Use the modern Net to find ancient stuff

By Keith Darnay

Thanks to the Internet, you have access to some of the oldest items in history -- items that, a mere 30 years ago, were accessible to only a handlful of people around the world.

That's part of the positive side of the digital world: It's the "Great Equalizer" when it comes to the dissemination of information with the masses.

What once required a lot of time, travel and special permissions is now freely accessible from the convenience of your computer at the click of a button.

So, using modern digital technology, let's explore some relics of the past:

Oldest Photographs
http://www.neatorama.com/2006/08/29/the-wonderful-world-of-early-photography/
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/milestones-photography/
The world's oldest photograph is generally believed to be a grainy 1826 image looking out a studio window in France. The first site features this photo and several other "photo firsts" such as the first photo portrait, first aerial photo and more. The second site, from National Geographic, features milestones in photography, including the first known photo of a tornado in 1884 near Howard, S.D.

Oldest Color Photos
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/2378/
http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-color.html
Color photography is not a relatively new process. The oldest true color photo dates back to 1872 and a landscape view of a town in southern France. You can view this and other early color photos at the first Web site. Go to the second site for a gallery of rare color photos taken during World War I. If you grew up thinking the world was black and white before the 1950s, these amazing color images will prove to be quite illuminating.

Oldest Movies
http://www.archive.org/details/TheGreatTrainRobbery1903
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8X0sHS0g8A
The motion picture process dates back to 1877 and the time lapse photo studies of Eadweard J. Muybridge, but it wasn't until the 1890s that the first movies that could be projected on a screen to several people at once were perfected.

The 1903 film, "The Great Train Robbery," is considered to be the first true full length movie, complete with a narrative and storyline. From the first link, you can view this feature film online or download it for later viewing. From the second link, you can view a YouTube movie that puts into motion many of Muybridge's sequential motion photos.

Oldest Written Texts
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/
The Epic of Gilgamesh, written on clay tablets in Sumerian cunieform script almost 5,000 years ago, is considered the oldest written story known. This Web site also features other ancient Mesopotamian texts, including the Code of Hammurabi, which laid the foundations for codified laws in later civilizations.

Oldest Paintings
http://www.donsmaps.com/chauvetcave.html
http://www.donsmaps.com/cavepaintings.html
The ancient drawings on the walls of the Chauvet cave in France date back 30,000 years and are so well preserved that they look as though they could have been drawn recently. Indeed, it has been said that the cave had been undisturbed for so long that the most recent footprints found on the cave floor were those of Stone Age people. This site offers a great collection of images from Chauvet and other caves decorated with prehistoric art.

(Keith Darnay has worked in the online world for more than a decade, the traditional media world for a few decades more and manages the online department and Web site for the University of Mary. His own site, featuring this column going back to 1995, is at www.darnay.com.)