Birch bark letter no. 292

The birch bark letter given the document number 292 is the oldest known document in any Finnic language. The document is dated to the beginning of the 13th century. It was found in 1957 by a Soviet expedition led by Artemiy Artsikhovsky in the Nerevsky excavation on the left coast side of Novgorod.^[1] It is currently held at the Novgorod City Museum.

The language used in the document is thought to be an archaic form of Livvi-Karelian, the language spoken in Olonets Karelia,^[2] although the exact form is difficult to determine, as Finnic dialects were still developing during that period.