Panamanian musician Rubén Blades has deposited two objects that define his career in the Instituto Cervantes' Caja de las Letras: the maracas that have accompanied him for decades and a sheet of paper with the lyrics of his song Patria. This gesture symbolizes his musical identity and his commitment to Panamanian culture, preserving his personal history for future generations in a space that safeguards treasures of the Hispanic language and culture.
The conservation technology of a sound and documentary legacy 🎵
The Caja de las Letras functions as a security vault with climate control and environmental monitoring systems that ensure the preservation of organic materials and paper. For objects like the maracas, preventive conservation techniques are used, including stabilizing relative humidity between 45-55% and maintaining a constant temperature of 18-21 degrees. The handwritten sheet is stored in acid-free sleeves and digitized in high resolution for virtual access, combining traditional archiving methods with spectral scanning technology that detects ink degradation without damaging the original support.
Maracas with more security than your external hard drive 🔒
While you store your mobile photos in a cloud that might disappear tomorrow, two maracas and a piece of paper now have better security than your banking history. Blades has placed his legacy in a safe with more controls than an airport, while your digital memories depend on a USB cable that your dog has already chewed twice. At least, if you lose the lyrics of Patria, you know where to find them: in a vault, not in the sock drawer.