In the year 8113

February 23, 2006 12:59 PM

An ambitious time capsule.In the basement of Phoebe Hearst Hall at Oglethorpe University in Georgia, there is a stainless steel vault door which was welded shut over sixty five years ago. Behind this door lies a 20' x 10' waterproofed room containing a menagerie of once-modern artifacts and microfilm records, placed there by men and women in the years between 1937 and 1940. If their goal is realized, the contents of this vault will remain unseen and undisturbed for the next 6,107 years. Official site, pictures, and inventory. (link lovingly pilfered from another filter)
posted by caddis (42 comments total)

what a completely RANDOM assortment of stuff. it was like they said, "hey what ya got in your pocket?"
posted by ShawnString at 1:04 PM on February 23, 2006

Random? No so much, I'd say. There's something sad about the inventory list. All those...uh...products. Is that really what people wanted to communicate about their world?
posted by 327.ca at 1:06 PM on February 23, 2006

yea, i guess if we were to do the same sort of thing it would look just as random.

now that is not to say it is a very cool thing none the less.
posted by ShawnString at 1:08 PM on February 23, 2006

Funny. The inventory reads like a list of things found on the dusty shelves of practically any North Georgia antique/junk store.

Still, quite awesome. And located right here in town.
posted by grabbingsand at 1:08 PM on February 23, 2006

327.ca: Products tell the most about us. What anthropologically informative objects can you think of that tell a lot about your society that are not products or literary works?
posted by delmoi at 1:09 PM on February 23, 2006

I think Locke found that room during the first season.
posted by LordSludge at 1:16 PM on February 23, 2006

I buried a time capsule in my back yard 30 years ago, shortly before we moved elsewhere. I can't remember what was in it. I wonder if it's still there?
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:17 PM on February 23, 2006

Products tell the most about us. What anthropologically informative objects can you think of that tell a lot about your society that are not products or literary works?

OK. By "products", I mean carefully noted items such as "1 Emerson radio", "1 Gen-A-Lite flashlight", "1 Schick Electric Razor", etc. Even now, a bit short of the 6,107 years they're aiming for, these items don't reveal that much more than the state of technology and manufacturing in the late 30's.

To be fair, there are items included that would be more revealing -- works of fiction, motion pictures of historic events, and so on. I guess my idea of a time capsule should be an answer to questions like "Who were these people? What was their world like? What were their hopes and dreams? What did they want to say to people of the future?"

I take your point, though. Most of what we know about the past is derived from products and art, the "stuff" that remains through accident or good luck. The difference in my mind is that a time capsule is supposedly a deliberate attempt to communicate with the future.
posted by 327.ca at 1:20 PM on February 23, 2006

When robot Geraldo opens this in the future, all that will be left will be a few broken bottles.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:23 PM on February 23, 2006

Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
posted by Fat Guy at 1:23 PM on February 23, 2006

If they wanted to show the true spirit of our age, they should have booby-trapped the door.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:25 PM on February 23, 2006

Drifting through the inventory, it sounds like one could have a pretty good time in there. Well, they might need more beer.

"1 Masonic deposit" makes me think of phrases like "The End of an Era of Constipation".
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:26 PM on February 23, 2006

Ach, Fat Guy beat me to it.
And with style.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:26 PM on February 23, 2006

Makes me want to make a time capsule. But there isn't really anything I can think to put in it. Every damn time capsule has a newpaper and other crap. A Rosetta Disk would be cool, but I don't have a spare $25,000 with me, and if I did, I wouldn't spend it on a globe to seal up in a can.

Maybe that could be my time capsule - and sealed container which upon opening, contains only a note saying "I had a good time in Vegas with the stuff I was going to put in here".

It would communicate the spirit of the age :-)


so... any ideas? What can you put in a time capsule that Doesn't Suck^[TM]?
posted by -harlequin- at 1:43 PM on February 23, 2006

They ought to have put a well sealed bottle of whiskey in there to go with the shotglasses. Is there any time limit to the life of liquor?
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:45 PM on February 23, 2006

Of to put it another way, if you were opening a time capsule, what would be something Incredibly Cool to find?
posted by -harlequin- at 1:46 PM on February 23, 2006

Is that really what people wanted to communicate about their world?

No, not just that: "On microfilm are classics in the arts and sciences totaling over 640,000 pages." Assuming the microfilm survives, the objects are tangible supplements to that microfilmed knowledge of how we lived.

