VILNIUS - The world-famous Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg has notified Vilnius University that it has three sceptors that resemble the one Lithuania has been searching for and has requested a detailed description of the relic.
At the start of this year, the VU dispatched to the Hermitage a description of the university chancellor's scepter based on a description made by the librarian of the Vilnius Academy of Medicine and Surgery Adam Benedikt Jocher in 1842. It is the only precise description of the scepter left.
Lithuanian historians claim that the scepter is at the Hermitage, a fact that Russia has continuously denied.
Vilnius University Chancellor Benediktas Juodka said he thought the letter meant the Hermitage was acknowledging it had the scepter. "I am interpreting this reply as the acceptance that they have the scepter. The Hermitage would not send any correspondence unless they have the scepter. This letter leads us to assume that the Hermitage now recognizes that one of the three scepters they have previously mentioned having and have described as looking like the one that belongs to us, is actually the scepter of the Vilnius University," Juodka said.
