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(This article originally appeared on January 9, 2005 in the Wall Street Journal)
History capsule awaits year 8113
by Cynthia Crossen
With the passing of another year, only 6,108 years remain until our descendants
can open the time capsule known as the Crypt of Civilization.Sealed in 1940
on the campus of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, the crypt, which was
originally a swimming pool, contains a record of human endeavor from the
beginning of recorded history.
The contents include, among thousands of items, copies of the Bible, Koran
and Dante's Inferno, a recording of Donald Duck's voice, a fly swatter,
artificial eyelashes, a toilet brush and a specially sealed bottle of Budweiser
beer.
Today, a mere 65 years after the stainless-steel door was welded in place,
the crypt's inventory seems comically outdated: no computers, cellphones, credit
cards, prescription drugs or fast-food menus.
At the current rate of social and technological change, when the crypt is
opened in 8113, humans will be astonished at how primitive the lives of
20th-century Americans were.
People long have deposited cultural memorabilia as messages to the future,
often choosing building foundations and cornerstones as burial sites. Also, the
tombs of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, such as King Tutankhamen, were unintended
repositories of knowledge for future generations.
The discovery in 1922 of King Tut's well-stocked tomb planted the seed for
the Crypt of Civilization in the head of an American clergyman and educator,
Thornwell Jacobs.
Fortunately, Jacobs was president of Oglethorpe, so he had a handy, and
watertight, site at hand. The challenge was daunting: How could he portray,
preserve and store a comprehensive history of humanity from 4241 B.C., when the
Egyptian calendar was established, to 1936.
Despite the substantial size of the repository, only a finite number of items
would fit. Paper and plastic deteriorate in a matter of decades, let alone
millenniums.
Most challenging of all was how to make sure 82nd-century humans knew a time
capsule was buried on Peachtree Road in Atlanta.
The final inventory, all donated, is wonderfully eclectic, if somewhat
quaint. Two phonograph records (remember them?) of bird songs and six of a 1930s
big-band leader, Richard Himber, are in there. So is a transcript of a speech by
King Gustav of Sweden.
Four berets, three lipsticks, two packages of rickrack (remember that?) and one
grapefruit corer join more than 640,000 pages of microfilm, an original script
of the movie Gone With the Wind and a set of Lincoln Logs.
To discourage thieves, a scourge of the time-capsule industry, Jacobs entombed
no gold, silver or jewels.
Another odd item in the crypt is a silent-film re-enactment by Oglethorpe
students of vignettes from world history.
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