History can prove hard to uncover. When delving back hundreds or even thousands of years into our past, we have to make do with whatever bits and pieces we find, hoping they can provide us with an accurate picture of a time long gone. Sometimes, we get lucky, though. Occasionally, we uncover documents that detail some of the most notable events in history.

10 The Cyrus Cylinder

In 1879, archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam was excavating in Mesopotamia when he uncovered a number of clay tablets which provided us with an unparalleled look at the ancient world. Among them was the Cyrus Cylinder, a document written in cuneiform script which, according to some, represents the oldest charter on human rights.

The cylinder was created around 538 BC, shortly after Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon. According to the cylinder, Cyrus is portrayed as a liberator. He was chosen by the Babylonian god Marduk to free the city from the reign of Nabonidus, who had perverted the cults of the gods and enslaved his own people through forced labor. Cyrus entered the city without a fight, and the Babylonian people delivered Nabonidus to him and accepted Cyrus’s kingship.

Afterward, the cylinder is written in the first person to represent Cyrus giving an edict. He abolishes the forced labor instituted by his predecessor and promises to bring back the people deported by Nabonidus and restore the religious cults and temples that were previously forbidden.

Although Iran officially recognizes the Cyrus Cylinder as a human rights charter, others claim that it was a standard proclamation made by Mesopotamian kings when taking the throne. Regardless, historians view it as the first written record of how to run a true society filled with people of different faiths and nationalities. Cyrus’s Achaemenid Empire became the largest empire of ancient history, stretching from the Indus Valley in modern-day Pakistan to the Balkans in Europe.

9 The Blood Letter

In late 14th century, the disintegrating Bulgarian Empire was eventually conquered and incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. Around the mid-1870s, a state of national awakening emerged from Bulgarians who sought to live in a sovereign state again. This led to the April Uprising of 1876 in which Bulgarian nationals revolted against the Ottoman government.

One of the main leaders of the uprising was Todor Kableshkov. After he and other revolutionaries defeated the Ottoman presence in the town of Plovdiv, Kableshkov wrote a letter to the insurrectionists in Panagyurishte, urging them to do the same. He signed it with the blood of a murdered mudur (Turkish official), and it became known as the Blood Letter, the symbol of the revolution.

The actual uprising didn’t go very well. The Ottoman government brought in groups of irregular soldiers called bashi-bazouks who crushed all opposition. Kableshkov himself was betrayed and captured by Turkish authorities. He committed suicide in prison.

The bashi-bazouks quickly developed a reputation for incredible cruelty and total lack of discipline. An American war correspondent named Januarius MacGahan described the atrocities of Turkish soldiers burning down entire settlements and killing all inhabitants.

This turned international opinion against the Ottoman Empire. Russia saw an opportunity to minimize the empire’s influence and, after a failed peace conference, declared war in 1877. With the help of several Eastern European nations, Russia won the war. After the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, Bulgaria became an autonomous state once again after almost half a millennium of Ottoman rule.

8 Ryo-no-gige And Ryo-no-shuge

For centuries, Japan was governed by a code of laws known as Ritsuryo that was inspired by Confucianism and the legal system enacted in China during the Tang dynasty. The Omi Code appeared in AD 668 under Emperor Tenji, becoming the first collection of Ritsuryo laws in Japan. It allegedly contained 22 volumes of administrative code, but there are no extant copies and its existence can only be inferred from notes in other documents.

Several years later, the Omi-ryo was refined into the Asuka Kiyomihara Code of AD 689. It offered improvements on the older code such as establishing the Daijo-kan, the Great Council of State that remained Japan’s highest governmental body until it was replaced by the Cabinet in modern times. At least, that’s what we infer as there are no surviving copies of this code, either.

In 701 came the Taiho Code, which was the first revision to contain criminal as well as administrative code. Again, there are no extant copies. Its successor, the Yoro Code, was compiled in 718 but wasn’t promulgated until 757. This time, we have some information due to a book called Ryo-no-gige (“Commentary on the Ryo”). Written by Japanese scholars and published in 833, the book contained almost all the administrative code of the Yoro-ryo.

A few centuries later, it was complemented by another book called Ryo-no-shuge which presented a comparative study between the Japanese and Chinese codes. Eventually, historians were able to use the extant Chinese Tang Code to piece together the penal side and compile an almost complete Yoro Code.

