Spanish capital to place time capsule under statue of Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes

Spanish capital plans time capsule for Quixote

MADRID — Workers stumbled a month ago across a metal box filled with 200-year-old books, documents and mementos while digging beneath a Madrid statue of “Don Quixote” author Miguel de Cervantes. Now the Spanish capital wants to plant a new time capsule from today.

The new capsule will contain objects associated with present-day Madrid or with Cervantes, who penned his two-volume masterpiece in the early 17th century.

“The goal is to bring the people of Madrid closer to the region’s rich cultural heritage,” said Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, the Madrid regional government’s patrimony director.

The region will ask people online for suggestions on what the new time capsule should contain, he said, and will place it beneath the 1834 statue where the old one was found by construction crews working on the downtown avenue outside Parliament.

The tightly sealed, lead box contained five copies of “Don Quixote de la Mancha” published in 1819, a newspaper from 1834 wrapped around a calendar, travel guides and a manuscript covered in cloth.

Other goodies in the capsule: a book on a Spanish guerrilla who fought Napoleanic rule in the 19th century, and pictures of Queen Isabel II as a little girl and of a wealthy patron who helped pay for the statue.

There are still some mysteries, too, as historians studying the trove have yet to open a small number of packages from the box, Martinez-Almeida said.

The artifacts were in remarkably good condition, having been treated with a chemical that apparently kept bugs from eating them. They will placed on exhibit this year.

The Cervantes statue was the first Madrid erected to honor someone who was not royalty or a member of the government or military.