Found in the attic of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Zvenigorod, an old town 40 miles west of Moscow, the collection consists of beak-selected fragments of letters, banknotes, books, cigarette packs, candy wrappers, bus tickets, and even church documents.
“For several centuries swifts and jackdaws built their nests under the roof of the cathedral,” Dmitriy Sedov, deputy research director at Zvenigorod’s Historical and Architectural Museum, said in a statement.
“We found a thick layer made of dirt, branches, and fragments of papers stolen by birds to keep their chicks warm,” he added.
Sedov estimates the oldest fragments date to the 1830s, when the roof was last replaced.
Although most of the papers are torn and ruined by beaks, it is still possible to read their contents.
Most of the fragments are pieces of letters written in elegant calligraphy, mentioning in particular Count Karl Nesselrode, foreign minister of imperial Russia from 1822 to 1856.
A scrap of a calendar bears the date of December 6, 1917 with a note referring to Russian Emperor Nicolas II, the last tsar of Russia executed with his family by the Bolsheviks the following year.
Other documents include bus tickets, delivery contracts, students’ diplomas, church documents, birth certificates and scribbled down notes. One reads: “Good afternoon, Vera! I send you greetings.”
Read more at Discovery News
No comments:
Post a Comment