The Laptop Lady

Around 100 BC, an upper-class Greek woman died. Her tomb included a beautiful relief scene that showed the deceased sitting in comfort with a child in attendance. What caught the attention of conspiracy theorists was the object being held by the little girl. They claimed that she was holding an open laptop computer for the woman.

It looked like the woman was about to type in her Facebook password. Speculation went as far as identifying USB ports and suggesting that the statue was a prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi, who might have foreseen computers.

Historians are not impressed because the general agreement maintains that the object is a box. Experts at J. Paul Getty Museum, which owns the relief, suggested that it could be a jewelry case or a hinged mirror. The latter really existed during the woman’s time.

A professor from the University of Oregon had a look at the so-called “USB ports” in the artifact’s side. He identified them as drill holes meant to support an additional piece of art. Other scholars have reason to feel that there is no mystery. In similar funeral monuments, women are commonly shown in the act of selecting jewelry.