The Most Precious Artifact

[belamy]

Some seem to think that preserving a Gutenberg Bible means preserving (somehow) Reason (!??!!)

What would you consider is the most precious artifact worth preserving?
Complex technological devices are an option.

 

[king01]

egads! There are so many.....how about Shakespeare's First Folio....any great piece of art....any great author's works.....Twain's Huck....geeezzz, I can't limit this to one....

Darn good question though....

By the way, I admire you and your brain.....

 

[Swellegant]

The US Constitution. Maybe we can even get our politicians to read it!

 

[chatolandia]

For me, most printed documents are, or should be saved in electronic form, so keeping them, its of little value other than for collectors.

Manuscripts and original works or art cannot be copied completely, so those should be kept safe for the future. Who knows when a new technology or a new interpretation may shed light on that work!

 

[belamy]

(...) So for preservation, for me it would be things that cannot be duplicated. Art and architecture primarily.

 

[mouse]

howabout humanity, and peace

 

[belamy]

howabout humanity, and peace

The Most Precious Artifact

 

[looseliam]

Is this one's most precious artifact, of something which society may enjoy?

 

[LaloGS]

The Gutengerg Bible is a zenophobic western item precious, not because of its contents, but it represents the first time a book was printed with movable type. The Chinese, however were using movable type nearly a thousand years earlier. . . Just not in book form.

We learned form the Iraq invasion, that early curltural items only really have value on eBay, when one of the most important collections of cultural artifacts were stolen and offered for sale.

Ancient cultures around the world are regularly offered on eBay. Indeed early cultural artifacts from every known culture can be found on eBay. Humans haven't got a clue about the importance of some of this material being offered to human history.

Even the Dead Sea Scrolls were first offered for sale in the Sook. The hoards of linear B tablets from Ur are regularly avalable as are early textual writings from around the world, so obviously we humans don't give a shit about the content of these writings of our ancestors, so it can't really be anything intellectual that is precious.

I have a 300 million year old fosil from North Africa I use as a paperweight. How ignoble an end. I also have a collection of ancient Chinese jade carvings some as much as 7,000 years old, but I paid on average only about $3. USD each. Obviously not artworks that most likely took artisans more than a year of their lives to carve. I used to have a collection of rock crystal "snuff" bottles painted with wonderful scenes on the inside that were purported to have taken over a year to complete each one. I got the whole collection of 30 bottles for $25. USD. So obviously it isn't a man's worth that is precious.

I know. . . I'm thinking, I'm thinking. . . maybe someday something will occur to me worth preserving, but right now I'm drawing a blank. Meanwhile; live for the moment and enjoy what you can.

 

[belamy]

(...)The hoards of linear B tablets from Ur (...)

I beg your pardon?
Are you hinting at some joke about Ur-Anus?

 

[dw8038r2]

Really tough but great question.

Do we go for wonderful works of art or architecture, or something like the Rosetta Stone? How about the Lascaux and Altamira caves?

This would be a good question for my students.

 

[belamy]

So instead of considering the best way to preserve and transmit all the skills and, let´s say, knowledge, to ensure further evolution with the best options for choice in some directions rather than the other everybody is thinking about "cultural" artifacts and whether it is more worthy to enshrine in Hitler´s bunker a Buda, a Tamagotchi or the Mona Lisa.

 

[LaloGS]

I beg your pardon?
Are you hinting at some joke about Ur-Anus?

Ur is considered to be one of the earlies human agricultural settlements in the fertil valley between the Tigris and Eufrates Rivers in Iraq. I think ur-anus is behind you.

 

[belamy]

Ur is considered to be one of the earliest human (...) settlements (...)

And what´s that got to do with Mycenaean linear B?

 

[JSB_01]

What would you consider is the most precious artifact worth preserving?

Only one?

Well there's a question that's impossible to answer!

 

[eddielee]

I can't narrow it down to one thing. Anything from the Hope diamond to a dinosaur fossil is a precious artifact worth preserving. In my opinion, precious objects are those that are rare or historically important.