Archeologists are storytellers. They might not put pen to paper to create a flowery tale, but they do dig through human remains to excavate then piece together stories that may have been lost decades prior. Last week, archeologists found a 900-year-old barnacle-encrusted sword, Now they've uncovered a scorched piece of history from WWII.
The recent discovery unearthed by archeologists in Germany is a blackened hazelnut-and-almond cake destroyed by WWII bombings. According to Live Science the 79-year-old cake was baked in a cellar in the German town of Lübeck.
Although the cake is clearly inedible, it still has archeologists salivating due to how well it's been preserved. Representatives from the Hanseatic City of Lübeck say, "the cake's overall shape, nut fillings, details in the sugar icing decorations, and even its wax-paper wrappings remained intact after the pastry was burned to a crisp during a World War II air raid."
Although the idea of finding well-preserved WWII-era cake may seem pleasant enough, archeologists say that this find offers a dark look into Germany's past and gives present-day historians a glimpse of life during the war.
Dirk Rieger, head of the Department of Archaeology for the Hanseatic City of Lübeck Historic Monuments Protection Authority, told Live Science that the cake may have been a part of a celebration commemorating Palm Sunday. "On the night of March 28, 1942 the British Royal Air Force bombed Lübeck, a historic city and a nonmilitary target, in retaliation for the Nazi blitz of Coventry, England." Rieger says, "the nut-filled cake had recently been unwrapped when the bombs landed, and all of the building's stories collapsed into the cellar. Somehow, the cake escaped being crushed, and the intense heat of the flames rapidly scorched and carbonized the confection amid the wreckage."
After being unearthed, the scorched confection was immediately taken to the city's restoration laboratory, where conservators carefully cleaned and took samples. The work to preserve the cake has just begun so it isn't quite ready to be displayed for the general public. Rieger says that the cake is a window into the past, and hopes that people will "see not only the destruction of the war but also the joy that people had."
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October 28, 2021 at 04:35AM
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This 79-Year-Old Cake Was Excavated from a WWII Bombing Site - Thrillist
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