Memory of Mankind

Memory of Mankind (MOM) is a preservation project funded in 2012 by Martin Kunze. The main goal is to preserve the knowledge about present human civilization from oblivion and collective amnesia. Information is printed on ceramic tablets, then stored in the salt mine of Hallstatt, Austria. More than a simple archive project, it aims to create the "time capsule of our era", letting people participate by allowing them to submit texts and images. In contrast to national archives, content for MOM is collected by anyone who takes part. It is a collective, "bottom-up" told history. The project was started by ceramicist Martin Kunze. His earliest experience with a time capsule was in the early 1980s, when, as a 13-year-old, he buried a bottle at the beach with a message containing his name and phone number. Thirty years later, someone found it. Circa 2008, Kunze read Alan Weisman's non-fiction work The World Without Us, which included the observation that ceramic objects had the greatest chance to survive into the future. This, coupled with the knowledge that the Internet already contributes 2% of CO2 emissions, led Kunze to think about a ceramic time capsule. Part of the inspiration came from an art project by a classmate, who had written "feminine experiences" on ceramic tablets. In 2012, the Memory of Mankind started with the first tablet, with a greeting to future finders, an explanation about the project, and a date expressed in terms of astronomical events. By 2018, the project had over 500 tablets. Claudia Theune, archaeologist from University of Vienna, was one of the earliest supporters. Thomas Grill, sound artist and researcher, developed how to represent sound in the archive. Several motivations underlie the project. The primary ambition of MOM is to preserve an image of our era, created by numerous participants all over the planet. MOM will also contain information which our society is obliged to forward to the future, e.g. descriptions of nuclear waste repositories. MOM collaborates with the NEA and SKB.