Whether you are an archival heritage professional or the average person on the street, you must have thought at least once in your life “How did that thing end up there?”
We asked our Country Managers to list the weirdest objects that they found in their archives (some asked to remain anonymous, hate the sin, not the sinner!) – Updated weekly from the 3rd of February!
The Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica and Archivo Histórico Nacional in Spain hold a Masonic Ritual Sword, a Death mask, and a Metal Skull.
The Death Mask belongs to the Spanish playwright Jacinto Benavente. The name Sebastián Miranda and the date 14-7-54 are written in pencil at the base of the mask.
The other two are more mysterious. The swords' handles are formed by superimposed crossbones, and at their center leather cutouts house a five-pointed star. The skulls is made of metal and it has a hole running top to bottom. Any esoteric link between all these objects?
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) left behind more than just political and social upheaval—it also gave us some rather unusual archival remnants. Found in the Centro Documental de la Memoria Historica, these objects may seem unremarkable at first glance, but each one tells a powerful story.
Take this chunk of shrapnel, once part of a grenade or shell that tore through Spanish cities during the conflict. A grim, rusted souvenir of violence now held in careful custody.
Then there's the flag of the Second Spanish Republic, accompanied by a black funeral crest used during the burial of Manuel Azaña, the last president of the Republic. Azaña died in exile in France in 1940, just a year after the civil war ended, as his homeland fell to dictatorship.
And finally, a small but charged with meaning item: a matchbox bearing the symbol of Franco’s regime. This reflects the chilling reach of propaganda into daily life. Even lighting a cigarette came with a reminder of who was in power.
Condoms are a great invention, and the first attested use of the device in Europe is in 1564 by the anatomist Fallopia, who described linen sheaths soaked in a chemical solution to prevent syphilis; still, not an object that you think you would find in archives – yet at theArchivo Histórico de la Nobleza (Historical Archive of the Nobility) they hold two, from the 19th Century, made of animal tripe. Given that before the invention of the discovery of vulcanised rubber in 1839 condoms where so expensive to be an exclusive privilege of the upper class, it is not unsurprising that the Historical Archive of the Nobility is the institution to hold them.
Condom, England, London, England, 1901-1930. Wellcome Collection Gallery. Source: Wikimedia.
If you need proof about the legendary Balkan mustache, look no further than the archives:
here are the moustache of a well-known Romanian theatre actor, Aristide Demetriade (1842-1979) - a prop he used to play the role of Bimbașa Sava, a real-life character, a very wealthy man who lived in great luxury in Bucharest
National Archives of Romania, Demetriade (family fond), 3.3.9
Aristide Demetriade had great success in his performances. He was part of a theatre wave which promoted plays reflecting “the atmosphere of the 17-18th Centuries as cradle of national identity, and strive to connect the Middle Ages heroes to the war generation of the 20th Century, in order to legitimise the latter promoted”. (Mihalache A.G., Cronică de teatru și ideologie (1918-1920), in Revista Transilvania, 2020, issue 7)
He was also an actor and movie director, in the pioneering era of Romanian cinema.
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Photographs of Demetriade on stage: National Archives of Romania, Demetriade (family fond), 5.1.1.9
And here is a letter from the National Archives of Greece: a letter from a woman, dated 18 October 1873, to King George I, in which the woman denounces the brutal behaviour of the police against her husband, a sandals' maker. As proof of the assault, the woman attached to the letter a section of her husband's ripped off mustache!!
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National Archives of Greece, George I Palace Archives, file n. 73
The Slovenian National Archives hold an unusual artifact from Yugoslavia’s first general elections in 1945: ballot balls used in a unique voting system. Instead of paper ballots, voters dropped small rubber balls into one of two ballot boxes—one for the People's Front and one for the opposition. The People's Front box was padded, ensuring silent voting, while the opposition’s box was unpadded, making each vote audible. This created a distinct voting experience, subtly revealing voter choices.
Picture: Museum of Yugoslavia
Similar methods appeared elsewhere, such as Albania’s 1945 elections, where voters placed their hands in both ballot boxes to maintain secrecy. The use of rubber balls also has historical roots in "blackballing," a voting method in clubs and societies. These ballot balls now serve as an intriguing historical artifact.
The National Archives of Luxembourg hold an extremely rare, and yet authentic, drawing from 1804 documenting the birth in Echternach of a baby affected by cyclopia, a rare genetic malformation characterised by the presence of a single eye in the middle of the forehead (we now know that it affects one in 100,000 embryos, and it is so severe that in most cases they are miscarried before birth).
ANLux, B-0502, Régime français, Villes et communes, Echternach, 11 frimaire an XIII.
On the 2 December 1804 (the same day as the coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and of Empress Josephine in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris) an individual approached the mayor of the abbey town of Echternach, Jean-Baptiste Herveg, acting as civil registrar, to declare the birth and deth of his child. The mayor, stunned to see ‘a dead child with a face of extraordinary shape’, immediately called in three local doctors, including a doctor of medicine, a licensed physician, and a surgeon, to determine the cause of death and, above all, to draw up a detailed anatomical report of the face. The drawing, certified as genuine by Herveg, is attached to the medical report.
Convinced that ‘it was too precious an object for natural history to be condemned to dissolution’, Herveg took all the necessary precautions to preserve it and prevent it from putrefaction. With the consent of the father, and in consultation with the doctors and surgeon, he embalmed the body and placed it in a vase filled with distilled spirits, with the intention of donating it to the Imperial Natural History Conservatory in Paris. The wish expressed by the mayor of Echternach was probably passed on to the Minister of the Interior, Jean-Baptiste de Nompère de Champagny. This is documented by the letters, both copies of sent letters and drafts (preserved at the National Archives in Luxembourg), which transmitted information through the hierarchy, from the mayor of Echternach to the sub-prefect of Bitbourg, from the sub-prefect to the prefect of the ‘département des Forêts’, and finally from the prefect to the Minister of the Interior.
