Anthropeum – Where in the world, and when, does this human artifact belong?

7/28/2026 at 7:59:42 PM

Great idea for a vibe coded project that is actually creative/original. Got in the top 4% as a professional historian. Would be interesting to see the professions of the people in the top .1 percent - is it people with Geoguessr type abilities or more like art historians and curators at the Met, I wonder?

by benbreen

7/28/2026 at 11:02:22 PM

I got in the top 15%, mostly due to the oldrr european/middle eastern artifacts

Just a software developer with an above average interest in that time period.

by throwaway8283

7/28/2026 at 6:47:59 PM

I've been playing this nearly every day and sharing the results in my family's group chat. I've been to a lot of museums and I didn't realize how much information I wasn't retaining. No quiz once you exit I guess. Anthropeum really starts to train your brain to remember patterns, times, and locations. I often get stumped by whether something is Peruvian, African, or Native Islander. Always more to learn!

by crystalPalace

7/28/2026 at 5:39:58 PM

This just became my new favorite daily game. The only thing I’d change is the time resolution: 1750-2000 should probably have the same number of divisions as 1000-3000 BC.

by mortenjorck

7/28/2026 at 7:21:12 PM

I wonder how many people are using external resources when playing this. I have a hard time believing that the average lumps so far to the right of the score distribution unless this game is played exclusively by anthropologists haha.

by sosodev

7/28/2026 at 10:45:15 PM

I studied History of Art in school - long ago admittedly, but it was clearly helpful in identifying differences between eastern and western portraiture. It was, however, far less useful at helping me identify artifacts from Central Africa and Mesoamerica.

I used no external resources since that would defeat the purpose of this.

Given that, I placed in the 64th percentile based on a couple of really accurate matches (renaissance sculpture, fnar) and a lot that weren't terribly wrong.

by codeduck

7/28/2026 at 7:44:51 PM

I scored above the median just getting the continent and millennium right. Admittedly I used knowledge about population density to pick the most likely spot, but that hardly makes me an anthropologist. I assume regular players will also pick up on patterns in where most artifacts are sourced from.

by yorwba

7/29/2026 at 1:10:15 AM

I guess there bias towards people who reckon they can give it a decent shot, Vs others bouncing off thinking 'ha no chance! '

by alienbaby

7/28/2026 at 8:49:46 PM

I made this game! woohoo

by mapuchuu

7/28/2026 at 9:02:19 PM

Was there something in particular that inspired you to make it?

by yorwba

7/28/2026 at 9:15:04 PM

I collect artifacts/coins as a hobby, and I often come across things that are undocumented/unattributed. Saw the Met had an open access program and wanted to recreate that feeling with more artifacts:)

by mapuchuu

7/28/2026 at 11:40:09 PM

It's very cool. Thank you!

by stephencanon

7/28/2026 at 10:51:37 PM

Thank you!

Now then, how was the player supposed to figure out that rectangular gold thing with the four semispheres? Were there clues I missed?

I love the 'top 80%!' bit, by the way!

by mmooss

7/29/2026 at 12:00:50 AM

It's pretty nondescript but that specific piece was from a pretty famous Avar horde uncovered in Albania. There's a sizeable collection at the Met with things that look similar. Keep an eye out for the rivets and rectangular gold sheets like that, they're belthook designs for nomadic riders!

by mapuchuu

7/28/2026 at 10:49:51 PM

The scoring is the same as a project from a year or two ago that used AI generated videos, I wonder if this a rework of that? I think this is a definite improvement, if so.

I think the "top nn%" is misleading if you do terribly, though. "Top 67%" sounds better than average, but a look at the graph shows that my inability to distinguish between locations of tribal art puts me well below average.

by prewett

7/28/2026 at 7:40:36 PM

Looks like I should feel decent about my 72 083! Got a perfect 10k on two questions which surprised me.

Fun game, but 10 objects felt a little much for a daily challenge I think.

by tobr

7/28/2026 at 6:40:59 PM

Very cool ! Would be nice to have some explanation after answers on the objects so that I learn something, but pretty addictive and nice UI!

by damienmeur

7/28/2026 at 7:01:27 PM

It reveals a link to a page with more information, after you guess, and embeds an excerpt from that page, although they're a bit vague and general. Usually with a bit of scrolling I can find the part where it says what the thing actually is.

by andai

7/28/2026 at 6:54:24 PM

> pretty addictive

Is that good now? :(

by cyclopeanutopia

7/28/2026 at 7:06:43 PM

This is 10min of attention of mine that didnt went into doom scrolling bulls*t on social medias, I guess it s positive :)

by damienmeur

7/28/2026 at 10:05:46 PM

This is great. I suck, considering how much I like anthropology and history ... Would be nice to have access to other museum collections, considering the Met has a bias in collecting from such and such nation (at least i'm pretty sure, maybe less than the british museum ?). Anyway, I had a blast :).

by vinaigrette

7/28/2026 at 7:40:27 PM

It’s funny how much of a “ChatGPT tell” that thin weight accent header is. Sol seems to place that on _everything_.

by aabhay

7/28/2026 at 4:43:16 PM

Someone turned me on to this recently, but mainly it ended up getting me back into Timeguessr. (I'm much better at Timeguessr.)

by stevefolta

7/28/2026 at 7:11:01 PM

The timeline is not readable on narrow desktop windows (e.g. when you have two windows tiled side-by-side, but not so narrow as to switch to the mobile layout). The labels for the years overlap each other so it's very hard to read.

