History's Corner

The Dispilio tablet is a wooden tablet bearing inscribed markings, unearthed during George Hourmouziadis's excavations of Dispilio in Greece, and carbon 14-dated to 5202 (± 123) BC. It was discovered in 1993 in a Neolithic lakeshore settlement that occupied an artificial island near the modern village of Dispilio on Lake Kastoria in Kastoria, Western Macedonia, Greece.

A clay tablet with Linear B writing, ca. 1400 BCE. Linear B was a pre-alphabetic method of writing the Greek language, which uses a syllabic system.

Alaskan Native American snow goggles, made around the year 1000. These would preserve the wearer’s vision by reducing the amount of light that reflected off of the arctic snow into their eyes.