1858 Greek antiquities book returned to Australian library 150 years late

Kiama Library has taken back an 1858 copy of Antiquities of Athens, returned about 150 years after it was borrowed. The volume surfaced during home renovations in Kiama, New South Wales, when a homeowner found it inside a tea crate bricked into a sealed fireplace, and the book showed water damage from years trapped inside the wall.

Library manager Michelle Hudson said the library had no way to track down the original borrower, closing the book on a mystery that had lasted more than a century. Using the library’s listed rate of three pence per week, the overdue charge worked out to about A$28,000, or US$19,500, after inflation. Library staff waived the fine when the man who found the book brought it back last week.

The returned volume is an architectural work by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, two figures known for documenting Greek antiquities. A video description from ABC News Australia said the book still carried old library rules inside its pages, including one barring anyone intoxicated from borrowing books.

One social post said the battered volume would be moved into the library’s special collection, a fitting resting place for a book that spent decades hidden in a fireplace. The case also underscores how local libraries preserve material history in ways that often go unnoticed until a renovation, a demolition, or a chance opening in a wall brings a lost item back into the light. In this case, a seaside town library regained a rare survival from the 19th century, even if the borrower who carried it out never came back to claim it.