By KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

MORE than  50 items –– including photos commemorating historical events, banknotes and coins, Androsia fabric, cowbells, cell phones, and a copy of the Bahamian constitution –– will be wrapped in conservation material, stored in a capsule and buried until 2049, when they will be unsealed during the Diamond Jubilee Independence Celebration.

As the country prepares to mark the 51st anniversary of independence next week, the National Independence Secretariat designated today as “national time capsule packing day,” according to secretariat chair Leslia Miller-Brice.

She said Family Island administrators and people from New Providence formed time capsule committees to gather items of historical value that show who Bahamians were before and during the past 50 years.

She said the time capsule initiative is one of the secretariat’s signature events.

The Smithsonian Institute, the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, and this country’s experts at the Department of Archives and the Antiquities, Monuments & Museum Corporation (AMMC) suggested various items for the capsule, including geographical and demographic information on The Bahamas; funeral and other special event programmes; stamps, maps, and photographs; copies of letters, awards, or certificates; lyrics to popular songs; and memorabilia from the 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations.

AMMC director Dr Christopher Curry discussed the significance of items expected to be packed in the capsule, such as an interview with Matilda “Millie” Rolle-Robinson of Yellow Elder, the oldest known Bahamian at 109. He said the interview was important “if you want to capture what life was like at this moment in our country.”

Prime Minister Philip Davis and some students wrapped items yesterday at the Office of the Prime Minister. Mr Davis suggested that if he participated in the initiative as a child, he would have included marbles or a spinning top.

“We’ve lost all of that. We’ve lost a lot of those things, as history will tell you, there’s much about the ancient civilization of Africa where civilisation emanated from that we’ve lost today because there’s no mechanism to continue to connect the past with the future,” he said.

“If that happened, we would know how to build a pyramid. We’d have the plans and the designs to build a pyramid, so this effort, I think, is very important.”

The Tribune understands that a time capsule will be buried in each district in The Bahamas.