World's oldest message in a bottle!!


In the era of Super Smartphones and jet speed internet, it is difficult to imagine how people used to send messages to each other from one corner of the world to another.

The earlier courier services in the world date back to Roman Empire run by Augustus in the 1st century itself. We can imagine those services would take days and months to be handed over on road and water by a special messenger personally handing over the message.

Imagine a message reaching after 132 years!!!

Recently a message was found inside of a bottle on an Australian beach, which is dating back to June 12, 1886. This must be the world’s oldest known message. One lady named Tonya Illman has stumbled upon a bottle when strolling on the beach in January 2018.

When she found out that the note is written in German, it was handed over to the authorities. It is believed that thousands of bottles are thrown into thrown into the ocean from the German ship, Paula, during those times.

This message has ship's coordinates, date, and the name and has a message to report back where and when the bottle was found, and a note to return it back to the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg.

The authenticity of the note was confirmed by the Western Australian Museum, after cross-referencing the handwriting with the captain’s entries found in maritime records.

The bottle and message are kept in the Western Australian Museum for public display.

Updated on: 27-Jun-2020

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