Memorable World History/Authors

The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

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 by 15 cm or 12 by 6 in), but sometimes considerably larger. They contain some variation of 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. Articles about the tiles began appearing in the mid-1990s, though references may have started to appear in the mid-1980s.

History

Toynbee tiles were first photographed in the late 1980s, and their first known reference in the media came in 1994 in The Baltimore Sun. A 1983 letter to The Philadelphia Inquirer referenced a Philadelphia-based campaign with themes similar to those mentioned in the tiles (e.g., resurrecting the dead on Jupiter, Stanley Kubrick, and Arnold J. Toynbee) but did not refer to tiles.

In the United States, tiles have officially been sighted as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far north as Boston, Massachusetts, and as far south as Washington, D.C. Since 2002, very few new tiles considered to be the work of the original artist have appeared outside of the immediate Philadelphia area, although one notable sighting appeared in suburban Connecticut in 2006 and one appeared in Edison, New Jersey in 2007. Presumed copycat tiles have been spotted in Noblesville, Indiana, Buffalo, New York, and on the West Coast, including San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon; and Roswell, New Mexico. Additional tiles were spotted in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2013 and Detroit, Michigan in 1997. Many older tiles considered to be the work of the original tiler have been eroded by traffic, but as of 2011 older tiles remain in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; St. Louis, Missouri; Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; and South America, among other locations.

On June 19, 2013, tiles resembling the Toynbee tiles appeared on a street in Topeka, Kansas. They were removed by the evening of the next day. Less than a month later, on July 17, 2013, a tile resembling the Toynbee tiles appeared on a street in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Newer tiles have been embedded on several major highways, including Interstate 476 in Delaware County, and on Interstate 95. About six more were found on U.S. 1 northbound starting in Drexel Hill in Delaware County in 2007 and 2008. The plates are much larger than the originals and have red italic writing on them.

Interpretations

In a documentary film about the tiles, Justin Duerr assumes that "Toynbee" refers to the 20th century British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, and that "Kubrick's 2001" is a reference to the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film co-written and directed by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, about a manned mission to Jupiter. The toynbee.net website speculates that Toynbee refers to Ray Bradbury's short story "The Toynbee Convector".

The majority of tiles contain text similar to that above, although a second set is often found nearby. Several of these allude to a mass conspiracy between the press (including newspaper magnate John S. Knight of Knight-Ridder), the U.S. government, the USSR (including tiles seemingly made years after the Soviet Union's dissolution), and "hellion Jews".