> For anyone who wishes to accept it.
>
> In one of my favorite books (Web of Angels, John M. Ford - 1980) the author
> posits two types of history-changing artefacts that might be found.
>
> The first type, he names the Antikythera (a reference to the Antikythera
> mechanism)
>
> The Antikythera is an artefact which re-defines the technological capabilities
> or scientific prowess of an ancient civilization.
>
> The second type, he calls the Ozymandias. An Ozymandias is an artefact
> discovered in the ruins of an ancient civilization which could not possibly have
> come from that civilization.  The name comes from the poem by Percy Bisshe
> Shelley, because "Nothing beside remains"
>
> The existence of an Ozymandias ostensibly points to an even older civilization
> of which there is no previous record.
>
> So the challenge, for anyone who cares to attempt it, is to come up with an
> artefact of one type or the other and put it in a suitable context.
>
> Regards,
> A.D.B.
>
> P.S. Web of Angels is an excellent read, if you can find a copy.  It's arguably
> the earliest example of Cyberpunk, prefiguring Gibson by three years, and I love
> the idea of the galaxy-spanning computer network, which he calls The Web.
>
>

Real life Ozymandias examples are some small figurines shaped like 
modern days jet fighters found in Maya and Aztec ruins. Testing them in 
wind tunnels reveal that they are stable in trans-sonic and super-sonic 
speeds.
Another example is an old iron hammer found incased in a large rock that 
is so old that part of it's handle have started to turn into coal. It's 
age is estimated to be over 250000000 years.


Alain

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