7 Deir el-Medina Papyrus

Deir el-Medina has provided us with a wealth of information on ancient Egypt. When the tombs in the Valley of the Kings were being built, this little village housed the many tradesmen, artisans, and other professionals who were employed to work on the monuments. We have already found evidence that showed the workers benefited from a primitive form of healthcare system. But Deir el-Medina was also the site of the first recorded labor strike in history.

The entire event was detailed on a papyrus by a scribe named Amennakhte. It happened around the year 1155 BC during the reign of Ramses III. Craftsmen at Deir el-Medina were complaining that 18 days had passed without receiving their rations. Therefore, they refused to work and instead sat down at the rear of the temple of Menkheperre. This also probably marks the first recorded sit-down protest in history.

The strike continued for several days as the workers urged for their complaints to be taken to the vizier. Eventually, the vizier made his way to Deir el-Medina and successfully negotiated with the strike leaders. The scribe doesn’t note the strike being anything particularly uncommon, which means that it most likely was not the first workers’ strike to occur, just the oldest one of which we have a written record.

6The Braintree Instructions

There were several events that caused the American Revolution, but one of the main issues was the taxes levied by Great Britain on the colonies without their consent—“No taxation without representation.” This concern was exacerbated in 1765 when Parliament passed the Stamp Act. It required many materials printed in the colonies to be made using stamped paper carrying a revenue stamp produced in London.

As the act was mainly an attempt to increase British revenue from the colonies, it proved massively unpopular in America and led to several protests. It also led to one of the first official protests against Parliament’s authority in North America, a document known as the Braintree Instructions.

On September 24, 1765, the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, organized a town meeting where a gathering of about 50 people unanimously signed a document destined for the Massachusetts General Court. The document decried the actions of British Parliament as a violation of the Great Charter (Magna Carta). Eventually, the Braintree Instructions were published in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Gazette. Based on the document’s popularity, the reasoning and language used in the Braintree Instructions were adopted by dozens of cities in the state protesting the Stamp Act.

The Braintree Instructions also became notable for the man who wrote them—John Adams. His “career” as a political activist was just getting started, but he would play an important role during the revolution and later become the second president of the United States.

5 The Charter Of Privileges

In 1681, William Penn established the Frame of Government as a constitution for the Province of Pennsylvania. The original constitution was adopted on May 5, 1682. A new Frame of Government was adopted one year later and again in 1696, with the last one, known as the Charter of Privileges, ratified in 1701. This version of the constitution remained in effect until 1776. To celebrate the charter’s 50th anniversary, the Pennsylvania Assembly ordered a new bell for the state house which became one of the country’s most cherished artifacts—the Liberty Bell.

The legacy of Penn’s Frame of Government extends far beyond that, though. It is now regarded as an important step toward true democracy for the many liberties and rights that it provided for different religions. Although William Penn was a Quaker, he was an advocate of religious freedom who also negotiated peaceful deals with Native American tribes. Back in England, he was arrested numerous times for his beliefs and spent his jail time writing more pamphlets to further his cause.

When word of Penn’s new constitution reached Europe, it found support among those who shared his convictions. French philosopher Voltaire said that William Penn “brought down upon Earth a Golden Age” unlike any that has been before.

4 ‘To My Peoples’

On July 29, 1914, a manifesto titled “To my peoples” was widely distributed throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Signed by Emperor Franz Joseph I one day earlier, the manifesto officially announced a declaration of war on Serbia, signaling the start of World War I. In the document, the emperor portrays himself as a man of peace, forced into war by “incessant provocations” from the Kingdom of Serbia to defend the honor and position of his monarchy.

The title “To my people” was a common headline for war manifestos. Franz Joseph used the plural “peoples” to signify that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a multiethnic empire consisting of two equal monarchies plus the autonomous Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. Within days, the document had been translated into all languages of the empire and distributed as pamphlets and propaganda posters. It was also published in all the newspapers.

The document was seen as the culmination of the July Crisis. Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, many people realized that war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary was inevitable. The latter made an “attempt” at a peaceful reconciliation by issuing an ultimatum to Serbia that contained unacceptable terms, including Austro-Hungarian government representatives in Serbia, Austro-Hungarian police in Serbia, and the removal from the Serbian government of all military and civil administrators named by Austria-Hungary.

Suffice it to say that the war didn’t go as planned for Austria-Hungary. The end of the Great War brought the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the fall of the Habsburg monarchy.

3 Pope Urban II’s Letter Of Instruction

Around AD 1095, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus sent a request to Pope Urban II asking for military assistance against Seljuk Turks attacking his lands in Asia Minor. In response, the pope organized the Council at Clermont consisting of hundreds of clerics and nobles. There, Pope Urban gave one of the most significant speeches in history, triggering an event that would have a profound effect on Europe for centuries to come—the Crusades.

