Crypt of Civilization
Thornwell Jacobs, the initiator of the project, was inspired by the opening of Egyptian pyramids and wanted to create a repository of everyday 1930s objects and a record of human knowledge over the preceding 6,000 years.
Thornwell Jacobs (1877–1956), President of Oglethorpe University from 1915 to 1944, is considered the father of modern time capsules by historian Paul Stephen Hudson.
He determined that while the ancient items found gave some degree of life events from thousands of years ago there were no complete and accurate records on any single generation of how people lived.
[2] Jacobs' vision was to make available to some civilization far in the future a kind of latter-day Egyptian style tomb of a complete cross section record of physical and visual items showing the life and traditions that people had developed to the time of the closing of the crypt.
Many items are stored in stainless steel holders, lined with glass and filled with an inert gas to prevent aging, a concept later carried over to the Westinghouse Time Capsules.
[17] Other artifacts deposited were seed samples, dental floss, a woman's purse with typical contents, some Artie Shaw records, an electric toaster, a pacifier, a bottle of Budweiser beer encapsulated in special material for preservation, a manual typewriter, an electronic radio, a store cash register, an office adding machine, and an electric sewing machine.
These microfilms contain more than 800 standard books of literature (over 600,000 pages), including the Christian Bible, the Quran, Homer's Song of Ilium, and Dante's Divine Comedy.
[24] The crypt contains voice recordings of leaders from the 1930s, including Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Benito Mussolini.
[10][11] Engraved steel panels of the Atlanta Journal newspaper showing reports from the first year of World War II, were also placed in the crypt.
[25] Peters also left behind a device of his innovation called a "Language Integrator", a modified Mutoscope that was a hand-operated movie projector with sound that would teach English to the future generation that came upon the crypt.
He pointed out that the world had been engaged in scientifically preserving the human civilization customs and culture for future generations, and in this crypt it had been presented to these people.
[11] Metal cards were sold to the public by the university for one dollar, which would permit a future descendant of the contributor to attend the reentering of the crypt at noon on Thursday, May 28, 8113.
[10] Notable figures present at the ceremony were Dr. Amos Ettinger, William B. Hartsfield, Dr. M. D. Collins, Ivan Allen, Jr., politician E. D. Rivers, postmaster James Farley and Pulitzer Prize winner Clark Howell.
[31] The Crypt of Civilization has been published or broadcast by the media since its inception, including the Associated Press, ABC, NBC, CNN, NPR, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and the New York Times newspaper.
[34] Peters observed that the fact of such a project designed for people that will not even be born for one hundred and eighty-six generations (6,177 years) is the built-in belief that the human race will still exist and that therefore there is a need for historical preservation.
He further shows that there is even a hint of reincarnation by the fact that newspaper reporter and historian Frank G. Menke asked the movie star singer Bing Crosby to be Master of Ceremonies at the opening of the crypt in 8113 CE.
