BGuthrie Photos: DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt

DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[1] CRYPT_111228_02.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[2] CRYPT_111228_14.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] CRYPT_111228_19.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[4] CRYPT_111228_21.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[5] CRYPT_111228_26.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[6] CRYPT_111228_32.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[7] CRYPT_111228_37.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[8] CRYPT_111228_46.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[9] CRYPT_111228_54.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[10] CRYPT_111228_60.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[11] CRYPT_111228_62.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[12] CRYPT_111228_67.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. CRYPT_111228_46.JPG: Magna Carta Replica and Display The Magna Carta display in the Crypt of the United States Capitol features a replica of the English document whose principles underlie much of the Constitution of the United States. Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter") was sealed by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor Castle, on June 15, 1215, after the king was forced by his barons to agree to the charter's contents. Dissatisfied with the king's capricious rule, the noblemen had united to limit his powers. Magna Carta forbade arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, established the rights to a fair trial and to security of property, and guaranteed that the nation's government was itself subject to the same laws as its subjects. In succeeding years, the document provided a written foundation upon which many individual rights and liberties were developed and elaborated. The English colonists who settled in North America were well aware of these rights and liberties, and abuses by King George III finally resulted in the American Declaration of Independence. That document and, later, the Constitution were in many ways influenced by the basic principles of Magna Carta. During June and July of 1215, 13 known copies of Magna Carta were written by hand in Medieval Latin on parchment and distributed throughout England. Only four survive: one at Lincoln Cathedral, one at Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Library. The text in the United States Capitol's Crypt display is that of one of the British Library copies. Because this copy, known as the Wyems copy, is marked with additions and corrections that are incorporated in the text of the other known copies, it is recognized as the earliest extant. The display pedestal in the Crypt consists of Yorkshire sandstone surmounted by a block of pegmatite, a rare three-billion-year-old volcanic stone from the Outer Hebrides. On this rests a presentation case made of stainless steel in the form of a hinged, flat box clad in gold and white enamel. The gold panel inside the lower section of the case holds raised gold text duplicating that of Magna Carta; gold replicas of King John's seal are at the left of the document. On the glass center divider are gold incised letters forming the English translation of Magna Carta. The other half of the case holds a gold plate engraved with symbolic designs depicting the sun and the moon, Adam and Eve, a crab with eyes of black pearls, a dragon with emerald eyes, and a dove of peace with sapphire eyes. The small diamonds in the hair of Eve are stars; the pearls are raindrops. Above the dove and between her wings are 50 diamonds, representing the 50 states. The three-dimensional figures assembled over the engraved plate are intended to suggest a 12th-century version of a 13th-century illuminated manuscript. At the base are the four rivers of paradise, from which springs the tree of life. The snake represents evil; the ivy, protection. The apples are the forbidden fruit, and the mistletoe represents family affection and loyalty. The blossoms on the tree branches are the Tudor Rose of England -- white flowers for the house of York and red for the house of Lancaster. The combined red and white flowers signify the resolution of conflict. Other symbolic plants include the shamrock for Ireland, thistles for Scotland, and daffodils for Wales. The oak, for Britain, grows into the Royal Coat of Arms, with the lion and the unicorn composed of gold and silver and set with precious gems. The entire display was made in England by the artist Louis Osman, who had also crafted the crown for the investiture of Prince Charles. The display was presented to the United States as a gift from the British government to celebrate the bicentennial of American independence. Representatives of the British Parliament and the United States Congress formalized the gift at a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on June 3, 1976. For the next year, the original Wyems copy of Magna Carta was displayed in the case atop the gold replica; it was returned to England on June 13, 1977. The placement of the display in the Rotunda was authorized by concurrent resolution.
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AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2017_DC_Capitol_C: DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt (18 photos from 2017)
- 2016_DC_Capitol_C: DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt (28 photos from 2016)
- 2014_DC_Capitol_C: DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt (16 photos from 2014)
- 2013_DC_Capitol_C: DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt (32 photos from 2013)
- 2008_DC_Capitol_C: DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt (18 photos from 2008)
- 2007_DC_Capitol_C: DC -- U.S. Capitol (interior) -- Crypt (7 photos from 2007)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Capitols] [US Capitol (Everything)] [US Capitol (Non-Events)] [US Capitol Complex]
2011 photos: Trips this year: Civil War Trust conferences (Savannah, GA, Chattanooga, TN), New Jersey over Memorial Day for my birthday (people never seem to visit New Jersey -- it's always just a pit stop on the way to New York. I thought I might as well spend a few days there. Despite some nice places, it still ended up a pit stop for me -- New York City was infinitely more interesting), my 6th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco). Ego strokes: Author photos that I took were used on two book jackets this year: Jason Emerson's book "The Dark Days of Abraham Lincoln's Widow As Revealed by Her Own Letters" and Dennis L. Noble's "The U.S. Coast Guard's War on Human Smuggling." I also had a photo of Jason Stelter published in the Washington Examiner and a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. Equipment this year: I mostly used the Fuji S100fs camera as well as two Nikon models -- the D90 and the new D7000. Mostly a toy, I also purchased a Fuji Real 3-D W3 camera, to try out 3-D photographs. I found it interesting although I don't see any real use for 3-D stills now. Given that many of the photos from the 1860s were in 3-D (including some of the more famous Civil War shots), it's odd to see it coming back. Number of photos taken this year: just over 390,000.
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Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].