A secret note was hidden in this 18th century Jesus statue
An 18th-century wooden statue of Jesus harbored a surprise —time capsule letters hidden in the buttocks, researchers reported.
The work of art, called "Cristo del Miserere," is a wooden
statue that adorned the Church of Santa Águeda in Sotillo de la Ribera,
Spain. It was damaged a few years ago and conservators at the
Madrid-based Da Vinci Restauro were fixing the Jesus statue, which had
been cracked open in the buttocks area, said Gemma Ramirez, one of the
restorers who made the discovery. Such wooden statues were typically
made hollow, both because they were lighter that way, and because they
contracted less, leading to less cracking, Ramirez said.
As Ramirez and another art restorer were moving the cracked-open statue, the colleague noticed a surprise hiding inside.
She shouted, "There's something inside!" Ramirez recalled.
Her colleague was stunned speechless, and so Ramirez initially
thought her colleague was referring to insects that often feed on
decaying wood, she told Live Science. But the duo carefully put blocks
under the statue — which is about as big as a man — to support its
weight, and peered inside.
They saw two tiny, handwritten scrolls. They carefully took pictures before extracting them, she said.
It turned out the scrolls, which were written on sheepskin with a
purple-brown ink, were penned by a man named Joaquin Minguez, who was
the prior of the church in 1777. The statue itself was made by a man
named Manuel Bal, according to the letters.
The letters describe life at the time, from the earthquakes
experienced to the resources that supported people, including wheat
fields, vineyards, and deer and wolves people hunted, Ramirez said. The
prior also describes people falling ill with fevers that typically last
three or four days. The monks spent their time playing cards and ball
games, the letter continued.
The portrait of daily life in the 1700s was clearly meant to be a
kind of time capsule that was eventually found, because the handwriting
is exquisite, Ramirez said.
"He wanted to leave a memory of their experience in their epoch," Ramirez told Live Science in an email.
After examining the letter, the team created a pH-neutral
re-creation of the letter, which means it was neither acidic or basic
and so wouldn't damage the sculpture. They then reinserted it, along
with their own letter describing modern times, Ramirez said.
"Maybe future generations will find it," Ramirez said.
-Culled from Live Science
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