Breaking World Records The Burning of the Library of Alexandria The loss of the ancient world's single greatest archive of knowledge, the Library of Alexandria, has been lamented for ages. But how and why it was lost is still a mystery. The mystery exists not for lack of suspects but from an excess of them. Alexandria was founded in Egypt by Alexander the Great. His successor as Pharaoh, Ptolemy I Soter, founded the Museum (also called Museum of Alexandria, Greek Mouseion, “Seat of the Muses”) or Royal Library of Alexandria in 283 BC. The Museum was a shrine of the Muses modeled after the Lyceum of Aristotle in Athens. The Museum was a place of study which included lecture areas, gardens, a zoo, and shrines for each of the nine muses as well as the Library itself. It has been estimated that at one time the Library of Alexandria held over half a million documents from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India and many other nations. Over 100 scholars lived at the Museum full time to perform research, write, lecture or translate and copy documents. The library was so large it actually had another branch or "daughter" library at the Temple of Serapis. Read more: https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/burninglibrary-alexandria The Time When the House of Wisdom Was Drowned The story of how Mongols blackened the river Tigris by dumping an entire ancient library into it Also known as Khizanat-al-Hikma or the ‘Storehouse of Wisdom’, this great library in Bagdad was initially a private library that belonged to the Abbasid Caliphs in the late 8th century. Much later, during Al-Ma’mun’s reign, this personal library was opened to the general public to encourage educational activities. The manuscripts present in this place were derived or translated from other ancient texts available originally in other languages. The scholars worked on the preserved texts and furthered those works through more discoveries. Ancient works in Pahlavi, Syriac, Greek, and Sanskrit were translated into Arabic and documented. For hundreds of years, this place was known as the hub of educational research and intellectual center in humanities and sciences and remained unrivalled in the world. Scientists Finally Know What Stopped Mongol Hordes From Conquering Europe In 1206, Genghis Khan, a fierce tribal chieftain from northern Mongolia, began to take over the world. The khan's ruthless tactics and loyal horde swept across Asia. One territory after another fell under the overwhelming force of the Mongol Empire, which would eventually stretch from the eastern shores of China. A series of successful forays in Hungary and Poland made even Europe seem within reach of conquering. Find out more: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientistsfinally-know-what-stopped-mongol-hordes-from-conqueringeurope Discussion Topics: Discuss with your team: how does destroying a society's history impact it? What would happen in our own world if informationtracking resources like Wikipedia and TikTok suddenly vanished? A History of Tripitaka Koreana, the World's Greatest Collection of Buddhist Scriptures Situated on the stunning slopes of Gaya Mountain, Haeinsa Temple is home to the Tripitaka Koreana, the most complete collection of Buddhist texts, laws and treaties in existence today. We delve into the writings that have shaped the spiritual Engraved religion. on approximately 80,000 woodblocks, the Tripitaka has been used by scholars as the authority of Zen Buddhism since its creation and has shaped the religion for nearly 1,000 years. This relic of the past is uncharacteristic of Korean treasures, as it is an original rather than a replication, and has a history as interesting as the woodblocks themselves. Taking more than 70 years to create, the original Tripitaka was completed in 1087, but was destroyed in 1232 during a Mongol invasion. In the hope that Buddha might intervene and drive out the Mongolian invaders, King Gojong ordered the collection to be remade. From 1237 to 1248, the woodblocks were carved on Ganghwa Island, 30 miles west of the South Korean capital, Seoul. According to tradition, monks used wood from silver magnolias, white birches and cherry trees from the Southern coast of the peninsula. The wood was soaked in sea water for three years, then cut into individual blocks during the winter to prevent warping. Each piece was then boiled in salt water to prevent insect infestations and mould, and dried before being carved. The delicate carvings of the characters are incredibly consistent in form, as if they were the work of one person. In the early years of the Yi Dynasty, the Tripitaka was transferred to Haeinsa Temple, close to present-day Daegu. The buildings of Janggyeong Panjeon, dating back to the 15th century, were built specifically to house the blocks. As the most significant structures at Haeinsa, the depositories are positioned at a higher level than the hall that houses the temple’s primary Buddha. Built in the customary style of the early Joseon Dynasty, their design is distinguished by simple details, as well as its harmony of layout, size and balance. To protect the woodblocks from deterioration, the depositories were constructed to provide ventilation and moderate temperature and humidity. This incredible design has preserved the woodblocks for over 750 years from pests and extreme weather conditions. These exceptionally effective conservation methods, along with the buildings’ intriguing history, make the structure unique. So much so that the depositories and the Tripitaka woodblocks were declared a National Treasure of South Korea in 1962 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. In 2000, after nine long years of painstaking, costly research, the Tripitaka Koreana was put into electronic form. Work is currently underway to transfer the characters onto copper plates to ensure their preservation, and function as a back-up for the digitised version. In the meantime, Buddhist pilgrims, scholars, history buffs and art lovers will continue to flock to Haeinsa Temple to get a close look at the Tripitaka Koreana and the library that houses it for years to come. __________________________________________ If someone invites you to the opening of a time capsule from the year 1800, tell them it's a scam—the first time capsule, the "Century Safe", dates to 1876, and the term "time capsule" wasn't invented until the 1939 World's Fair. Research these early time capsules and what they contained, along