Ancient Wonders

Client

Richard Mille

Role

Copywriting, Direction, Production, Post-production

A larger-than-life archaeological discovery sheds light on a previously unknown ancient civilisation from Switzerland, with highly advanced technology. Watch as the team from the hit history show Ancient Wonders delves into the past, documenting the cornerstone finding of the RM S14 Talisman Origine, and how it redefined the timeline of human evolution…

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Sometimes things are too good to be true but as far as this project is concerned that’s exactly the point.

Ancient Wonders was part of an elaborate hoax pieced together by MilleDollars for Richard Mille, to hoodwink audiences into believing in an alternative history, where technical watchmaking was invented much further back than previously thought.

It brought a bit of fun and wonder back into the ultra-serious world of haute horology.

Not only did we have to ideate a detailed backstory for the S14 Talisman Origine one-off timepiece, but then we also had to invent the experts who would study it and even the type of media that would be talking about it.

It’s fair to say we went pretty deep feeding an Instagram page dedicated to archaeology for a few months, simply to surreptitiously seed our content…

In the aftermath of the film’s release, reactions online were as varied as they were entertaining. Some viewers found themselves utterly perplexed, while others marvelled at the meticulous craftsmanship behind our deception.

And a handful were so taken in by the level of detail that they almost believed the myth we’d conjured. It’s still doing the rounds on conspiracy networks to this day!