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A real live Toynbee Tile right here in SF!

Posted Jun 26, 2015 at 5:40 pm by
Categories: Art

Local hero the Fog Bender spotted it this afternoon near Church and Market and “nearly shit [his] damned pants.”

If you’re not familiar, the Wikipedia entry on the Toynbee Tiles phenomenon is helpful. Here’s some of it:

The Toynbee tiles (also called Toynbee plaques) are messages of unknown origin found embedded in asphalt of streets in about two dozen major cities in the United States and four South American cities. Since the 1980s, several hundred tiles have been discovered. They are generally about the size of an American license plate (roughly 30 cm by 15 cm), but sometimes considerably larger. They contain some variation on the following inscription:

TOYNBEE IDEA
IN MOViE `2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER

Some of the more elaborate tiles also feature cryptic political statements or exhort readers to create and install similar tiles of their own. The material used for making the tiles was initially unknown, but evidence has emerged that they may be primarily made of layers of linoleum and asphalt crack-filling compound.

[via The Fog Bender on Instagram]

5 comments

5 Responses to “A real live Toynbee Tile right here in SF!”

  1. Spencer says:
    June 27, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    Does it read:
    HOUSE OF HADES
    ONE MAN VERSUS
    AMERICAN MEDIA
    IN SOCIETY 2015
    YOU DESERVE THE OPPRESSION… ?

  2. Doctor Memory says:
    June 28, 2015 at 3:13 pm

    Sorry to say, but the House of Hades guy is different from the Toynbee Tiler:

    https://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu/kendallwhitehouse/toynbee-tiles-recent-developments-and-mysteries-anew/

    Also if you find the Toynbee tiles fascinating, you should really rent “Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles”, which is available on netflix, amazon and itunes.

  3. gmh says:
    June 29, 2015 at 9:39 am

    There are a couple more that appeared a few of months ago. One on Van Ness at Market and one at 6th and Market.

    Here’s the Van Ness one, still covered in tarpaper.
    https://instagram.com/p/02_U4dR-Wm/?taken-by=gmhgmh

    And after it became visible:
    https://instagram.com/p/1lmRRLx-VT/?taken-by=gmhgmh

  4. emilie says:
    July 1, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    I want to meet a guy named Art. I’d take him to a museum, hang him on the wall, criticize him, and leave.

  5. Oyster Boy says:
    June 29, 2015 at 5:29 am

    Is this an ad?