Are time capsules any use to historians? A recent find has reopened the debate, writes Conor Goodman.
It's not the first time we got into a flap over a time capsule, and it probably won't be the last. The discovery last week of a sealed lead cylinder inside a 1916 monument in Glasnevin cemetery sent the workmen who found it running for cover, had archivists rummaging for background data, and threw the media into a frenzy of speculation over what this exciting mystery casket might contain. An original 1916 Proclamation? The stolen Irish Crown Jewels? A bomb?
The tube would have been opened last Thursday, had the spoilsport archivists not gone and told us what was inside. They discovered references to the monument in the minutes of a cabinet meeting held on December 2nd, 1926. At the meeting it was decided that "the names of the persons who were executed or lost their lives in the fighting during Easter Week, 1916 be engrossed on parchment, encased in lead and placed in the monument".
The tube had been placed in a cavity in the statue in the 1920s, apparently not intended to be opened, and contained nothing more valuable than a list of names - albeit a rather august list. The fun over, the Office of Public Works decided to put the unopened tube back inside the monument.
A similar guessing game took place in 2001 after a granite case was found in the foundation stone of Nelson's Pillar. It turned out to be empty. Neither of these was a time capsule in the sense that we usually understand it: a box of objects carefully chosen to explain to future generations the era in which the capsule was created.
But if these two caskets shed little light on the past, they do suggest that previous generations weren't as fascinated by time capsules as we are today. Since 2003, at least three new capsules have been placed in locations around the country.
One, buried under the Millennium Spire in 2003 contains a pack of 20 Major, menus from Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud and Flanagan's of O'Connell Street, a copy of VIP magazine and an Irish Times property supplement. Another copy of The Irish Times will be found in a time capsule buried on the site of the State's Marine Institute in Oranmore, Co Galway when it is unearthed in 2104. And Derry's Apprentice Boys buried a capsule in the grounds of St Columb's Cathedral last year.
Why we go to all this trouble is a mystery in itself. Most historians view these "constructed time capsules" as archaeologically useless. Far more valuable in their eyes are "accidental time capsules", such as Pompeii or the Egyptian tombs. Dr Brian Durrans, a curator at the British Museum and a founder of the International Time Capsule Society, admits he "can't think of any" constructed time capsules that have turned out to be historically significant, but believes they serve a different purpose. "Very often time capsules seem superficial: people choose to bury a Barbie doll or the latest release by Britney Spears or whatever. But actually, they are about preserving the local and the immediate. They allow individuals to provide a vernacular, unofficial museum-ising of culture. They offer us an opportunity to reflect on the present more than to send a message into the future."
But if there are archaeological problems with time capsules, there are practical ones too, such as remembering where you left your capsule. The International Time Capsule Society keeps a record of known capsules around the world and the dates on which they should be opened. But it also has a list of time capsules which are known to exist, but whose exact whereabouts have been forgotten over the years. Included in the list are 17 time capsules dating back to the 1930s in the City of Corona, California. Much digging of concrete around the city's civic centre in 1986 failed to recover the capsules. More recently, remote sensing equipment and the services of a clairvoyant could not locate a set of items thought to have been built into the foundations of Britain's Blackpool Tower.
The society now advises all capsule creators not to bury their receptacles but to place them somewhere visible such as within a wall, to mark locations with a plaque, and to register them with the society. Even then, there may be preservation issues. Earlier this year, residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma dug up a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere car, which had been buried half a century ago. It was thought the vehicle would stand the test of time - as both a symbol of American industrial ingenuity and a style icon. They dug up a heap of rusted metal.
If I had to create a time capsule to represent modern Ireland, I would consider including - alongside the Viagra tablets, the M&S shopping bills and the cuttings of soon-to-be-extinct red hair - some of the hundreds of newspaper articles written about time capsules.
Alternatively, I could just take that unimpeachable authority on all aspects of our era, David McWilliams, seal him in a box and bury it - remembering to tell the society where I had put him, of course. He even has the red hair.