It is a find that rekindles the hopes of discovering a photo of Abraham Lincoln eagerly awaited by collectors. A time capsule was found on Monday, December 27, in the base of a statue of a Confederate general unbolted in September in Richmond, in the US state of Virginia.
“They found her! “, tweeted Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a week after the opening of a first capsule which had disappointed the experts. “It’s probably the time capsule that everyone was looking for”, added the Democrat, enclosing photos of a rectangular metal box about thirty centimeters long. The governor said the box would not be opened on Monday, with experts wanting to examine it first.
The contents of the box will be unveiled on Tuesday at 1 p.m. (local time, 7 p.m. in Paris), he added later, explaining that the capsule had been x-rayed. “Experts believe there might be Civil War coins, books, badges and even ammunition there.”, he tweeted.
X-rays give a first look inside the time capsule: Experts believe there may be coins, books, buttons, and even ammu… https://t.co/nzGqY5NIqY
A time capsule is a receptacle containing objects or documents representative of an era, intended for future generations. It was found under the plinth of the imposing equestrian statue of General Robert Lee – leader of the Confederate army which notably defended slavery during the Civil War (1861-1865) -, inaugurated in 1890 in Richmond, l former capital of the secessionists. Seen as a symbol of the country’s slavery past by many Americans, the statue was debunked in September, against a backdrop of questioning of Confederate monuments.
Finding a Photo of Abraham Lincoln
Once the statue was taken down, experts began a search in its plinth for a mysterious time capsule placed there in 1887, which was believed to contain Civil War relics, such as buttons or bullets, Confederate currency, a Bible, but especially a photo showing President Abraham Lincoln in his coffin, a photograph presented as a “Historical bomb”, likely to panic the collectors market.
A first box had been exhumed and then carefully opened by Mr. Northam, but it contained only three books and a cloth envelope with a photograph, all damaged by 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. One of the works was a guide for astronomers and navigators dating from 1875; another seemed to have been published in 1889, two years after the supposed burial of the capsule, suggesting that another such receptacle could be found under the plinth.
General Lee’s statue in Richmond had become the target of anti-racist protests since the May 2020 death of George Floyd, an African-American asphyxiated under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the rise of the Black Lives movement. Matter (“black lives matter”).
During the Civil War, the Confederate South fought for the maintenance of slavery, which was abolished during the conflict in the rest of the country.
