The artist, or whomever, places the tile in hot asphalt generally used to patch holes in the street. The journalist thinks he knows who is doing this, he tracks down a man who had some psychological issues, he was known for not having a passenger seat in his car so it was likely he would be placing these tiles from his vehicle which explains why no one was ever spotted actually doing it. It’s fascinating even without a definitive ending. If you have read this far you may want to check it out. It’s called “Resurrect the Dead” and can be found on YouTube. There is a brilliant documentary about a journalist that became obsessed with these tiles and tracking down the person who may be behind them. Some have even been spotted in other countries. Then some were spotted in Baltimore (which is where I have found all of the ones I have photographed), Richmond, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, DC and on. They seem to have started in Philadelphia. “What in the world is that thing?” In fact, signs point to these tiles being placed as early as the 1980s but it wasn’t until the internet became a thing that allowed people to share photos, ideas and explore oddities that the history began to cement itself into the consciousness of the inhabitants of these cities. And even then you watch it five more times and forget to notice. Or a commercial you’ve seen a thousand times and finally de termine to figure out what they are selling. Like the word salad at the end of spam emails. Then one day you stop, it catches your attention, you’ve seen the words but never really read them together. The tiles are the kind of thing you could walk over every day of your life for decades and not notice. The more elaborate tiles contain various messages regarding conspiracy theories, cryptic political statements, and accusations against journalist and government agents following the writer of such messages, The generally contain some variation on this inscription: (from Wikipedia) Screen grab from Wikipedia They are typically the size of a license plate but sometimes larger. Several hundred tiles have been discovered. Toynbee Tiles are messages of unknown origin found embedded in asphalt streets in about two dozen major cities in the United States.
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