alt Hacker NewsAnthropeum – Where in the world, and when, does this human artifact belong?
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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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :).
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!
It’s funny how much of a “ChatGPT tell” that thin weight accent header is. Sol seems to place that on _everything_.
Someone turned me on to this recently, but mainly it ended up getting me back into Timeguessr. (I'm much better at Timeguessr.)
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!
Fun game. It does seem that the date score is much more forgiving than the location.
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
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50,130 · top 90% of players today!
Love it!
But 10 is a bit of a time commitment. I feel like 5 would be ideal for a daily diversion.
I hit one item within 16km, although about 1500 years out :)
Heh, geoguesser for artifacts. Neat. The texts on the slider do seem a little close together. Could just be me.
That was a lot of fun. Top 74%, woohoo!
I should really get in the habit of playing this game and geoguesser.
Wonderful game! mmooss & mortenjorck have good suggestions.
This is awesome! Much more interesting visuals than Geoguessr
it's great, even though i'm bad at it. "45,485 · top 95% of players today!" is such nice way of saying that:
A yes, a gold lego piece. Wait, not Denmark?
That's really cool, I did really badly
Nice! That was fun.
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.
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!
(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.
What a beautiful game, props to the author.
Awesome, got ~25k, said top player! Im good at the geographical location but not so great in the time line, it was fun!
this is fun
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?