I've been reading articles and watching documentaries about archaeology, and when I was a librarian, I also looked into creating a time capsule. This all sparked the question behind today's post: what would you want to have buried with you, specifically to tell a story about yourself?
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We know we can't take anything with us to the afterlife, this is a message which may one day be found by strangers. Whatever it is, it would need to withstand time. A casket isn't a time capsule, so paper is a poor choice. Textiles and leather are much more durable. Steel may rust, but can also survive for centuries. Coins are an easy idea, and modern cupro-nickel alloys won't inspire grave robbers like silver or gold would. Glass and ceramics are arguably the most durable materials in common usage, so perhaps that might spark a thought. Anything plastic could last almost indefinitely, depending on its type, and if protected from ultraviolet light.
Technology might seem tempting at first, but even a USB thumb drive can quickly become corrupted over time, so old-fashioned magnetic tape would be better for data archiving. What if your history on HIVE were saved as a reel of tape? Then again, maybe not.
Comment with a few items you think might tell your story to an archeologist in 500, 1000, or even 5,000 years? Assuming humanity survives that long, of course.
I'll go first with a few ideas:
My Leatherman multi-tool. It's made from stainless steel, so it should be quite durable. Imagine an archaeologist trying to discern the purposes of its various parts!
A single American Silver Eagle bullion coin, mainly as a marker of time. Silver needs sulphur to tarnish, so it should also last a long time. I also prefer depicting Lady Liberty to dead presidents.
The tin dwarf miniature I painted as my first Dungeons & Dragons model, despite the chance it may be mistaken as a religious talisman of some kind. It's a thing I played a small part in creating.
I don't know what would communicate my religious and philosophical ideas across the ages. Languages become forgotten, and even modern English could vanish despite its current dominance. How would you preserve an echo of something so ephemeral? Then again, for those of us who are Christians, we store our real treasures in heaven according to how we live, so perhaps this whole question isn't important. But it seems like the kind of discussion to have over a few beers in a pub anyway, so I open the floor to you.
What a really cool concept. I'd really struggle to think of something - everything I love would rot or disappear - salt water and gum leaves, earth and sky. But perhaps the stone ammonite my husband and I found on a beach on the first day we met. I literally cannot think of one other thing I'd care to be buried with.
A fossil sounds like a great memento, and it would show future archaeologists that you had an interest in rocks, minerals, fossils, and the like.
It feels like a good, heavy, earthy thing to hold in my rotting palms...
One of my favorite toys as a child was a Happy Apple. Nine years ago, when my blockchain blogging journey began, I wrote a short post about it.
Given that, I think it would be appropriate to be buried with my Happy Apple. It says basically everything I would want said to any future archaeologist studying history. What a fascinating question! I had to think about this one for a little while (and I love your idea of people trying to figure out what the hell a Leatherman tool was used for, before hopefully coming up with, "Ah, he used this for basically everything!"). LOL!
I, too, had one of those. My niece now plays with it.
You could always do a cross that was made out of silver or something like that. Then you have the metal and the symbol of religion. I might do something like that. Probably one of my disc golf discs and maybe a vinyl record, plus some charcoal because I love to grill, also for the smell!
Maybe a brass plate etched with instructions like the Voyager probes showing how to play the record, too?
Perhaps!
A couple of years ago I read a great sci-fi book... one of the characters needed to leave msg that she knew would not be read for millions of years. She carved the msg in stone.
It was read millions of years into the future, the rocks buried deeply in the soil.
With all the tech they had at their disposal, carving a rock was the only thing that made sense.
I'm not the type of guy to be hanging around in pubs. I been to a few in the past but never had it felt like a setting I would want to be in even it was elegant.
I'm going to break away a little about the question of the day here and explain why that makes no sense to me.
For one, I am not my body. I don't get buried but my body sure does. I am released and free to go where I please or return from whence we truly came, maybe. Or if the rumors are true, my soul to be recaptured and brought back to this prison of the reincarnation cycle doomed to "figure it out" all over again and memories wiped out from the start. Personally I would not care what gets buried after I am gone nor care if I get buried at all. I do however know what will truly die and that is the ego, character, personality and the human body. So if I am to be buried those would be the most definiteness of things that will get buried and if the people who bury me to be so kind, then they would bury with some dignity and have me not be entirely naked.
Thank you.
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STOPI would like to take my cooking pots and pans.
Just a favorite skillet, or an entire set? In ancient times, an iron cooking pot signified great wealth in some cultures.
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