More than 50 engravings by soldiers have been discovered on a door of an English castle in a "stunning discovery", including inscriptions that may depict the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte hanging.
The door was only recently discovered at Dover Castle in southeast England, the charity English Heritage said in a press release on Wednesday. It has been "carefully preserved" to be exhibited in July, the organization added.
The inscriptions on the door are thought to have been made by soldiers who lived inside the castle between 1789 and 1855.
In the 1790s, the castle was renovated due to the threat of a Napoleonic invasion of France, transforming it from an "old medieval castle" into a "modern military garrison," the statement said.
Thousands of soldiers entered the castle walls. 6 to 12 soldiers guarded St. John's Tower - where the door was located.
English Heritage suggests that, with plenty of time at their disposal and "arguable artistic talent", soldiers may have made the woodcuts. They likely used knives or bayonets for this.
Napoleon declared himself emperor of France in 1804 and had a lasting influence on the country as a military leader and ruler, waging wars against many of the European powers of the time. After the defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he abdicated and was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821.