with this much more recent Polish polar time capsule, then discuss with your team: what would you put in a time capsule if you were making one for scholars a hundred years from now? You may also want to look at the work of the International Time Capsule Society, which is trying to make sure no one forgets where all the time capsules are. (And there are apparently more than ever— why do you think that is?) America’s Oldest Known Time Capsule Was Made by Paul Revere and Samuel Adams The world’s first planned time capsule debuted in 1876, when New York magazine publisher Anna Deihm assembled a “Century Safe” at the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The iron box was stuffed with 19th century relics including a gold pen and inkstand, a book on temperance, a collection of Americans’ signatures, and snapshots of President Ulysses S. Grant and other politicians taken by photographer Mathew Brady. After being sealed in 1879, the purple velvet-lined safe was taken to the U.S. Capitol and eventually left to languish under the East Portico. Though nearly forgotten, it was later rediscovered, restored and unlocked on schedule in July 1976 during the nation’s bicentennial festivities. At a ceremony attended by President Gerald Ford, Senator Mike Mansfield said the opening had honored “the wish of a lady who sought to speak to us from the other side of a 100-year gulf.” 2. The Massachusetts State House Time Capsule The United States’ oldest known time capsule was the work of none other than Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. In late 2014, repairmen fixing a water leak at the Massachusetts State House uncovered a brass box that the two former Sons of Liberty had placed in a cornerstone to mark the building’s construction back in 1795. It had already been opened once in 1855 for cleaning and the addition of new artifacts, and historians were initially unsure if its contents had survived intact. When it was finally unsealed in 2015, however, it was found to contain a trove of preserved artifacts including newspapers, coins dating back to the 1600s, a page from the Massachusetts Colony Records and a copper medal with an image of “General of the American Army” George Washington. Most exciting of all was a silver plaque—most likely the work of Revere—that read, “This cornerstone of a building intended for the use of the legislative and executive branches of the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was laid by his Excellency Samuel Adams, Esquire, governor of the said Commonwealth.” 3. The Crypt of Civilization Most time capsules contain only a few trinkets or letters, but Oglethorpe University’s “Crypt of Civilization” represents an audacious attempt to preserve all of human knowledge for posterity. The project was the brainchild of the university’s president, Thornwell Jacobs, who believed it might serve as a valuable record for archaeologists in the distant future. underground Beginning 20-by-10 in 1937, he chamber in the converted an administration building into a museum of civilization filled with everything from 640,000 pages of microfilmed books and religious texts to an early television, a container of beer and a set of toy Lincoln Logs. The vault even features a special “language integrator” to help teach English to whoever might find it. The entire haul was welded off behind an airtight stainless steel door during a ceremony in May 1940. Jacobs decreed that it should remain closed for 6,177 years—the same amount of time that was then thought to have passed since the beginning of recorded history. The Crypt remains at Oglethorpe University to this day, and is now more than 75 years into its long journey to the year 8113 A.D. 4. The Westinghouse Time Capsules During the future-themed 1939 New York World’s Fair, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company entombed a torpedo-shaped cylinder inside a 50-foot-deep “Immortal Well” on the fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows. The cylinder was originally called a “time bomb,” but the name was changed after a Westinghouse publicist coined the now-famous term “time capsule.” Another capsule was placed nearby in 1965, and both are now scheduled for opening in the year 6939 A.D.— 5,000 years after the first one was buried. The items inside the two capsules include a collection of seeds, metals and textiles; microfilm and newsreels; and everyday items such as a Beatles record, a bikini, a pack of Camel cigarettes and a plastic child’s cup featuring Mickey Mouse. The 1939 capsule also featured a letter from physicist Albert Einstein, who praised the scientific progress of his age but also added that, “People living in different countries kill each other at irregular time intervals, so that also for this reason any one who thinks about the future must live in fear and terror.” 5. The Detroit Century Box Shortly after the clocks struck midnight on January 1, 1901, Mayor William C. Maybury sealed a copper time capsule at Detroit’s Old City Hall and proclaimed that it was not to be touched for 100 years. When Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer finally opened the “Century Box” in December 2000, it was found to contain several dozen letters to the future written by the city’s business and political leaders. Most of the missives included descriptions of the wonders of 1900 Detroit along with musings on what life in 21st century might be like. “How much faster are you traveling?” Maybury asked his future successor. “We talk by long distance telephone to the remotest cities in our own country…Are you talking with foreign lands and to the islands of the sea by the same method?” Other prognosticators were not so accurate. A few speculated that Canada would be annexed or that Ontario would become a U.S. state, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioners wrote that, “prisoners instead of being conveyed to the several police stations in Automobile patrol wagons will be sent through pneumatic tubes, flying machines, or some similar process.” 