Inside were ammunition, currency, newspapers and magazines, an Almanac, books, and Masonic lodge documents in the region.
Le Monde with AFP
Hallows dating from the American secession war, but no treasure: the time capsule buried for hundred and thirty-four under the base of the Confederate General Statue Robert Lee in Virginia unveiled his mysteries, Tuesday, December 28, to Richmond, without satisfying the hopes of American collectors.
Inside, the technicians of the State of Historical Resources of the State of Virginia have found a minized ball, (ammunition of the secession war between 1861 and 1865), tickets and coins issued by The Confederate Government, newspapers and journals, an Almanac dating from 1887, books, a Bible, and Masonic Loaders of the Region.
Two small wooden sculptures – the masonic symbols of the bracket and compass – and a confederate flag were in an envelope. According to the experts, the wood sculptures would have been cut into the tree that housed Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a Confederate General. A brand with the designed profile of General Lee was inserted in one of the books. The box also contained a fragment of a bomb used during the battle of Fredericksburg, won by the Southerners in 1862.
The most striking document remains a drawing representing a kneeling woman collecting in front of the Coffin of Abraham Lincoln, murdered on April 14, 1865. She had been published in dual central page in the magazine Harper’s Weekly two weeks later. The observers hoped, however, discover a photo of the American president presented as historical and could have distorted the collectors’ market.
“In much better state than what we expected”
The copper box of thirty centimeters underground in 1887 contained some 60 articles whose list had been published in a Richmond newspaper that year. Its content “is in much better state than what we expected,” said Kate Ridgeway, the head of the state of historical resources of the state of Virginia, gently opening the metal box. Objects “were wetter than we hoped, but not in so bad condition that they could have been,” she explained at the end of the intervention, which lasted more than two hours and was broadcast Live on television and social networks.
A temporal capsule is a receptacle containing objects or documents representative of an era, for future generations. It was found at the base of the imposing equestrian statue of General Robert Lee, head of the Confederate army who defended slavery during the Civil War. It had been inaugurated in 1890 in Richmond, the former capital of the secessionists.
View As a symbol of the country’s slavery of the country by many Americans, the statue had become the target of anti-racist demonstrations after the death of African American George Floyd, killed by a white policeman in May 2020. She was Unwinned in September, in a context of questioning Confederate monuments, and its base has been moved.
A first box had been exhumed recently from the pedestal, but it contained only three books and a fabric envelope with a photograph, all damaged by the water, as well as a coin of unknown origin. This capsule seems to have been placed in the base by workers who participated in the erection of the statue.