Where in the world, and when
A daily game built from museum collections. Each round shows one object and asks two things at once: where it was made, and when. You drop a pin on the map, choose a period, and the score reflects the distance on both. Ten objects make the day's set, and everyone answers the same ten.
Most guessing games ask for one answer. Anthropeum asks for a location and a date, and it scores them separately.
Getting the region right usually narrows the period, and getting the period right narrows the region, so the two guesses inform each other even though they are made one after the other.
There is no list of countries and no row of centuries to pick from. You place a marker anywhere on a world map, then choose a period for the object, and both guesses are measured against the real answer. Because the map is free-form, a guess can be wrong by a border or wrong by a continent, and the scoring reflects that difference rather than treating both as failures.
Porcelain, bronze, carved wood, woven fibre and worked stone each point at a set of regions and a stretch of history. Reading the surface is usually faster than guessing from shape: a glaze, a casting seam or a type of weave can rule out half the world before the pin moves. The game never labels the material for you, so the first few seconds of each round are spent looking rather than deciding.
A guess is judged on how far the pin sits from the place of origin and how far the chosen period sits from the real one. Closeness on either axis earns something, which is why a confident answer on one and a rough answer on the other still produces a usable round. The two errors do not cancel each other out, and a perfect location with a wrong century is not the same result as the reverse.
The day's ten objects are shared, so the result screen can place you against everyone who played the same set. That comparison is more readable than a raw score because the difficulty of a set varies: a run of obscure objects makes a modest total respectable, and an easy set makes a high one ordinary. The rank accounts for that without you having to judge it.
The artifacts come from museum open-access collections, roughly five hundred thousand of them, which is why the sets do not repeat the same famous pieces. Each object keeps its catalogue record, so the reveal can say what it is and where it is held. Ten rounds is a small sample of that library by design: it keeps a day short and leaves the collection feeling larger than the game.
02
Look, place, date, then find out how far off you were.
You can pin anywhere, so the answer has a distance rather than a category. Being one country out is a different mistake from being one hemisphere out.
Place and date are scored on their own axes. A strong location does not rescue a weak date, and the reveal shows both.
Surface details such as glaze, patina or weave point at regions before shape does. The game leaves them unlabelled, so the reading is yours.
Everyone plays the same objects that day, so the comparison is fair. The rank absorbs how hard the particular set turned out to be.
Objects come from open-access museum catalogues and keep their catalogue details. The reveal names the piece rather than leaving it anonymous.
A map, a period selector and ten images. It works on a phone or a laptop with nothing installed and no account needed.
03
Four moves, ten objects.
One artifact appears with no caption. Read the material, the decoration and the wear before touching the map.
Place the marker where you think the object was made. Zoom if the region is uncertain, because the distance is measured from the exact point.
Pick the era you believe it belongs to, then submit both guesses together. The true place and date are revealed with the object's details.
After the last object the day's total is scored, and your position among everyone who played the same set appears with it.
04
Three approaches from people who play the ten.
I look at the glaze before anything else. Once I have decided it is tin-glazed, half the map is gone and the period is usually close behind.
We pin separately and then compare. Our errors are almost never on the same axis, which is why the two-guess format is more interesting than a single answer.
The reveal is the part I stay for. I have looked up more objects after a round than I ever did in a museum shop.
05
The two guesses, the collection and the daily ranking.
Place the pin, choose the era, and find out how far a first impression travels. Today's set is already on the table.
Play today's ten