Inventions ahead of their time iceberg

Inventions ahead of their time iceberg is an iceberg chart topic. A text version, "Inventions and discoveries ahead of their time" by Lewonx, is hosted on IcebergThreads, where it had 620 views as of 29 October 2026.

Entries reflect the chart authors' choices and are not verified fact.

Tiers

Tiers and entries from the IcebergThreads version. Notes after a dash are shortened from the author's explanations.

Tier 1

• Ancient Greek steam engine
• Ancient Greek vending machine
• Antikythera mechanism
• Archimedes' death ray
• Baghdad Battery
• Cathode-ray tube amusement device – Video game console from 1947
• Da Vinci tank
• Greek Fire
• Roman concrete – While not some obscure invention lost to time, roman concrete can last thousands of years, is better than modern concrete in many ways and the knowledge of how to make it was lost until the 21st…

Tier 2

• Ancient Egyptian brain surgery
• Ancient Greek heliocentric model
• Claw of Archimedes
• Colored photos of the Russian Empire
• Damascus steel
• Hwacha
• Kalthoff repeater
• Tang Dynasty printer
• Tesla's wireless electricity

Tier 3

• 18th century car
• Atari 2600 online game store
• I, Robot – Fully 3D video game from 1984 that runs at fast speed, nothing even close to this would come out until the PS 1
• Medieval Skyscrapers
• Roman flexible glass
• Soviet Internet
• Soviet remote controlled tank
• Steam powered kebab spinner machine

Tier 4

• 18th century black hole theory
• Ancient Greek evolution theory
• Boeotian Flamethrower
• Han Dynasty seismograph
• Neanderthal medicine
• Roman germ theory
• Soviet laser tank

Tier 5

• Homo erectus raft – Home erectus might have been able to build rafts as far back as 800000 BC
• Tanzanian carbon steel

See also

• Iceberg chart
• Electrical engineering iceberg
• Early CGI iceberg

Sources

• IcebergThreads version: Lewonx. Inventions and discoveries ahead of their time. IcebergThreads. 24 January 2026. Retrieved 29 October 2026.