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Atlanta Time Capsule Due To Open 8113 A.D.
By Mike McLeod

If you could take just one trip in a time machine to any date in the past and bring back one thing with you, what would it be? Being a fan of science fiction, I have daydreamed about this question from time to time. Would I go back to 1804 and bring back a silver dollar from the Dexter/Dunham collection that sold in the past for $1.84 million? Maybe I should get an original Tiffany lamp, a Honus Wagner tobacco baseball card, or one of the printed copies of the Declaration of Independence?

Until a modern H.G. Wells invents a time machine, we are left to collect for the future now rather than retrieve items from the past.

Of course, the question that all collectors face is, what should I do with my collection? Most end up selling or giving it away. Others, such as the Egyptian pharaohs, tried to take it with them. Some people bury part of their collectionsin time capsules.

Time capsules are growing in popularity, particularly with the recent turn of the millennium. Families, churches, businesses, colleges, Girl Scout troops and even TV soap operas have buried them. CBS' The Young and the Restless buried one in 1998 with cast photos, scripts, a scriptwriter's typewriter ball, theme song sheet music, and a list of fan club members.

Perhaps one of the most audacious time capsules was sealed on May 28, 1940 and is scheduled to be opened on May 28, 8113. Dr. Thornwell Jacobs, then president of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, converted an underground swimming pool on campus into a time capsule to preserve the accumulated knowledge of man. He also wanted to present to those future folk a snapshot of the everyday life and the customs of the day. He christened his project the "Crypt of Civilization."

Dr. Jacobs' chose the date of 8113 A.D. because he wanted the contents of his time capsule to document the progress of mankind at its midpoint in recorded history. Using 4241 B.C. (when the Egyptian calendar was established) as the first fixed date in history, he calculated that 6,177 years have passed from then to his day. He added those 6,177 years to 1936 and arrived at the grand opening date of 8113 A.D.

The Crypt is listed in the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records as, "The first successful attempt to bury a record of this culture for any future inhabitants ...."

The Crypt measures 20 feet long, 10 feet high and 10 feet wide. To make it capable of surviving many millennia, the walls were lined with vitreous porcelain enamel embedded with pitch. The floor is made of stone two feet thick, and the Crypt rests on granite bedrock. Sealing the Crypt is a stainless steel door welded shut.

Accumulating the knowledge of man up to that point in history was a daunting task. The contents include the heights of science (800 reference and textbooks were microfilmed) and literature (the Bible, the Koran, Dante's Inferno, Gone With The Wind-the book and an original script from David O. Selznick). Just in case the people of 8113 don't speak English, Dr. Jacobs also left them a nickelodeon-like machine, a "language integrator," to teach them our language.

"The inspiration for the language integrator was the Rosetta stone, the key for understanding the Egyptian pyramids," explained Paul Hudson. "The integrator is entirely hand powered. It has cartoon instructions. It has a language called 'Basic English' based on 1500 key words in the English language which were used in cryptographic codes in World War I."

Hudson is Registrar and Lecturer in History at Oglethorpe and a co-founder of the International Time Capsule Society, which is also headquartered on campus. He accidentally happened upon the vault door of the Crypt in the 1970s when he was a student. Today, he is an expert on time capsules and could be considered the Crypt's custodian-for the time being.n of knowledge.

"I get 12 to 15 calls a day right now concerning inquiries into time capsules from all around the world."

Of course, the contents of the Crypt are of most interest to collectors. The list spans thousands of items, from the common to the one-of-a-kind. Dr. Jacobs focused mostly on preserving the great literature of the day and common everyday items. Some of those typical 1930s items in the Crypt are:

Budweiser beer (in a specially-sealed container), plastic ash tray, vanity makeup mirror with light, plastic savings bank, cigarette holder & lighter, aluminum foil, electric iron, plastic drinking glass holder, Schick Electric Razor, dress patterns, pencils, slide rule (with instructions), crayons, plastic ruler, corks, soap, hair pins and hair net, costume jewelry, ladies' stockings, razor, blades, shaving brush, lipstick, rouge, eyelash curler, hair curlers, tooth brush & floss, tweezers, artificial finger nails, artificial eyelashes, playing cards, combs, shoe laces, dice, thimble & needles, fish hooks & June bug spinner, pocket knife, Vaseline, plastic salt and pepper shaker set, golf ball, and a couple of thousand other things.

Other than educational films-such as how to deliver a baby with forceps-no movies are in the Crypt. Obviously, there were some great movies before 1936-King Kong, Charlie Chaplin's movies, Rudolf Valentino's, and so on. But movies were either overlooked or deemed unworthy to preserve. (Too bad Dr. Jacobs chose to only include items and information up to the year 1936. If he had waited until 1939, he could have included these movies that premiered that year: Beau Geste; Gone With The Wind; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Of Mice and Men; Stagecoach; The Wizard of Oz; and Wuthering Heights.)

Newsreels, views of great cities, sports, and films of great men and women of the world were included. Voice recordings of political leaders such as Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Roosevelt are in the Crypt, as are the dulcet sounds of Popeye the Sailor and a champion hog caller. (It seems Dr. Jacobs must have had a wry sense of humor.)

If electricity is a thing of the past in the future, a small generator operated by a windmill was included to power microreaders and projectors.

Like an Egyptian tomb, the walls of the Crypt feature hieroglyphic-like drawings that portray the progression of knowledge up to 1936. One graphic represents the evolution of the use of light from fire to lanterns to the electric light bulb and lastly, neon lights, which were very popular in the 1930s.

Another graphic represents the field of communication. The symbols move from two people talking to tom-toms, the telegraph and then ends with a radio signal tower.

The symbols for all these graphics were drawn by George Carlson, the same artist who created the art for the original Gone With The Wind dust jacket.

Some classic collectibles are also stored in the Crypt. In addition to the GWTW book and script, there are several toys, including: a Greyhound bus (valued today at $125-$150), Lincoln Logs ($65-$100), a Negro doll ($300-$400), a pinball game ($200-$225), a plastic Donald Duck toy ($500-$600)1, a Kodak camera ($10-$50), a 1940 Royal typewriter, a Burroughs adding machine, and a White sewing machine.

"The Crypt door itself, with its Art Deco style, is now a piece of industrial art," elaborated Paul Hudson. "Many items in the Crypt are plastic, tensile, formica, Bakelite, etc. There was a real fascination with plastic in the 1930s when the Crypt was underway. Steve Schmidt, one of our alumni ('40) who was a football player, remembered putting something in the Crypt-a Dumont Receiver, it was called. It was a prototype for what would later be called a 'television set'."

We may not understand or agree with Dr. Jacobs' selections for the Crypt of Civilization, but we must applaud his effort and foresight.