PHOTOS, VIDEO: Ancient documents, coins found in Murga church

Experts opened a 227-year-old time capsule found in the Lutheran church’s wall in Murga in front of the cameras of RTL Klub. Here is what they discovered inside.

According to Blikk, a Hungarian tabloid, the time capsule was a glass bottle in which experts found multiple things. The date on it was 1796, the year when Napoleon Bonaparte married Joséphine de Beauharnais, and defeated the Austrians in the battles of Montenotte, Lodi and Arcole. József Schweidel, a later martyr of the 1848-1849 Hungarian revolution and freedom fight, was born, while Russian tsarina Catherine the Great died that year.

Blikk wrote that construction workers found a wall segment during the church’s renovation last year where the wall was thicker. When they opened it, a stone sarcophagus emerged with inscriptions on it, and the date: 1796.

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The time capsule was opened several times before but nobody remembered

When they opened it, they found a glass bottle containing coins and documents. Transferred to the National Archives in Budapest, a team led by Zsolt Kollár opened it some days ago. Interestingly, Fókusz, a popular TV show of RTL Klub, was present to record everything.

Photo: PrtScr/RTL Klub

That was the first time the national archives opened such an old time capsule. First, they took the 25 coins out. Then came the documents, which were in bad shape. That is because the air inside the bottle remained humid even after the closure of the time capsule.

Among the coins, they found some from the era of the Ottoman occupation (1540-1686). The documents were more interesting since they originated from different times. However, the oldest papers fell into pieces, so it will be the restorers’ task to put them together again. Interestingly, the time capsule was opened in 1896, during an episcopal visit, to place further documents in it. The capsule was found in the 1960s again but put back. And that is what the old caretaker remembered, but she did not know what exactly was inside. Since she died last year, she could not even tell where to start searching for the mysterious capsule. But now we know that the legend was true.

Despite being a small village, Murga is the birthplace of Gyula Gömbös, Hungary’s prime minister between 1932 and 1936.

Here is the video: