Back to News
Advertisement
Advertisement

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

91% Positive

Analyzed from 1066 words in the discussion.

Trending Topics

#top#game#more#fun#artifacts#great#got#met#wrong#players

Discussion (46 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

benbreenabout 16 hours ago
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?
throwaway8283about 13 hours ago
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.

crystalPalaceabout 17 hours ago
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!
mortenjorckabout 18 hours ago
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.
sosodevabout 17 hours ago
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.
codeduckabout 13 hours ago
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.

yorwbaabout 16 hours ago
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.
alienbabyabout 11 hours ago
I guess there bias towards people who reckon they can give it a decent shot, Vs others bouncing off thinking 'ha no chance! '
prewettabout 13 hours ago
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.

tobrabout 16 hours ago
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.

vinaigretteabout 14 hours ago
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 :).
damienmeurabout 17 hours ago
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!
andaiabout 17 hours ago
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.
cyclopeanutopiaabout 17 hours ago
> pretty addictive

Is that good now? :(

damienmeurabout 17 hours ago
This is 10min of attention of mine that didnt went into doom scrolling bulls*t on social medias, I guess it s positive :)
aabhayabout 16 hours ago
It’s funny how much of a “ChatGPT tell” that thin weight accent header is. Sol seems to place that on _everything_.
stevefoltaabout 19 hours ago
Someone turned me on to this recently, but mainly it ended up getting me back into Timeguessr. (I'm much better at Timeguessr.)
mapuchuuabout 15 hours ago
I made this game! woohoo
yorwbaabout 15 hours ago
Was there something in particular that inspired you to make it?
mapuchuuabout 15 hours ago
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:)
stephencanonabout 12 hours ago
It's very cool. Thank you!
mmoossabout 13 hours ago
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!

mapuchuuabout 12 hours ago
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!
Advertisement
pimlottcabout 17 hours ago
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!

bsoccer004about 19 hours ago
Fun game. It does seem that the date score is much more forgiving than the location.
world2vecabout 19 hours ago
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!

aboundabout 18 hours ago
In this context, "top 90%" means "bottom 10%". I did truly awful and got "top 99%", which sounded impressive until I realized what happened.
pehejeabout 18 hours ago
Well.. awful compared to all others who definitely did not cheat right?
croemerabout 17 hours ago
I didn't cheat and I'm in bottom 94%!
ireadmevsabout 17 hours ago
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!

rayladabout 11 hours ago
Love it!

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

alienbabyabout 11 hours ago
I hit one item within 16km, although about 1500 years out :)
arikrahmanabout 19 hours ago
Heh, geoguesser for artifacts. Neat. The texts on the slider do seem a little close together. Could just be me.
pattiluponeabout 17 hours ago
That was a lot of fun. Top 74%, woohoo!

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

dodecacatabout 17 hours ago
Wonderful game! mmooss & mortenjorck have good suggestions.
gagik_coabout 20 hours ago
This is awesome! Much more interesting visuals than Geoguessr
willguestabout 18 hours ago
it's great, even though i'm bad at it. "45,485 · top 95% of players today!" is such nice way of saying that:
Advertisement
pwythonabout 19 hours ago
A yes, a gold lego piece. Wait, not Denmark?
swiftcoderabout 19 hours ago
That's really cool, I did really badly
alienbabyabout 11 hours ago
Nice! That was fun.
mmoossabout 18 hours ago
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.

wsgeorgeabout 17 hours ago
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!

mmoossabout 13 hours ago
(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.

moralestapiaabout 18 hours ago
What a beautiful game, props to the author.
tamimioabout 19 hours ago
Awesome, got ~25k, said top player! Im good at the geographical location but not so great in the time line, it was fun!
chidog99about 19 hours ago
this is fun