“It can be creative - a piece of writing, some artwork, music, possibly even something three-dimensional. The process is the important part, she says. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to invite the children to express what it is that gives meaning to their lives, what they might want to say to a child of their own age in the future.” “It doesn’t have to be dreary, dutiful and worthy,” she says. Sue Gill of Engineers of the Imagination, publishers of the excellent and entertaining The Dead Good Time Capsule Book, has worked on numerous time capsule and related events. This is why a time capsule is an excellent project for any community, and particularly a school. ![]() At least as important is the preparatory process of selection and reflection. ![]() The making of a time capsule is done only partly for the benefit of the openers. Unsurprisingly, the longer the capsule is intended to last, the more complicated the preservation arrangements have to be - 50 years might be plastic pop bottle country, but 100 years is not, and beyond that you need expert help. Then in 1940 came what must still be a seminal project: The Crypt of Civilisation was a swimming-pool-sized room filled with hundreds of thousands of objects and letters, ceremonially sealed behind a welded steel door until 8113 (which is supposed to be as far from 1940 as 1940 is from the first recorded historical date.) The Crypt is at Oglethorpe University in Georgia, which is now the headquarters of the International Time Capsule Society. Where did it start, this burning desire to be remembered and recognised in this way? After the Egyptians and the pyramids, more modern versions of the concept were the messages left under foundation stones, often as part of Masonic ritual. Britain’s Millennium Time Capsule Project is an ambitious plan to house thousands of individual capsules, to be opened in 200 years. In Fiji, a one-kilometre-long Millennium Wall will house thousands of messages in steel tubes. Blue Peter’s Millennium Dome capsule will be buried at the Dome in digital form, for 50 years, and the United States time capsule monument has room for thousands of personal items. Convinced that in the future, people will be enthralled by our Bay City Rollers scarves and old Budweiser cans, we are flocking to buy cheap time capsules on the high street - and more expensive ones by mail order. The objects in Tutankhamen’s tomb were not for us, they were for the boy king to use in another, better, life. ![]() Why should anyone in a hundred or a thousand years’ time be remotely interested in our wedding photographs and football programmes? The Ancient Egyptians - time encapsulators par excellence - harboured no such illusions. Gerald Haigh ponders the importance of leaving a legacy for future generations, and looks at the options for the preservation ritual
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