6. The Expo ’70 Time Capsule 1939 wasn’t the only year that a world’s fair included an ambitious time capsule project. For the 1970 Expo in Osaka, Japan, the electronics giant Panasonic constructed a kettleshaped capsule designed to remain unopened for 5,000 years. The main container was filled with a protective layer of inert argon gas to protect its contents, but the project leaders also built a second “control” capsule that will be periodically opened, inspected and cleaned to ensure its survival and help keep the project’s memory alive. The first opening already took place in 2000, and the rest will occur at intervals of 100 years. In total, each capsule contains a cargo of 2,098 culturally significant objects, many of them suggested by the public. If the two capsules endure until the planned opening date of 6970 A.D., their future owners will find an extensive collection of films, seeds and microorganisms as well as a ceremonial kimono, a Slinky and even the blackened fingernail of a survivor of the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing. 7. The Juneau Time Capsule Juneau, Alaska’s Federal Building includes an unusual attraction in the form a room-sized time capsule fitted with a plate glass observation window. First closed off in 1994, the 9-by-6 foot chamber is packed with thousands of pieces of memorabilia scrounged by locals as part of a citywide project. Many of the objects are everyday relics of the 90s—a Wonderbra, a Sony Walkman, a Barbie doll—but there are also old drivers licenses, family mementos and a box containing menus from all of Juneau’s restaurants. The vault also includes hundreds of letters written by schoolchildren to the students of the future. Copies of the notes were put on display several years later, but the originals will remain sealed off until New Years Eve 2094— the date when the capsule is scheduled to be opened after 100 years. “If you want to include me in your history book as the best fifth grader in the year 1994-1995,” one student wrote, “go ahead and do it.” 8. The Future Library Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s Future Library is a literary time capsule that will be a century in the making. Starting in 2014, a new author will be invited to submit a novel, poem or other written text to the project each year for 100 years. In 2114, the entire collection will be published all at once— no doubt posthumously for many of its contributors. A forest of 1,000 trees has already been planted outside Oslo, Norway to supply the paper for the printing. None of the entries will be available to read until the project is complete, however, and the writers are forbidden to reveal anything about their works other than the title. Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood submitted the first manuscript, called “Scribbler Moon,” in 2014, and British author David Mitchell provided the second the following year. Their manuscripts, along with 98 forthcoming titles from other writers, will be held in a public library in Oslo until their official unveiling in the 22nd century. Time capsule buried to preserve science for the ages On an Arctic island, researchers have buried a stainlesssteel tube stuffed with artefacts that they say sum up science and technology in 2017. The capsule, buried on 17 September, could remain in the ground for more than half a million years before it resurfaces as a result of geological uplift, sea-level rise and erosion. Placed five metres deep in an out-of-use borehole near the Polish Polar Station in Hornsund, Svalbard, the 60centimetre-long tube holds smaller containers with samples that include a fragment of a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite, basaltic lava from an Icelandic volcano eruption and Namibian sand hiding particles of kimberlite and diamonds — all geared at informing a future discoverer of our present understanding of Earth’s geology. To summarize biology, it includes dried DNA samples from humans, rats, salmon and potato, a bee in resin, seeds and around 300 tardigrades, the minuscule aquatic ‘water bears’ that can survive extreme radiation, drought and heat. And to communicate to future historians the state of today’s technology, scientists packed into the tube siliconbased electronic devices, including accelerometers, a radiation detector and a mobile phone. They added a credit card, a wristwatch and a photograph, etched into porcelain for longevity, of Earth taken from space. Researchers also left their fingerprints on the inside of some of the container caps. Polar anniversary The message in a bottle was created to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Poland’s polar station, which was set up during the International Geophysical Year 1957-58, a research project that included a series of global geophysical activities. “I wanted to create a memorial for the ages,” says Marek Lewandowski, a permafrost specialist with the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Geophysics in Warsaw, who selected the objects for the time capsule. Lewandowski, who thought up the idea in May, says that he consulted dozens of experts at Polish and foreign research institutes about the capsule’s inventory. The capsule is described in a manuscript published in the journal Gondwana Research1 on 28 September. It’s a bit of a balancing act between jocular and serious science,” Lewandowski says. “But I do think it’s a good way to capture what we know today about the natural history of our planet and the evolution of life on it.” The objects are nicely, if quirkily, chosen, says Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester, UK. “They have put together a thoughtful and ingenious message for the far future,” he says, “But the few things in the capsule will be a drop in the ocean among the huge diversity of ‘techno-fossils’ that humans will leave behind as geology.” Zalasiewicz adds that he thinks the capsule might resurface well before the half-a-million year estimate, because the chosen burial place is just a few metres above sea level, and marine erosion from sea-level changes are difficult to predict. It’s not the first time that humans have designed a time capsule for distant civilizations to unwrap and decode. The Voyager Golden Record — phonograph records (together with a cartridge and a needle) on board the two Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977 — contains 115 images, musical selections, natural soundscapes and spoken greetings to any extraterrestrials that might pick up the messages. But chances are slim that Voyager’s snapshot of twentiethcentury human culture, selected by a NASA committee, will ever be delivered and understood, says Lewandowski. “Our own time capsule is sure to be found one distant day, and its discoverers will be able to grasp the message,” he says. “If they look carefully inside — like we did into the Cheops pyramid and the tombs and artefacts inside it — they will understand who we were.”