The council lasted from November 18 to November 28. Urban gave his speech on November 27, which is now regarded as the starting point for the First Crusade. The pope argued that it was time for Eastern and Western Christianity to unite against the Muslims. The following year, tens of thousands of soldiers marched east. The crusade culminated with the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099, although Pope Urban died a few weeks before word reached Western Europe.

We have six sources of information regarding the Pope’s speech at the Council of Clermont. The reliability of five of them is a matter of debate. They offered varying details on certain issues such as what kind of pardons would be granted to crusaders and whether the primary goal was helping the Byzantine Empire or retaking the Holy Land.

The sixth source is a letter of instruction written by the Pope himself in December 1095 to crusaders rallying in Flanders. It covers the Council of Clermont and remains the best source for one of the most important events in the history of medieval Europe.

2 The Mayflower Compact

Plymouth was one of the most notable early English colonies in North America. Some of its aspects are now deeply ingrained in American culture, particularly the Pilgrims and the Thanksgiving celebration. Back then, Pilgrims were typically referred to as Separatists—devout people who had fled England for a new place where they could practice their religion as they saw fit. Their iconic 1620 trip aboard the Mayflower is another essential tale of America folklore.

What’s usually forgotten is that the Pilgrims were actually a minority aboard the Mayflower. Over half of the more than 100 passengers plus the 25 crew members were “strangers” or non-Separatists. Originally headed for Virginia, the Mayflower had to settle for new land due to dangerous storms and a shortage of supplies. Worryingly, the Separatist leaders realized that most strangers had no interest in following Pilgrim rules once a settlement was established. In the words of a stranger, they were free to “use their own liberty.”

This resulted in the drafting of the Mayflower Compact, the first frame of government written and enacted in the United States. All men had to sign it before going ashore. The document granted authority to a “Civil Body Politic” to enact just and equal laws, but as the governing body consisted mostly of Separatists, it ensured that they stayed in power. Although the Mayflower Compact was not a constitution, it formed the basis for Plymouth’s government and remained in force until 1691 when the whole colony was absorbed into Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1 De Lome Letter

On April 25, 1898, war broke out between the United States and Spain, lasting for over three months and ending with an American victory. It was followed by the Treaty of Paris, which was heavily in America’s favor. Spain was forced to relinquish Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, thus losing all of its overseas territories except for a few in Northern Africa. Many see this as the end of the Spanish Empire, once known as the “empire on which the Sun never sets.”

Before the war, people in America were divided on the issue. Yellow journalism pioneers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were in favor of war and were accused of using the media to incite the public. In this regard, Hearst hit pay dirt in February 1898 when he acquired the De Lome letter.

Enrique Dupuy De Lome was the Spanish ambassador to the United States. He wrote an unflattering letter to Spain’s foreign minister about America’s involvement in Cuba. It described McKinley as weak and a low politician. However, Cuban revolutionaries intercepted the letter. Eventually, Hearst found out and published it in the New York Journal with the headline “The Worst Insult to the United States in Its History.” The scandal outraged the American public, and they demanded action. Two months later, they got their wish.

On the Spanish side, the war cost Spain international power and prestige, but the country did experience an intellectual rebirth due to a new wave of writers, poets, and philosophers known as the Generation of ’98.

Radu is into science and weird history. Share the knowledge on Twitter, or check out his website.

The ancients had a prolific habit of documenting their lives on anything from skin to stone. Although this archive may be old, it may add new translations or technology and the results can be revealing.

From books that belonged to samurai and pirates to mysterious events that could rewrite history, the written word can color history’s gray spaces like nothing else. Here are 10 ancient documents that have produced sometimes surprising insights into past events and people.

10 The Samurai Manual

Tsukahara Bokuden was a great samurai and perhaps the author of a curious book. Called The Hundred Rules of War, it was recently translated into English. The manual provides advice on fighting skills and how a proper samurai should behave. Among descriptions of cowardly behavior were those who did not drink or treasured horsemanship.

Though authorship is impossible to prove, many believe that the book was compiled in the last year of Bokuden’s life (1489–1571). The manual is not your usual rule book but a collection of songs. The musical caveats focus on many areas of a samurai’s life, from the best name for a baby born into the warrior class to remembering that neither life nor death was as important as moving forward.

