The research team, led by Adinel C. Dincă of Babeș-Bolyai University, found the cache in the Ropemakers’ Tower of St. Margaret’s Church in Mediaș, a town in central Romania. Biblioteca Batthyaneum, a branch of the National Library of Romania, announced the discovery on its Facebook page earlier this month. They reported that the find included 139 printed books dating to between 1470 and 1600, two manuscripts from the early 16th century and about sixty more charters and other documents dating to between the 14th and 16th centuries. Furthermore, they found several manuscripts fragments that were kept inside parish records, the earliest of which is from the Caroliginian era and may date back to as early as the 9th century.
IKR, crazy isn't it? Apparently the church was built between 1437 and 1488, and so some of those books and manuscripts have probably been up there in that tower collecting dust for over five...
IKR, crazy isn't it? Apparently the church was built between 1437 and 1488, and so some of those books and manuscripts have probably been up there in that tower collecting dust for over five hundred years now. And the fact that they still appear to be in reasonably good condition is even more of a miracle.
Talk about hidden in plain sight. This is the tower the cache was in. It says right on that page that the tower was known to house the church archives containing "many old leather and wood binding...
Talk about hidden in plain sight. This is the tower the cache was in. It says right on that page that the tower was known to house the church archives containing "many old leather and wood binding bibles." I guess no one actually went in there? Like, ever? As best as I can tell from Google Maps this is smack dab in the middle of a modern urban center. The tower itself is not a big structure with hidden recesses. Seems like the caretakers just didn't know what they had.
If you look at the photo the researchers posted of them cleaning the inside of the tower, it honestly does look like that might be the case given how much dust, dirt, and debris was up there. I...
I guess no one actually went in there? Like, ever?
Wow
IKR, crazy isn't it? Apparently the church was built between 1437 and 1488, and so some of those books and manuscripts have probably been up there in that tower collecting dust for over five hundred years now. And the fact that they still appear to be in reasonably good condition is even more of a miracle.
Talk about hidden in plain sight. This is the tower the cache was in. It says right on that page that the tower was known to house the church archives containing "many old leather and wood binding bibles." I guess no one actually went in there? Like, ever? As best as I can tell from Google Maps this is smack dab in the middle of a modern urban center. The tower itself is not a big structure with hidden recesses. Seems like the caretakers just didn't know what they had.
If you look at the photo the researchers posted of them cleaning the inside of the tower, it honestly does look like that might be the case given how much dust, dirt, and debris was up there. I wouldn't be surprised if nobody had gone up there in the last few decades, at the least.