A minor mystery has been on the internet since 2013, and it revolves around the above image. This photograph, attributed to M. Peterka ca. 1940, seems to lack all provenance. One day an image of a man (or woman) kneeling in front of a giant book simply appeared. Though the image is often said to have come from the Archives of Prague Castle, the Librarian Shenanigans blog has chatted with the head archivist there who claims it is not from their archives.

To put the book’s size in context, it is not out of the realm of possibility that it exists. The Codex Gigas,”Giant Book” in English, from the 12th century is 36 inches tall, 30 inches wide when shut, and 8.7 inches thick. It weighs 165 pounds. The book in the mysterious Peterka image doesn’t appear to be quite that large, but it is odd that so many books in the image are “books of size”. Large books are fairly rare.

The mystery of a photo showing a woman with a giant book is solved. The caption says “The archives are preparing a large spring exhibition of the Czechoslovak state idea at Prague Castle.” The picture was taken by Miroslav Peterka, at the Clementinum, Prague, and published in 1959 in Fotorok magazine / Photo: Antikvariát Brno

Alternately, the photo could simply be the result of photoshop. I am distinctly not an expert in the software, but the image’s shadows look odd, and this could very well be a composite image of 2-4 other photos. The photo manipulation theory is furthered by the fact that this image looks like it could belong in an archive, but if it had been digitized, the librarians certainly would have put out more information on it. (They really like providing background data, those librarians.)

So what do you all think? Is this a lost image that the internet has rediscovered? Or is it simply a clever use of modern technology? The romantic in me likes to think that the image came from a secret society and that the large books hold all answers to all of the world’s enigmas. The realist in me, however, has seen enough photoshopped images of cats in space to wonder.