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Mystery Tiles From Around the World

Posted by Hemos on from the where-do-they-come-from dept.

puppetman writes "The Kansas City Star has an interesting story about Toynbee Tiles. They show up embedded in streets, and can be found in the US (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Aberdeen, Edgewood, Washington, etc), Chile, Argentina and Brazil. They are made of "epoxy or super hard plastic that's actually inlaid in the asphalt itself." The tiles invariably state, "Toynbee Ideas in Kubrick's 2001 Resurrect Dead On Planet Jupiter". Sometimes there are secondary tiles that request people make more while others are of a more paranoid slant. Toynbee was a religious historian who believed that "well-being of a civilization depends on its ability to respond successfully to challenges, human and environmental". There is even a Ray Bradbury book, The Toynbee Convector. Toynbee.net has a link to a Usenet posting where someone ask's Kubrick's daughter if the man himself knew of the tiles. To date, the origin of the tiles are a mystery. Any /.'ers able to provide the location of additional tiles, or perhaps clues for solving the mystery?"

5 of 466 comments (clear)

  1. Google cache of text by Phil+John · · Score: 5, Informative

    Slashdotted, some images in a google cache further down, here's the text though.

    Google Cache

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    I am NaN
  2. I walk by one everyday! by iCharles · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's in front of my office here in Cincinnati. In fact, the local alternative weekly ran an artical a few years ago.

    Creepy.

  3. thang by sixdotoh · · Score: 5, Informative
    after a quick google search on toynbee tiles conspiracy (with only 2 pages of resulting material) i found this site which has some assortment of comments and information (way back from march 26, 2002).

    funny thing: most of the sites that are linked to from this page seem to have ... dissapeared.

    http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/15831

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  4. an image here... by Noctilux · · Score: 5, Informative

    Again, I rarely have anything to contribute (hey, I'm an artist) to /., but I've seen these things before. This particular one is at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 40th Street in Manhattan.

    Toynbee Tile here

  5. googling reveals more interesting leads... by blue_adept · · Score: 5, Informative

    A little googling reveals that couple a years ago one journalist tracked possible responsibility for the tiles down to one "verna sevrino", who he was ultimately unable to contact, even though he had an address in philadelphia.

    google turns up a funeral home in philadelphia called "verna sevrino funeral home", hmmm what might a funeral home have to do with resurrecting people on mars?

    more googling turns up philadelphia councilwoman Anna C. Verna, who is married to " husband, Severino Verna, a funeral director, were born and raised in South Philadelphia.".

    And finally, everything you ever wanted to know about Anna C Verna is here I, for one, welcome our new neptune resurrectionist overlord.

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