n an early spring day in March, I drove 800 miles, from Brooklyn to Atlanta, to see a room I knew I could never enter. In the basement of Oglethorpe University's Phoebe Hearst Hall lies a locked room—20 feet long, 10 feet wide and 10 feet high—that's been closed for more than 80 years. The Crypt of Civilization, as it's known, was sealed on May 28, 1940, and inside are artifacts—Artie Shaw records, a plastic Donald Duck, and a bottle of Budweiser, among myriad other items—that attempt to tell the history of human civilization. Hundreds of books on microfilm—on law and history, botany and ornithology, the Boy Scouts and Freemasonry—lie in stainless steel tubes. There are voice recordings of Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, and a champion hog caller, along with a device designed to teach the English language to future societies. They may very well need it: if all goes according to plan, the