A real radio in mint condition, an undamaged television tube, "1 Negro doll" (!), "1 lady's breast form" (?), some mint Artie Shaw records -- all of this stuff will be fantastic to find on 28 May 8113, assuming future upheavals haven't detroyed it by then.

Countries ought to bury a national time capsule every year. Set aside some space in a mountain for a few thousand of these things.
posted by pracowity at 1:47 PM on February 23, 2006

1 container of beer (about one quart)
Only one beer? thats just cruel, I mean they'll get a taste and want more, I am hoping they included a recipe as well.
/considers the market value for 6000 year old scotch.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 1:47 PM on February 23, 2006

Cool. I wonder who got to write the curse.
posted by washburn at 1:49 PM on February 23, 2006

327.ca: OK. By "products", I mean carefully noted items such as "1 Emerson radio", "1 Gen-A-Lite flashlight", "1 Schick Electric Razor", etc. Even now, a bit short of the 6,107 years they're aiming for, these items don't reveal that much more than the state of technology and manufacturing in the late 30's.

Well, I'd disagree here. Radio is critically important because it enabled oral and musical culture to be transmitted on a global scale. And even today, radio is still the most important form of communication in nations with low literacy. The electric light also had a revolutionary impact on the economics of manufacturing. The electric razor and the radio points to the fact that electric power had become common enough to justify the mass production of consumer products. And of course, the widespread use of plastics and synthetics would be important.

I suspect a part of this may have been influenced by the King Tut discovery as well. Although the gold and jewelry gets most of the attention, the most important treasure was the large collection of wood, bronze and ceramic daily ephemera.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:54 PM on February 23, 2006

How totally bitchin' it would it be to be the one who comes across this in a few thousand years?
posted by fenriq at 2:01 PM on February 23, 2006

I don't know that my list would be much different. Some of the things I'd probably include:

* A men's and women's razor.
* Sealed samples of textiles.
* Models of the solar system, DNA and the periodic table.
* A set of Barbie dolls.
* A few video games and console hardware, along with schematics for repairing the hardware.
* Samples of U.S. currency.
* Contemporary firearms with ammunition.
* A scooter or motorcycle, with samples of the fluids needed to run it, along with a set of matchbox cars.
* A representative set of pots and pans, and cooking utensils.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:06 PM on February 23, 2006

the market value for 6000 year old scotch.

Well, unlike wine, scotch doesn't age in the bottle.

Though I'm guessing in 6000 years scotch might change a bit, or cease to exist, in which case: "a lot"
posted by flaterik at 2:08 PM on February 23, 2006

Products are pretty important. Always have been. Consider the King Tut stuff that this was meant to emulate. Most of the real artistry done at a pyramid's site was actually not done by slaves, but by craftsmen and independent contractors. The Egyptian relics were commercial products, with custom made stuff for the ultra-wealthy, and more common things for the masses. The same for the great rennaisance painters: most of their works were produced as the result of a commercial contract between the artist and a wealthy patron. The kinds of products made tell us a lot. Let's say that someone in the future finds our products. They can see that they are machine produced, and probably widely available. That tells them that there was an affluent middle class that bought consumer goods, and that mass production was common. The brand logos imply the presence of marketing and advertising. And so on and so forth. Government documents may tell us a lot about countries, but we find out a lot about the people in those countries through the products that they bought and consumed.
posted by unreason at 2:14 PM on February 23, 2006

They should have put a Seven-Up Bar in there. But who would ever have expected that such an excellent candy would go out of business?

And a Dr. Nut soda!
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:22 PM on February 23, 2006

Where's the record player? I don't see it listed.
Aside from that, in 1937 the word was PLASTICS, all new forms of plastics seem to be included on the list. So today we would include a variety of microchips, but the rest of the list looks like a yard sale.
posted by Gungho at 2:28 PM on February 23, 2006

They forgot the Pharoh's mummy with a golden mask, encased in a stone sarcophagus.
posted by crunchland at 2:40 PM on February 23, 2006

Too bad that in 8,000 years, English will be a dead language and that Georgia will be under 100 feet of water. :(
posted by JJ86 at 2:50 PM on February 23, 2006

I feel so sorry for the people of the future, when they're spending years and years of research trying to figure out the meaning of all the random pieces of plastic and samples of formica left behind in "what looks like a sacrificial tomb"...
posted by easternblot at 2:50 PM on February 23, 2006

I've been renovating my house and have picked up some old newspapers in quite readable condition from underneath the lino. Quite cool. As I've sealed certain places up, I've chucked a few photos and current newspapers into the cavities, for the enjoyment of future renovators.

