Crypt of Civilization

The Crypt of Civilization ( Crypt of Civilization ) is a special airtight room at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia. It contains items from the first half of the 20th century, which are for the civilization of the year 8113, the scheduled opening date, preserved. The 1990 version of the Guinness Book of World Records called the crypt as the first successful attempt to bury a record of that culture for any future inhabitants or visitors of the planet Earth.

Thornwell Jacobs (1877-1956), also known as the "father of the modern time capsule ," the first person who had the idea to consciously preserve artifacts for posterity, by being stowed in sealed container. The inspiration for the idea through the openings of the Egyptian pyramids and tombs in the 1920s, he was also surprised at the scarcity of historical information about these ancient civilizations.

Jacobs wanted to create a " continuous history" of the manners and customs of mankind up to the pop culture of the 1930s. He wanted to keep much of the accumulated knowledge of mankind to modern times alive, instead much of it to lose, as happened with the ancient civilizations. This idea came to him in 1936 exactly 6177 years after the invention of the Egyptian calendar in 4241 BC

Therefore, he then suggested the date 8113 for the opening of the crypt, which was based on this number. Most historians agreed that the establishment of the Egyptian calendar in the year 4241 BC occurred the first recorded date in history. Jacobs wanted to deliver the historians of the distant future with the Crypt a clear picture of the center of human history.

Jacobs idea of the Crypt of Civilization fascinated America and has been copied by others. Mid-1930s was George Edward Pendray, a PR manager of the Westinghouse Electrical Company, commissioned by the President to organize a promotional event for the New York World's Fair 1939. Pendray, who was also an admirer of rocketry, had the idea to dig up a deep hole in the ground and a "time capsule " to sink, which should take the form of a rocket. The container was made ​​of a special metal alloy called bimetallic. The Westinghouse time capsule was a 2 -meter-long rocket- shaped cylinder, within which was an inner cylinder made of Plexiglas. Pendrays project was originally called a "time bomb ", but later renamed the time capsule.

Construction

The preparations and the construction of the crypt began 1937. The crypt in the basement of Oglethorpe University and is the former swimming pool of the university. The door of the 6x3m measured, water -tight chamber is made ​​of stainless steel. The floor was raised with concrete and provided with a moisture barrier. The National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC advised the construction. It recommended that the storage in sealed containers made ​​of stainless steel and glass. The containers were filled with the inert gas is nitrogen, the gas is to reduce the oxidation. On the door a plaque is mounted, stainless steel as well as the door.

The construction of the crypt was monitored by the inventor and photographer Thomas Kimmwood Peters, who was also appointed archivist of the crypt. The crypt was sealed in 1940.

Content

The crypt is filled with things of Western culture such as glasses, toaster, sewing machines and beer cans. It contains 640,000 pages on microfilm transmitted material, hundreds of newsreels and photographs, a set of Lincoln Logs, a Donald Duck doll and thousands of other items, many from the ordinary everyday life. There is also a guide to the English language. These things will help to provide future civilizations about the past.

After sealing

Since the seal in 1940 National media organizations control the crypt every ten years. In 1970, however, was almost forgotten. 1990, on the fiftieth anniversary of the sealing of the crypt of civilization, the International Time Capsule Society was founded at Oglethorpe University. It documents the variety of global time capsules.

The future of the crypt after a fictitious disappearance of mankind is treated resulted in 3 of the second season of the docu-fiction series Life After People ( " The Cradle of Civilization ", USA 2010).