The remains of John Paul Jones were interred in the crypt beneath the Naval Academy Chapel, inside a sarcophagus made of 21 short tons (19 t) of black and white Italian marble with bronze fittings.[1]
Coverage[]
The Crypt of John Paul Jones is featured in Crypt of Civilization.
It was introduced in 2 days after people where 32 miles away from Washington D.C. in Annapolis lies the crypt of naval legend John Paul Jones, a Revolutionary War hero. The show gave information that few knew that the crypt was not Jones first resting place. Largely forgotten after the Revolutionary War, Jones was buried by few of his friends and left him in an unmarked grave for a hundred years. Jones lead coffin was found in 1905, opened for an autopsy, and while the doctors expected to see the mocking grin of a skeleton, instead the doctors saw shocked them. Although John Paul Jones was partially decomposed, he was preserved enough to be recognizable from 18th century bust. The episode questions how it is possible before answering to itself that one day that hoping Jones to be rediscovered, his friends filled his coffin with methyl alcohol. Dr. Howard Oliver explains that methyl alcohol slow down autolysis that cause the body and cells to break down that allow bacteria to move in and disintegrate the cells more but with the alcohol, it creates a near-aseptic condition that kills bacteria. After he was rediscovered, John Paul Jones was reburied with fresh methyl alcohol in a tomb in Annapolis, Maryland, a quarter mile from shore.
Rising floodwaters at Annapolis.
The fate of the crypt is revealed in 300 years after people when rising sea levels thrust Maryland's tidal base relentlessly inland to the crypt of John Paul Jones at Naval Academy Chapel where it floods. As seawater seeps into the coffin and flood it, one of the world's greatest sailors has received a burial at sea.
Gallery[]