The work provides fascinating threads about preparations for training and war. A horse reflected the rider’s mind, and the author is frank—a small animal meant a dumb samurai. The best prebattle meal, the book advised, was rice warmed with water. Other snacks included dried plums and roasted beans. Researchers found the plums helped with thirst but are not exactly sure why the book strongly insists on the beans.^[1]

9 Oldest Marriage Contract

Around 4,000 years ago, a couple carved a prenup in clay. When it was found in 2017 at the archaeological site of Kultepe-Kanesh in Turkey, it soon became clear that having children was part of the deal.

The Assyrian pair, Laqipum and Hatala, agreed to try for two years to produce their own offspring. If none arrived, then it became the wife’s duty to look for a surrogate. More specifically, Hatala had to buy a female slave for her husband. Once they had a child together, Laqipum was allowed to sell the mother if he so chose.^[2]

The contract is the oldest to mention surrogacy and infertility, although in a somewhat different light than practiced today. Though it reflects the ancient belief that infertility was the wife’s fault, the contract provided an equal opportunity divorce settlement. The person who initiated the separation had to pay the other person five minas of silver.

8 Hidden Coffin Script

An Egyptian mummy at Chiddingstone Castle in Kent frustrated experts in the way that so many mummies tend to do. Their identities are hidden beneath swaths of papyrus pages. To read the deceased’s name, the required peeling often destroys the precious artifacts.

In 2017, researchers devised a scanning technique that would allow a hidden script to be read without causing damage to the mummy. The 3,000-year-old remains at Chiddingstone lost its mysterious anonymity when the footplate was scanned. It revealed that the bandages contained a man named Irethoreru.^[3]

But the technique was good for more than just calling upon lost names. The papyrus used to shape the mummy cases was originally ancient waste paper. Since paste and plaster obscured them, the content remained invisible for centuries.

During scans, a trove of hieroglyphic scraps from Egyptians’ lives could be seen, including tax papers and shopping lists. Once considered rubbish, this material is now one of Egyptology’s best resources to mine for papyrus used for everyday notes.

7 True Reign Of Rameses

Egyptology is an intensely studied field, but even so, the reign of each pharaoh is an estimate. One of the most famous was Rameses the Great. In 2017, a Bible passage was compared with a battle documented on a stele. Pharaoh Merneptah, son of Rameses, described how he defeated the Israelites.

What they have in common are the ingredients to what could be the oldest solar eclipse on record. The passage in the Book of Joshua described how Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan. To overcome their enemies, he successfully ordered the Sun and Moon to stop moving.

The text confused scholars until they realized that the original Hebrew-to-English translation offered another interpretation. Alternately, it meant that the Sun and Moon stopped shining. The stele’s inscriptions placed the Israelites in Canaan between 1500–1050 BC.

If the Joshua event was an eclipse, the only one visible in Canaan during that time was on October 30, 1207 BC. The stele stated that it was carved during Merneptah’s fifth year as king. The length of his rule and his father’s is known, but the eclipse narrows it down to within a year. If the study is correct, Rameses ruled from 1276–1210 BC.^[4]

6 A Pirate’s Book

Not just any pirate. The scraps of paper were found on the vessel Queen Anne’s Revenge, commanded by the famous Blackbeard. In 1718, the Revenge sank near North Carolina and became the subject of painstaking analysis ever since her discovery in 1996.

Plenty of the usual stuff was found—weaponry, tools, and personal artifacts. But the most unexpected discoveries were 16 paper fragments stuffed into a cannon. At first, it appeared to be cloth used to block a chamber. When the waterlogged mass was examined, its rarity became clear.

Paper almost never survives underwater, let alone for three centuries. Seven of the pieces had readable print, and a single place name, Hilo, identified the book. The pages were torn from A Voyage to the South Sea, an adventure story about a sea captain who, among other things, describes the coastal settlement in Peru.

It is a fitting addition to any pirate’s library. But which sailor owned the book or why it got stuffed into the cannon is a mystery. It does provide important evidence for books on 18th-century ships and confirms records referring to Blackbeard’s crew owning several.^[5]

5 Mystery Of Mapmakers’ Monsters

Many ancient maps appear to have been made by artists more interested in embellishments than geography. Most hail from the 16th and 17th centuries. Sea monsters, imaginary cities, and incorrect written “facts” adorn spaces where there should have been mountains or islands.

This tradition in cartography may be centuries old, but it defies the point of mapmaking. Although rich buyers expected some decoration, explorers sought correct geography, not dragons.

