PHOTOS: 128-year-old time capsule from atop the Salt Lake LDS Temple opened

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The Angel Moroni statue, that has been perched atop the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 128 years, was guarding something in the 3,800-pound granite sphere beneath his feet: a time capsule.

Thanks to the four-year temple restoration project -- stone masons, just like the ones who sealed the time capsule on April 6, 1892 -- recently opened that sphere to discover what's inside. You can see photos in our gallery above or by clicking here.

Unfortunately, most of the items suffered major damage because they were surrounded by cement inside various cavities inside the sphere.

Emiline Twitchell, a conservator at the Church History Library, explains:

Concrete will sweat and leach and get hot as it’s curing. And the books essentially were sponges to all of this process that the cement is doing. And so they just leached in all of that moisture and sat for decades and decades and decades.”

Coins, medallions, and a copper plate found inside, however, are in good condition.

Items were placed in various cavities in the north, west, east, and south portions of the large sphere capsule. This newspaper article from the April 7, 1892 edition of the Salt Lake Herald-Republican details most of what was inside the capsule.

The newspaper's report says that 30,000 people were gathered near the temple with another 10,000 packing nearby streets to watch the finishing piece placed atop the temple after 39 years of construction.

Church president Russell M. Nelson says:

“We did not expect to find much because we knew that the contents of the capstone had not been insulated from the weather during the 128 years that had elapsed. But we wanted to be there anyway, just to be close and to pay tribute to the leaders and courageous pioneer craftsman who against all odds built this magnificent temple.”

In the east and south cavities of the capsule, conservation teams found 12 books, seven of which have been identified:

1. Parley P. Pratt’s A Voice of Warning
2. Parley P. Pratt’s Key to the Science of Theology
3. A copy of the Book of Mormon (probably an 1880s or 1890s edition)
4. The Pearl of Great Price (a part of the Church’s scriptural canon since 1880)
5. The Martyrs: A Sketch of the Lives and a Full Account of the Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith
6. The Holy Bible
7. Letters exchanged between Latter-day Saint theologian Orson Spencer and the Reverend William Cromwell

According to newspaper reports from 1892, photographs of early church leaders were placed inside, however the photos are no longer visible because of 128 years worth of damage.

The Salt Lake Herald Republican report also says that just before the capstone was placed, every man on the platform tossed in a coin onto the bed of cement. Most of those coins were well preserved.

Twitchell says:

One of the really delightful things was finding coins that had been engraved. We have some coins that had been ground down on one side so that a person’s name could be engraved. We have dimes, we have one penny and we have a couple of nickels that were engraved. Some of them appear to have been done professionally and some of them [look] like someone just scratched their name onto a nickel.”

The team of preservationists are still working to identify and preserve the materials found inside, and there are still questions about how to best preserve each item. A news release says: "For example, do they risk damaging the copper plate by cleaning it and restoring it to the way it looked in 1892? Or do they leave it as is to maintain its connection to being encased in the capstone?"

It's unclear if the materials will ever be put on public display due to their fragility, but that option is still open.

Unlike the fanfare surrounding the capstone's placement in 1892 -- just a small team was present for its opening.

Historic Sites Curator with the Church History Department Emily Utt says:

The few people that got to open the capstone and time capsule are just as everyday as the people that are tossing coins in. The stonemasons working on the building today that opened it are stonemasons just like the folks in the 1890s, using the same kinds of tools, doing the same kind of work. I think that’s really cool.”