Unfortunately, the correspondence ends here, leaving it unclear whether the French authorities followed up their offer of donation. It is therefore difficult, at least at the current stage of research and investigation, to say what happened to the Echternach Cyclops.
Since the 19th century, the French National Archives have preserved not only historical documents but also objects, including weapons and evidence from major criminal cases. In the mid-19th century, the museum of the Archives Nationales began exhibiting such pieces, including the Typus religionis, an oil on canvas from the late 16th Century which depicts the Ship of Religion led by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. The Paris Parliament seized this allegorical painting, deemed sacrilegious, in 1762 during the trial against the order.
Other interesting objects that you can find at the museum of the Archives Nationale are the coat of Damiens, the coat belonged to the would-be regicide Robert-François Damiens
The machine infernale, created by Corsican mass murderer Giuseppe Marco Fieschi, which killed 18 people in the attempt to assassinate King Louis-Philippe
And the knife used by Louis Louvel to kill the Duke of Berry, son of Charles X, in 1820.
The history of dentures is about 2700 years old, so there are bound to be traces at the archives, especially national archives as vast as the Riksarkivet in Sweden! We don’t have a photograph of the specific dentures at the Swedish archives, but here is an overview of fake teeth over the centuries:
1) an Etruscan denture, from the Science Museum London, dated 700 BC – apparently, the Etruscan made the first known set of dentures
2) A Japanese denture in wood from the early 17th century – Japan invented the first set of functional complete dentures out of wood, later to be substituted with ivory and other animal horn sculpted to mimic real teeth
3) A denture made of real teeth in London, 19th century – these were known as “Waterloo Teeth” as a major source of teeth for the UK in this era was from dead soldiers in the European battlefields from the Napoleonic wars. The scavenged sets were sold to dentists who fixed them onto an ivory base (British Dental Museum).
The National Archives of Malta hold a series called the Registers of Patents (Registrum Patentarum), which were maintained by the Magnia Curia Castellania, the principal secular tribunal in Malta during the Knights of St. John period (1530–1798). These Patent Registers document written in Italian, and contain details of individuals who departed from Malta, including their destination, the name of the vessel, and information about the captain and crew. They also note the date and time of each ship's departure from Malta.
In total, the registers comprise approximately four meters of shelving, covering the period from the 1530s to 1798. With the arrival of the French in 1798, the Magnia Curia Castellania and other courts and tribunals were abolished.
Originally, these records were written on loose fascicles, which were later bound into volumes. It appears that multiple officers recorded departures from the port on the same day. This is evident in the inconsistencies in the chronological order of entries. At times, the same data was recorded in two or three different fascicles. Furthermore, the documentation is incomplete.
This lack of chronological consistency presents challenges for researchers, as they may be unaware that the information they seek is recorded in another fascicle—or even in multiple fascicles.
An intriguing feature of these documents is the presence of drawings and sketches on the front or back pages of some fascicles, primarily from the 16th and early 17th centuries. We presume that the officers registering the departures made these sketches. These drawings might depict scenes they observed, such as the type of vessel or the number of individuals embarking—or perhaps their colleagues.
Notably, some fascicles feature scribblings of vessels, such as those on the front page of the 1608–1609 fascicle, alongside numbers or test markings of writing tools. The fascicle for the years 1632–1633 even includes drawings of two individuals alongside other scribbles.
NAM, MCC, Reg. Patentarum Vol. 4 (1599-1610), f. 366v
NAM, MCC, Reg. Patentarum Vol. 4 (1599-1610), f. 411
NAM, MCC, Reg. Patentarum Vol. 4 (1599-1610), f. 3
NAM, MCC, Reg. Patentarum Vol. 6 (1620-1634), f. 443
And not just regular bones – children’s bones! Specifically, children’s hand bones from 1847. On the 12th June 1847, master hatter Sándor Szép reported to the Debrecen Captaincy Office that he had found human bone fragments in the wool he had purchased. Mr Szép regularly bought wool from local residents for processing, and the bone fragments were discovered by his assistant as he began the cleaning process.
In his letter to the Captaincy Office, Mr Szép listed the individuals and settlements from whom he had purchased the wool (Nádudvar, [Balmaz]Újváros, [Hajdú]Szovát, and Szerep). He likely hoped this information would help trace the origin of the bones, and help to solve what was most likely a heinous crime.
The Captaincy Office presented the bones to the Noble Council for further decision. At its meeting on June 24, 1847, the City Council decided to have the bones examined by medical officers and requested a report. Four days later, Dr. Sámuel Zilahi, the chief medical officer, reported: “After examining the small bones reported, it appears that they are the bones of a small child’s hand. Determining their origin falls under the jurisdiction of another office.”
After reviewing the medical opinion, the City Council issued the following decision on July 9, 1847: “Since the chief medical officer could not determine with complete certainty, but only stated ‘it appears’ that the enclosed bones ‘are the bones of a small child’s hand,’ this report is acknowledged, and it is ordered to be placed in the archives.” Based on the documents, it seems little effort was made to investigate the origin of the bones, as the petition was already archived by the 9th July. The bones were attached to the accompanying documents, and preserved at the Hajdú-Bihar County Archives; they were eventually handed over to the National Archives, waiting for a 21st-century archive-goer to stumble upon them
(Translated and adapted from the original Hungarian text by Ágnes Tóth, available here)
The bones preserved at the National Archives of Hungary, Forrás: MNL HBML IV. 1011/k. 488/1847
The report held at the National Archives of Hungary, Forrás: MNL HBML IV. 1011/k. 488/1847
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