One motivation could have been a fear of looking ignorant. In this context, mapmakers could have been subjected to what historians call horror vacui—an aversion to blank spaces in artwork.

No mention of horror vacui is made by mapmakers, except one. Dutchman Petrus Plancius added an accurate southern star chart to his 1592 world map. Although he never mentioned the fear, Plancius included a note explaining that the constellations replaced the southern hemisphere in case it remained empty.^[6]

By the middle of the 18th century, horror vacui lost its grip and maps became more scientific. Unexplored locations were left blank.

4 The Canterbury Roll

The inspiration behind the hugely successful Game of Thrones novels was a real-life power struggle. In England, the Houses of Lancaster and York battled for supremacy in what became known as the Wars of the Roses.

Despite the violence, both sides contributed to a unique and remarkable piece of art. Naturally, it was not a mutual project. Rather, it was created by one side and embellished by the other.

The Canterbury Roll is a beautiful record of England’s mythical beginnings until the Wars of the Roses. Measuring 5 meters (16 ft), it was drawn up by the House of Lancaster in the 1420s. Sometime during the conflict, it was acquired by Yorkists, who partially rewrote the document.^[7]

It has been in the possession of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand for over a century. Researchers believe that the thoroughly investigated manuscript still has secrets. They are planning to use new techniques, such as advanced imaging, to search for hidden phrases and to make the entire Canterbury Roll digitally available to the public in 2018.

3 Unknown Production Process

During the 13th century, thousands of mini Bibles were churned out. They contained Genesis through Apocalypse, yet they were snug enough to be carried in a pocket.

The tiny books were forged with a technology that still eludes modern understanding. Researchers were alerted to the fact when they solved a related query. The pages are ultrathin, said to be achieved using fetal calf’s skin.

But the books’ numbers meant that the supply of aborted livestock could not be sustained. Tests searched for thin-skinned substitutes like rabbits, rats, and squirrels. Turns out no rodent died to become a page, but calf, goat, and sheepskin was used.^[8]

This solved one of the biggest riddles before the era of printing. (The Bibles were handwritten.) Even though some of the material may have come from unborn animals, most did not. This begged the question: How were the pages, which were tough enough to survive 800 years, made so thin?

Some measured 0.03 millimeters (0.001 in). But by the time medieval sources recorded page-making techniques, the process was already lost. Writers mined secondhand information, and any modern replications met with failure.

2 The Viceroy’s Tomb

In 2017, the Mongolian steppe produced a stone monument bearing a powerful man’s story. Consisting of 14 pillars around a sarcophagus, the mysterious tale is fraught with power and possibly assassination.

The 1,300-year-old coffin is now empty. Similar to the pillars, it is covered in Turkic script documenting the rise of the anonymous man. In the centuries before Genghis Khan, this man’s influence came second only to the ruler, Bilge Qaghan (r. 716–734).

The pillars revealed that the deceased held the title of “Yagbu” (“Viceroy”). After the poisoning of Bilge, the man moved up to “Tolis-Shad” (“Royalty of the East”). This assassination is mentioned in historical records, and it is unclear if the viceroy was involved. However, it is not too far-fetched to consider him a plotter.^[9]

The empire, which covered modern Mongolia and some of northern China, was politically lethal. Senior commanders often equated getting a promotion with murdering another high-ranking individual. Even Bilge’s successor was killed, but this proved too much for the teetering power structure.

Sometime after the assassination of Tengri Qaghan (r. 734–741), the empire collapsed. The monument could add information about the region’s rulers as well as their relationship with the Mongolian tribes.

1 Lost Verse And Faces

The oldest manuscript referencing King Arthur and Merlin is the Black Book of Carmarthen. Named for the color of its binding, the book is a compilation of poems from the 9th–12th centuries.

During a 2015 project, the pages were examined under ultraviolet light and photo editing software. To the researchers’ delight, they found something invisible to the naked eye. Among the hidden trove were human faces and verse.^[10]

Reflecting a very relatable behavior by modern bookworms, notes were also scribbled in the margins by medieval readers. They wrote down their ancient thoughts most heavily near the end of the 16th century. The recovery of the doodles is valuable because they present a direct connection between past readers and the researchers trying to pick their brains.

The details were not hidden on purpose. It is believed that a previous owner, Jaspar Gryffyth, removed them. The manuscript is the earliest penned in Welsh, sometime around AD 1250, likely by a single author who collected poems about Welsh folk stories and Dark Ages legends.

But the Black Book’s greatest importance is how it demonstrates that even well-studied manuscripts can still deliver a large amount of new information.