Oldest Man and Linden Artifacts

Oldest Man, a photo by Kara 2 on Flickr.
(My friend Bel joined me on this expedition)

I read about this "oldest man" in a blog a while back which compelled me to go for a visit and see one of the oldest Linden objects inworld.  A very good review with a lot of information on this can be found on the "Pixie Rain" blog here: http://pixierainsl.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-making-of-history-sls-oldest-object.html

The oldest object on the Second Life grid is "The Man" created by Oldjohn Linden on Friday 19th, July 2002.  The Man stands tall on Natoma region on "Phillip's Hill".  Visit a part of SL history for yourself here:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Natoma/128/128/26 

It's said people sometimes leave objects at the base of the man, and while I was unable to rez there, each time I went there were a few different things laying around.  One permanent piece of the structure base though is a jar as seen in the collage that has a note. If you click the note it gives you a notecard with some very nice photos of it and a message that reads as follows:

 "It all started back in the Alpha stage of Second Life (then Linden World) when Linden Lab wanted to test a new rendering engine, how feasible a city scape would be, and other general content testing. This city was built in Natoma before any non-employee users had logged into SL and was not named but often referred to as "Linden Town" or "Linden City". The town/city contained many buildings (mostly unfurnished and low texture usage), a small park-like town square with a fountain, and roads all through it. The city also had a statue in its town square behind a "City Hall". The statue turned out of course to be "The Man" built by a content developer (oldjohn Linden) hired at the time by LL (in 2002).

The city was later deleted before Beta to make way for the new Welcome Area which got the nickname of the 'Newbie Corral' and also the various other new-resident oriented things (Avatar Central among them). However one thing survived the deletion of the city to become the only proof of its existence (besides pictures), and that thing was "The Man" statue. At this point The Man was moved slightly to the corner of Natoma and placed on a small grassy hill. The Man stood and greeted new residents from its perch off in the distance as they entered.

Natoma remained this way until the Welcome Area, along with other content, was deleted and moved. Being the crafty build it was, The Man once again escaped deletion and still stood tall above the land.

Natoma has since gone through many changes, some Linden builds disappeared and only two old builds were left from its past. These surviving builds are the Arch'D Linden Grande (from the Newbie Corral era) and The Man statue. Thus The Man stands today as the oldest original still-standing build within Second Life.

(Thanks to Andrew and Philip Linden for providing additional information.)"

It's notable the Ivory Tower of Prims is nearby.

 

The last green object in the 4 photo collage is a separate piece of Linden history.  This strange looking green object is actually a Linden tree rezzer.  I found this near a friends home on Linden protected land, but I've heard they can still occasionally be seen out and around other areas inworld as well. This particular one says it's Gov Linden owned made by Ben Linden.