Video clips have emerged of the bizarre discovery.

The object, unearthed during a dig in Austria, is allegedly a clay copy of a mobile phone with a Sumerian writing style known as cuneiform on the keys.

YouTube channel Paranormal Crucible reported: "What is it? Is it evidence of an advanced civilisation or time travel?”

The tablet was dated to around the 13th century BCE. By that time, the Sumerian writing style – usually known as cuneiform - had already been around for a few thousand years.

Editorial on the channel goes on to say: “Cuneiform tablets aren’t unusual – an estimated two million have been excavated. The language was a mystery until the 19th century when its code was deciphered."

Cuneiform was one of the first systems of writing developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia around 3,500BC to 3,000 BC.

But the lack of checkable information on the dig and the startling similarity to a cell phone handset have many online posters convinced it is just an imaginative hoax.