Over the weekend, a YouTube video by a conspiracy theorist about how this ancient Greek grave marker depicts a laptop more than 2,000 years before personal computers were even invented went viral.

We obviously don’t have to tell you that this isn’t a laptop. And no, the ancient Greeks didn’t have the technology to travel back in time to find a better way to talk to the Oracle of Delphi, a divine being who was the official link between humans and the gods. But what the hell is it?

At present in plain view at the J. Paul Getty Exhibition hall in California, the marble cutting named “Grave Naiskos of an Enthroned Lady with an Orderly” has been dated to around 100 BC, and obtained potentially to Delos – a minuscule island toward the east of the Greek central area with huge fanciful, social, and archeological significance.

Extending 94 cm high and in excess of 120 cm across, the cut funerary help portrays a rich lady leaning back on a rocker, contacting an item being presented by a worker young lady. ” The portrayal of the departed connecting for a thing held by a worker has a long history in Greek funerary workmanship and most likely implies the desire for proceeding with natural joys in the great beyond,” the Gallery notes.

Even though YouTuber StillSpeakingOut insists that a tourist’s picture taken from a different angle shows that the laptop-like object is too wide and narrow to be a jewelry box, US-based classical archaeologist Dorothy Lobel told Discovery News what we’re all thinking. The official description of the item is a “shallow chest.”

She states, “The claim is absurd because it is evidently a box.”

Janet Burnett Grossman, another well-known classical archaeologist, told Discovery that the object is probably a flat box or a mirror. Other people have said it could be a wax writing tablet, which was used to record official documents like birth certificates at the time.

According to a Forbes article written by Kristina Killgrove, “if we look at other similar depictions in Greek art, we can see that a tablet – of the ancient variety, not the modern kind – looks a lot like a small laptop, and like the object in this grave marker.” However, given that men are typically depicted holding a wax tablet, why this wealthy woman? Likewise proof of the goddess Athena is being displayed with a composing tablet and pointer, so the relationship between the rich departed lady and Athena by means of a wax tablet seems OK.”

Red figure container by the Douris painter (dated to around 500 BC), housed by Germany’s Historical center Berlin. Credit: Pottery Fan/Wikimedia Okay, but what about those odd holes on the side for USB ports?

According to Killgrove, ancient Greek sculpture often has noticeable holes because they were sometimes embellished with perishable materials. For example, holes were drilled into soldiers’ or horses’ heads to add realistic reigns. It’s possible that the box had a wood face with intricate carvings that fit into the two holes.
Killgrove adds, “This particular stele shows evidence of reworking.” It was originally a grave marker with three sides, but the top pediment, the wall on the left side, and the bottom inscription are all missing. The openings could connect with any of the pieces that are currently absent.”

The conspiracy theory that didn’t need to be disproven is thus: debunked.

It is, if nothing else, a nice excuse to pay attention to a work that humans created more than two millennia ago that is incredibly beautiful and skilled. It also gives archaeologists a chance to deliver a few sick burns, like this one from Lobel King:

Laptops are powered by electricity, whereas the Greeks did not have sockets, as any time traveler would know.