I hope my house isn't renovated by a bulldozer.
posted by wilful at 2:54 PM on February 23, 2006

Where's the record player? I don't see it listed.

Exactly. and a generator to run it too.

We'll be remembered by our plastic junk (and probably not our digital junk), so this list seems pretty good. Will anything made of paper last for 6000 years at all? Even archival paper isn't supposed to last that long.

I definitely would have put in many oral histories tho--from surviving Civil War and WW1 vets, and other regular people who lived thru the past's recent and not-so-recent events.
posted by amberglow at 3:36 PM on February 23, 2006

Cool FPP caddis, thank you. It's poignant to think of a group of objects representing "every salient feature of present day civilization for the people of the future".

327.ca I liked and agreed with your thoughts about " a time capsule is supposedly a deliberate attempt to communicate with the future" and for that reason to include more about "Who were these people? What was their world like? What were their hopes and dreams? What did they want to say to people of the future?"

It seems as if all the things included in the time capsule would be hard to decifer on their own: inventions without a more 3-dimensional human context.

amberglow, I agree with you about the importance of including of oral histories.

In 1986 at Federal Hall in NYC I participated in the creation of a time capsule celebrating the bicentennial of the United States Constitution the following year. Each person there read a line and the video recording was put into a time capsule.
posted by nickyskye at 4:52 PM on February 23, 2006

very cool, nicky... did you see/hear the StoryCorps thing in Grand Central (and all over)?

That's what i'd love to see---a ton of oral histories, and only objects directly associated with or mentioned in those stories.
posted by amberglow at 5:43 PM on February 23, 2006

Too bad that in 8,000 years, English will be a dead language and that Georgia will be under 100 feet of water. :(
posted by JJ86

do you really think sea level will rise by more than 300 meters in the next 6000 years?
posted by Megafly at 6:09 PM on February 23, 2006

My ex brother-in-law is a "high wire" or "height" worker... not sure what you'd call it in English, but he uses ropes to rappel off of / climb up tall inaccessible stuff to do maintenance work.

Anyways, he is on the crew of the Wawel Castle in Krakow, maintaining the roofing, clocks, spires, anything up high and inaccessible.

And in that trade there is a traditional time-capsule game they play with their predecessors and successors. When, every 50 or 60 years, it is time to pull down the big bronze ball on the top of a fancy spire, the crew gets a nice haul of 50 or 60 year old set of maps, newspapers, etc, from the guys who were there last time.

They do their painting / cleaning / whatever, take the old, and leave current ephemera for the next guys who will be there in 2050.

I was always so unimpressed that he just wanted to sell the stuff, but whatever.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:32 PM on February 23, 2006

amberglow, thanks for the great link. I had no idea about StoryCorps and it's a marvelous idea. I do love oral histories, which is why blogs can be mesmerizing. Did you read the FPP here, the Waiter Rant blog?

Meatbomb, what an interesting story about that Wawel Castle time capsule and a pity the ex just wanted to sell the stuff -the treasure really-, didn't get the beauty of it.
posted by nickyskye at 7:40 PM on February 23, 2006

Id there any chance that when they open it they'll find Brendan Fraser?
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:45 PM on February 23, 2006

Hello my baby,
Hello my honey,
Hello my ragtime gal...
posted by cenoxo at 9:11 PM on February 23, 2006

Among the items in the wonderfully-named Crypt of Civilization:

1 glass jar containing 1 hair bow, 1 gem razor, 1 package blades, 1 shaving brush, 2 powder puffs, 2 compacts, 3 samples powder, 1 eyebrow brush, 3 lipsticks, 1 hair remover, 1 toothbrush, 1 rouge, 1 nail brush, 1 ivory stick, 1 pair manicure scissors, 1 eyelash curler, 5 hair curlers, 1 package dental floss, 1 pair tweezers ... 1 set artificial finger nails, 1 set artificial eyelashes ... 1 lady's breast form

Uh-huh.
posted by rob511 at 9:57 PM on February 23, 2006

Somebody should break into the vault and replace all the items with false or misleading artifacts. It would be a brilliant legacy.
posted by gsb at 10:53 PM on February 23, 2006

excellent, cenoxo!
posted by Space Kitty at 12:24 AM on February 24, 2006

excellent idea, gsb, and it would end up telling future people more about us than a straightforward one would. (just a pile of Bush's orwellspeak documents and policies, alongside a pile of actual facts would work too)
posted by amberglow at 8:38 AM on February 24, 2006