There are 10,000-year-old arrowheads sold for that much or less. They’re not scarce or sacred or anything; they’re literally weapons that were made in mass quantities for warfare or hunting.
I like this one because it’s one step up from a rock and minimally qualifies the object as a human making.
Well, the earliest ones that were not mass produced are valuable even though they aree the smallest step up from a rock. It is the later, well made ones that are extremely common because they were made and used for thousands of years that are not.
I’ve seen some BC bronze arrowheads listed for auction and were surprised how cheap they were.
There’s a lot of fake “bronze” stuff coming out of China, so keep an eye out.
You can buy ancient Roman pottery fragments for much less than that.
Amphorae were the plastic bottles and shipping containers of the ancient world.
Their shards are found en masse in every archaeological dig.Same with paleolithic bifaces and arrowheads.
You can even buy old coins. Novel pieces of history to have if that you’re thing.
Same with paleolithic bifaces and arrowheads.
You have to do some shopping around if you want a nice one under a hundred nowadays. But OPs requirement wasn’t for it to look good
Interestingly, there are so many whole amphorae because whenever there was an earthquake or eruption, people would put their amphorae under an arched window or doorway, as they were the strongest parts of their houses, and less likely to collapse onto their amphora full of food
If we are talking oldest, Romans are babies in the crib!
I second pottery shards - they are abundant and go back tens of thousands of years. Even if you wanted a “complete” item, potsherds were used for all types of purposes as complete tools, building materials, writing surfaces, etc.
You could get a handful of Roman coins for less than $5 if you don’t care about the quality. Or this $96.94 silver Hadrian coin from approximately 117-138 CE
If you do, be sure to post I in !ancientcoins@lemmy.world 🙂
Roman coins is the first thing that came to mind. There’s a ton of them out there and museums don’t want any more either. You can get one for quite cheap.
I find it fascinating that, because the Roman empire was so vast and lasted for so long, their defunct money is now strewn all over Europe.
It does help when it’s made of metal
You would think that because of that, people would melt them down when they became no longer useful as currency.
I got a bag of them for $8 on ebay
Guessing a book. Or maybe an arrowhead. Hopefully a collector or historian will weigh in. It’s a fun question.
The arrowhead sounds more viable. The oldest ones can be thousands of years old, and the prices are all over the place. Fancy ones cost a fortune, while a badly beaten one will be well within the budget.
I worked at auctions, being the offline ‘online’ buyer, so people could use me as an in person bidder for that online platform. I saw a
3500800 ish year old tiny Aztec sculpture go for 260 euro, around 2015. I was like, do I need to call the cops? What is happening?3500 yrs ago would be olmec probably
you can find paleolithic tools for less than that on ebay, but i would assume there are lots of fakes posted for sale
In the British Empire, ancient Egyptian cat mummies were sold as fertilizer.
And the rest! Human mummies were ground up and used for a paint called “mummy brown”. Artists only stopped using it because the supply of mummies dried up (lol).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown
During the Egyptomania phase in Victorian times, rich folk would hold mummy unwrapping parties… and not just in England.
Pretty sure you could get a bit of mummy for that price
Bit weird to sell bits of your own mum, mate.
/s
To eat?
More likely to make paint with.
But yes.
… if that’s your thing
If you’d like the taste of linen and bone dust
Are you my mummy?
I bought a meteorite for like £2.50
A rock.
