Crypt of Civilization

To give some idea of how long this is supposed to last, 8113 AD is 6102 years in the future. The oldest buildings on the planet are all a good bit less old than 6102 years - they typically start at a maximum of about 3500 BC.<p>I would suspect that the biggest danger facing such a time capsule is that it is broken into during some time of societal collapse - a sealed strong room is going to look very tempting. For that reason I would suspect that comparable projects in remote locations stand a much better chance of long-term survival:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault</a><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now</a>

I always wonder how future civilizations will interpret time capsules like this. "And here, children, we have the primitives sacrificing their possessions to their god 'Kap-sool', ruler of time"

It was just at the start of the microfilm boom, so they used microfilm. The quoted lifetime is 500 years, accelerated ageing tests indicate 1000 years. So the books probably wont be readable. The Egyptians did better with papyrus and ink.

Stick a computer on the moon, put a mirror of the Web on it, and let it serve queries over shortwave radio. Then all a fallen civilisation has to do is re-discover radio, to get access to the world's knowledge.

I always like how these are scheduled to be opened at a specific date. If we remember thousands of years from now what the original plan was, we'll probably have records of what was kept inside. If we forget, it won't be opened on schedule.

I was expecting a clever system of pictographs or landscape design to lead future generations to the vault. This:<p>&#62; <i>We depend upon the laws of the county of DeKalb, the State of Georgia, and the government of the United States and their heirs, assigns, and successors, and upon the sense of sportsmanship of posterity for the continued preservation of this vault until the year 8113, at which time we direct that it shall be opened by authorities representing the above governmental agencies and the administration of Oglethorpe University. Until that time we beg of all persons that this door and the contents of the crypt within may remain inviolate.</i><p>represents a very unrealistic expectation.

Should be Crypt of Western or American-defined Civilization, honestly. I always look at these things expecting something more comprehensive, only to find the same narrow slice of human civilization as a whole.

As an alumni of Oglethorpe University, I would bet I'm the only one that reads HN (Anyone Else?).<p>You pass by the steal doors of the Crypt on the way to the Book Store. It was my observation that students didn't really care about the Crypt itself, but that in order to build it they had to gut the indoor pool.<p>70+ years later they still don't have a pool nor offer any Computer Science / Computer Engineering classes.

A bit incidental, but would there be any risk of a sealed time capsule delivering viruses/bacteria to the future?

Only 6000 years? Well, that's nothing next to the Chauvet Cave ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave</a> ), where they found 35000 years old paintings...<p>This is actually a weird coincidence to see this on HN tonight, since I watched "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams" ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams</a> ) <i>this evening</i>. Having two hours to spend in Paris before a rendezvous, and seeing the great critics, I thought "Hey, I'm not usually into art / paintings / museums, but let's give this a try...".<p>The documentary was fascinating. The paintings look so fresh, it's as if they were done yesterday... But they are 30k - 35k years old. This really puts things into perspective...<p>It's hard to explain, but the effect was kind of similar to watching a Sagan video ( <a href="http://saganseries.com/" rel="nofollow">http://saganseries.com/</a> ). Instead of marveling at the size of the universe when compared to our tiny planet, I was marveling at how short the recorded history is when compared to the thousand of years of prehistory. I knew about this theoretically, but it never really hit home before...

don't forget the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record</a>