?TIME CAPSULE: Here’s a closer look at the contents – which are three book, a cloth envelope and a coin. It appears there’s a printed page and photo stuck in the envelope. One of the books appears to be an almanac from 1875. @NBC12 pic.twitter.com/iu50fHEXUU
— Desiree Montilla NBC12 (@desmontilla) December 22, 2021
In the American city of Richmond, Virginia, employees of the Department of Historical Resources, together with Governor Ralph Northam, opened a time capsule in 1887.
The 134-year-old box was discovered in mid-December under the statue of General Robert E. Lee. It is reported that it took almost four hours to remove the box from the granite block.
The opening of the capsule itself also took almost five hours. The fact is that the lead box itself is of interest to historians, and therefore specialists had to very carefully clean off rust and mortar from it so as not to damage either the box itself or its contents.
Three books were found inside the time capsule, one of which was identified as a literary almanac of 1875. Also, a cloth envelope was found in the box, which may contain some kind of picture, and several coins. All the items in the box were wet, and therefore they were placed in the freezer for a while before specialists would be engaged in their restoration and study.
The found objects raise many questions among historians.
Experts believed that the time capsule was in a copper box, but the box found in the pedestal was made of lead. The size of the found box is also smaller than indicated in the archive records.
Documents from the Library of Virginia indicate that the box should have contained almost 60 items from more than 30 Richmond residents, businesses and organizations. Now historians have to answer the question of where the very first time capsule went, whether it was replaced with a new one with books or is still inside the pedestal.
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Ekaterina Gura