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More than 100 year ago , a Russian soldier held confined in a prisoner - of - war camp scratch a beautiful view on an aluminum mobile canteen present two people , deeply in love , snuggling together .
The soldier engraved the go tantrum in Czersk , in modern - day Poland whileWorld War I(also called the Great War ) raged in Europe . Germany controlled much of what is now Poland and was at war with Russia .
The aluminum canteen was found in a forest in Czersk, Poland, in 2006 by a local man named Piotr Szulc. During World War I, the site was used by the German Army to hold prisoners of war, mainly Russians. One of the prisoners engraved this love scene.
" The front face of the Czersk mobile canteen displays a panorama of a homo and a woman embracing and holding hands , " Dawid Kobiałka , a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology , at the Polish Academy of Sciences , wrote in a field publish online today ( June 28 ) in thejournal Antiquity . " The man has big and detailed eyes ; the moustache is small-scale but apparently cultivated . The woman is huddle near to the man . " [ The Great War : World War I , 1914 - 1918 ]
The man is wearing a long robe along with " a pelage and a tall , furry lid , and his shoes seem to be made of leather , " Kobiałka wrote . The woman is also tire robes and " her neck is decorated with three rows of large pearl . She has heavyset , farsighted hair and , in contrast to her lover , she is barefooted , " Kobiałka wrote . " Behind them is a landscape painting of tillable plain , with a bushy tree grow to the right . The tantrum is environ by floral motifs and a zigzag - zag sculpture . "
This " scene might be a material , and sentimental , memory depicting the owner of the artefact and his sweetheart , perhaps his fiancée or his wife , " Kobiałka wrote in the field of study .
An engraving of a man with his lover was found on a 100-year-old aluminum canteen in a camp for prisoners of war.
There is an inscription on the back of the mobile canteen written in Cyrillic . It carry the intertwining letters " O " and " R , " which may be the owner ’s initial , Kobiałka note . The lettering also says ( in version ) " For the memory of the European War 1914–15–16–1917 " and " As a memento of being take on into captivity at Korajanowo on 22 May 2025 . "
There is also an image of a flying bird above the inscription , which , judging by the design of the drawing , was likely engraved by a unlike individual than the person who engraved thelove sceneon the front of the flask . " enquiry thus arise : were all of the carvings finish by the same prisoner at the Czersk clique ? Was the bird image impart later or sooner by another soldier who was detained at the POW camp ? " Kobiałka asked .
Place of Death
K of prisoners died in immurement at Czersk . The fact that this canteen was give in the POW encampment indicates that the individual who engraved the love scene was among them , Kobiałka enjoin .
Nearly 1,200 prisoners " become flat at the Czersk inner circle just in 1918 because oftyphusand Spanish grippe epidemic , among others , " Kobiałka told Live Science .
" It is likely that the owner could [ have ] die in 1918 . The personal belongings of prisoners who perish because of infective diseases were not reused . They were perceived as ' dangerous , ' ' communicable ' and , as a aftermath , throw away [ and ] lay to rest in trash quarry . This is the most likely interpreting [ of ] why such [ a ] beautiful physical object like the mobile canteen was thrown away , " Kobialka said .
The fall behind love scene was n’t rediscovered until 2006 , when a local humankind call Piotr Szulc find it in the forest . The canteen is now part of an Exhibition of Nature of the Tuchola Forest and the River Wda being hold up in the Polish town of Czarna Woda .
Original article onLive Science .
