Table of contents:
- 1. On a farm field
- 2. On the road
- 3. In the pit
- 4. Under the bed
- 5. On the wall
- 6. In a chest in the attic
- 7. At the flea market
- 8. In the bike rack
Video: 8 priceless works of art that were found completely by accident in the most unexpected places
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
History knows of cases when some of the priceless works of art were found by accident and in the most unexpected places. Our review contains 10 facts that make you wonder how many more ancient artifacts may be lost to the world, since people simply do not know where to look for them.
1. On a farm field
In 1820, a Greek peasant named Yorgos was cultivating his field on the island of Milos when he suddenly stumbled upon several carved stone blocks. He continued digging and found four statues - three figures of Hermes and one of Aphrodite. Three weeks later, an archaeological expedition arrived in Milos, which bought the statue of Aphrodite, taking it to France. Louis XVIII named the statue "Venus de Milo" and donated it to the Louvre, where it became one of the most famous works of art in history.
2. On the road
On February 21, 1978, electricians were laying a new line on a busy street in Mexico City. Imagine their surprise when they found a 20-ton stone bas-relief of the Aztec moon goddess Koyolshawki underground. This sculpture is believed to have been made in the early fifteenth century and buried before the destruction of the Aztec civilization by the Spanish conquistadors in 1521. The stone bas-relief was moved to the Great Temple Museum.
3. In the pit
In 1978, over 500 films dating from 1903-1929 were accidentally found in a pit near Dawson City, Yukon. Under normal circumstances, 35mm films would have deteriorated, but the permafrost has kept them in pristine condition.
4. Under the bed
Joan Perez, the widow of vaudeville actor Pepito, decided to clean the house and found under the bed the only existing copy of the pilot for the TV series I Love Lucy, which starred Pepito. The film remained under the bed for thirty years.
5. On the wall
A married couple from a suburb of Milwaukee asked experts to evaluate the paintings that they inherited. The couple thought they had a reproduction of Van Gogh's Still Life with Flowers on their wall, but to everyone's surprise, it turned out to be an original from 1886. On March 10, 1991, the painting was sold at auction for $ 1.4 million.
6. In a chest in the attic
In 1961, Barbara Testa, a librarian from Hollywood, inherited 6 chests that had previously belonged to her grandfather James Fraser Gluck, a Buffalo lawyer. Over the next three decades, she gradually scanned the contents of the chests that stood in the attic. In the fall of 1990, Barbara found a 665-page manuscript in one of the chests, which turned out to be the original of the first part of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The two halves of the great American novel were finally reunited at the Buffalo Public Library.
7. At the flea market
A financial analyst from Philadelphia once walked through a flea market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. His attention was drawn to a wooden picture frame, which he bought for $ 4. When he returned home, he removed an old torn painting from the frame and found a folded document, which was between the canvas and the wooden base. It turned out to be a copy of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 - one of 24 known surviving copies.
8. In the bike rack
For years, staff at the Archaeological Museum in Southampton, England, have propped their bicycles against a 70-centimeter black stone in the basement. In 2000, two Egyptologists discovered that this "rack" is actually a 7th century BC Egyptian statue. It still remains a mystery how the sculpture got into the basement of the museum.
A special niche is occupied by 10 ancient artifacts with intimate overtones that can be seen in the most unexpected places … Going on vacation, it is worth adding these interesting places to your itinerary.
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