Fun game, though!

by pimlottc

7/28/2026 at 5:24:35 PM

Fun game. It does seem that the date score is much more forgiving than the location.

by bsoccer004

7/28/2026 at 5:16:05 PM

I love this! One of the wrong answers was because I mis-clicked the location. Another one had an inscription saying "1695" and I confidently picked that time bracket (was very wrong!).

Anthropeum.com · Jul 28 2026

YYGYRRYGGY

50,130 · top 90% of players today!

by world2vec

7/28/2026 at 5:51:49 PM

In this context, "top 90%" means "bottom 10%". I did truly awful and got "top 99%", which sounded impressive until I realized what happened.

by abound

7/28/2026 at 6:33:29 PM

Well.. awful compared to all others who definitely did not cheat right?

by peheje

7/28/2026 at 6:41:43 PM

I didn't cheat and I'm in bottom 94%!

by croemer

7/28/2026 at 6:55:39 PM

Really fun! Feels great when your hunch pays off, but most of the time it didn’t. I’ll be certainly playing it more often! Joining the share here:

Anthropeum.com · Jul 28 2026

YYBGYYRGGB

61,616 · top 66% of players today!

by ireadmevs

7/29/2026 at 12:41:48 AM

Love it!

But 10 is a bit of a time commitment. I feel like 5 would be ideal for a daily diversion.

by raylad

7/28/2026 at 5:17:12 PM

Heh, geoguesser for artifacts. Neat. The texts on the slider do seem a little close together. Could just be me.

by arikrahman

7/28/2026 at 7:02:07 PM

That was a lot of fun. Top 74%, woohoo!

I should really get in the habit of playing this game and geoguesser.

by pattilupone

7/29/2026 at 1:11:04 AM

I hit one item within 16km, although about 1500 years out :)

by alienbaby

7/28/2026 at 7:00:54 PM

Wonderful game! mmooss & mortenjorck have good suggestions.

by dodecacat

7/28/2026 at 4:32:33 PM

This is awesome! Much more interesting visuals than Geoguessr

by gagik_co

7/28/2026 at 6:01:27 PM

it's great, even though i'm bad at it. "45,485 · top 95% of players today!" is such nice way of saying that:

by willguest

7/28/2026 at 5:23:35 PM

A yes, a gold lego piece. Wait, not Denmark?

by pwython

7/28/2026 at 5:09:47 PM

That's really cool, I did really badly

by swiftcoder

7/29/2026 at 1:09:05 AM

Nice! That was fun.

by alienbaby

7/28/2026 at 6:08:53 PM

Wonderful - thank you to the creator! Requests, just in case you are reading:

* Make hints that prompt thinking and teach analysis (interesting!), not give answers (boring). For example, for the Inca ceramic depicting corn: 'The object depicts something familiar to you - where and when would that have been familiar to the people who made and used this?'; or for a silk painting, 'Where and when do you find these materials?'.

* Minor issue - The distance measurement is a bit unfair. Even if you figure out one is from (e.g.) China, getting the exact spot wrong is more costly than choosing the wrong spot in (e.g.) Italy because China is so much larger. I even placed the 'Ferry' fan on the Yangtze river, but it's a long river. Also, the map projection distorts distance.

by mmooss

7/28/2026 at 8:36:38 PM

[dead]

by hokapo

7/28/2026 at 7:30:52 PM

Honestly surprised by this outcome. My geo estimates were way better than my period estimates.

Anthropeum.com · Jul 28 2026

64,056 · top 55% of players today!

by wsgeorge

7/28/2026 at 10:47:49 PM

(potential spoilers:)

How could anyone figure out the provenance of that rectangular gold object with the four semispheres?

Gold has been widespread and doesn't narrow it down much. I wondered if its abstract-ish design might be modern, but then it didn't seem worthwhile to the Met and I decided it might just be practical (I was somewhat right about practicality). I guessed that the fastners on the back were were post-Middle Ages.

by mmooss

7/28/2026 at 6:23:18 PM

What a beautiful game, props to the author.

by moralestapia

7/28/2026 at 4:49:24 PM

Awesome, got ~25k, said top player! Im good at the geographical location but not so great in the time line, it was fun!

by tamimio

7/28/2026 at 5:14:17 PM

this is fun

by chidog99