Time capsule
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- For the fictional time-travelling vehicle, see time travel
A time capsule is a historic cache of goods and/or information, usually intended as a method of communication with people in the future. Time capsules are sometimes created and buried with much hoopla during celebrations such as a World Fair, cornerstone laying for a building or other event. They can also be unintended caches such as at Pompeii. The phrase "time capsule" has been in use since about 1937, but the idea is as old as the earliest human civilizations in Mesopotamia.
They can generally be classified into four types. Intentional and unintentional (such as Pompeii), and those scheduled for retrieval on a certain date (often 10, 100, or 1,000 years later), and those not.
The concept of time capsules is not recent, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, humanity's earliest literary work, it began with instructions on how to find a box of copper inside a foundation stone in the great walls of Uruk, and in the box was Gilgamesh's tale, written on a lapis tablet. There were other time capsules 5,000 years ago as vaults of artifacts hidden inside the walls of Mesopotamian cities.
In 1937, during preparations for the 1939 New York World's Fair, someone suggested burying a "time bomb" for 5,000 years, a more discreet name of "time capsule" was suggested, and the name has stuck since. The Crypt of Civilization (1936) at Oglethorpe University, scheduled to be opened in 8113, is generally regarded to be the first successful implementation of a modern time capsule.
Currently, two time capsules are "buried" in space. The Voyager Golden Record has been attached to two spacecraft for the benefit of spacefarers in the distant future. A third time capsule, the KEO satellite, will be launched in 2006, carrying individual messages from Earth's inhabitants addressed to earthlings around the year 52,000, when Keo will return to Earth.
According to time capsule historian William Jarvis, most intentional time capsules usually do not provide much useful historical information. They are typically filled with "useless junk", new and pristine in condition, that tells little about the people of the time. By comparison, Pompeii contains a wealth of material about daily life, such as graffiti on walls, food in hearths and the remains of people trapped under volcanic ash.
Many buried time capsules are lost, as interest in them fades and the exact location is forgotten, or are destroyed within a few years by groundwater.
The International Time Capsule Society was created to maintain a global database of all existing time capsules.
References
- William Jarvis (2002). Time Capsules: A Cultural History. ISBN 0786412615
External link
- Capturing Time: The New York Times Capsule; an American Museum of Natural History exhibition (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/timescapsule/)it:Capsula del tempo