?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 07:57 PM

Hey, Hawker, you are pretty close to Warbstow Bury where you are! What a spot, eh? We can see Pentire Head on a good day which has The Rumps iron age hill-fort. It has the best drifts of thrift and spring squill in Cornwall and that really is saying something. There's a certain spot on The Rumps looking north up the Cornwall coast where I've told my wife she can scatter my ashes...