Are you a first-gen freak? Here’s a throwback: A from a dig site off the coast of Istanbul yesterday. Archaeologists working in the Theodosius Port, a ,聽unveiled the 1,200-year-old wooden box from one of 37 ships buried in the . The discovery was聽dubbed the “Byzantine iPad” for the device’s ninth-century integration of notebook and tool in one.
The Byzantine tablet (about the same length as modern seven-inch iterations) hid an “app”鈥攕liding back the top panels reveals a hand-carved “screen” in the bottom panel.
Each panel has four holes, probably to bind them together with leather straps for portability on the open sea. Ufuk Kocabas, , says that the merchant ship’s captain probably used it to assess the value of precious metals.