One of the first-printed copies of the Declaration of Independence that was read aloud by Korean activists during a major independence movement against Japan’s colonial rule a century ago has reportedly been discovered in Japan. 

The Asahi Shimbun said on Tuesday that a copy of the independence declaration was kept by a 67-year-old former teacher in the Nagasaki Prefecture.

The man, identified by his surname Sato, had a grandfather who ran a pottery shop in Pyongyang when the March First Independence Movement took place in 1919. 

His grandfather was presumed to have lived close to a school where the declaration was made and secretly kept a copy of it without Japanese authorities knowing. 

Asahi sought to confirm the copy’s authenticity by quoting a South Korean researcher as saying it shares the characters of other original copies found earlier, including the misspelling of Korea’s then name, Joseon, as Seonjo. 

Around 21-thousand first-printed copies were presumed to have been made in Seoul and distributed across the country leading up to the independence movement. The second printing corrected the country’s name.