200-year-old message found in bottle in France

Volunteers digging in the ruins of an ancient Gallic village perched high above the cliffs of northern France this week discovered a small glass vial and inside a carefully rolled-up 200-year-old message sent by a colleague from another era.

The note was written by archaeologist PJ Féret, who led an excavation at the site of the Cité de Limes in January 1825, the city supporting the excavations, Eu, said in a Facebook post.

Féret wrote—perhaps to inspire the nascent archaeologists who followed in his footsteps nearly two centuries later—that he was a member of several scientific societies and that he “pursued his research throughout this vast complex.”

“It was an absolutely magical moment,” Guillaume Blondel, head of the archaeological service in the town of Eu, told the BBC. “We knew there had been excavations here in the past, but to find this message from 200 years ago… it was a total surprise.”

“We sometimes see these time capsules left by carpenters when they build houses. But it’s very rare in archaeology,” Blondel explains. “Most archaeologists prefer to think that no one will come looking for them because they did all the work!”

Municipal archives confirm that Féret carried out a first excavation on the site 200 years ago.

The oldest message in a bottle ever found was 131 years and 223 days old when it was discovered, Guinness World Records said in a statement. Australians Tonya and Kym Illman found the message on January 21, 2018, on Wedge Island, Australia.

On June 12, 1886, a German ship captain threw a bottle of gin overboard, according to the Guinness Book of Records. The bottle contained a note written in ink with the ship’s coordinates and information, including departure and arrival times. The note, from the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg, asked the finder to deliver it to the nearest German embassy.

If authenticated, the 200-year-old message bottle from Féret will be the oldest ever found.

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