SYDNEY — A few clippings of hair apparently taken from Napoleon Bonaparte on his deathbed have been found in Sydney’s Town Hall after the 130-year-old building cleaned out its vaults.

The tiny swatch of light-brown hairs had been stored in the building’s archives along with a letter, but nobody knows when, why or how they were received.

Margaret Betteridge, curator of an exhibition of the uncovered curios, said on Thursday she could not be sure the hair belonged to the deposed French emperor, but that the accompanying letter made a good case. More mysterious is how the hair ended up in Sydney.