'Typical' tower capsules deposited in spheres on top of prominent buildings contain ...

• ... usually at least one document, written by a local dignitary (parish priest, town scribe, building owner etc.) on paper / parchment (rarely metal plates / most recently also digital media) and sealed in a cartridge or box of various kinds. Texts conventionally feature one or more components from the following range, sometimes in set formats mirroring previous deposits: date of writing, details on the construction / repair of the tower (reason, finances, workers), information on the user community (no of inhabitants, list of secular as well as ecclesiastical officials at various levels), a chronicle of local / regional / (inter-)national developments (events, wars, diseases, natural disasters, new technologies ...), current prices of key commodities (cereals, beer, wine), reflections on the state of the place / world, thanks for / invocation of divine protection;
• ... sometimes additional manuscript, typed or printed communications by other officials, builders or individuals (at times with contrasting assessments);
• ... and not infrequently one or more images (of settlements, workers, saints) and objects (coins, banknotes, relics, symbolic items).

Many tower capsules accommodate several layers of multimedia deposits, made at intervals of on average 1-2 generations. A sizeable number of sources from different periods have been transcribed and edited, partly online (e.g. a lead plate at the Liebfrauenkirche in Halberstadt 1394; a 'charter' deposited at Horrheim in 1964) but mostly in print format (see samples in bibliography). The first couple of boxes of translated extracts below illustrate the tone and religious connotations of many documents; the bottom two exemplify the kinds of chronicles and material culture that can be found: