The historic 160-year-old antislavery documents on loan for a new exhibit under the Lincoln Memorial were removed Thursday after they were exposed to unsafe temperatures, said a spokesperson for philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin, who owns the artifacts.
Both documents are milestones in the nation's bloody struggle to end slavery and are worth millions of dollars. They were loaned for public display in a new exhibition area under the Lincoln Memorial, known as the undercroft, which opened June 25 to honor the nation's 250th birthday.
"The National Park Service has informed us that the documents on view for the Lincoln Memorial celebration were exposed to temperatures modestly above the optimal conditions for long-term preservation," the spokesperson said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday.
"Out of an abundance of caution, these sacred documents are being temporarily relocated while the National Park Service resolves the environmental challenges driven by the heatwave engulfing Washington D.C.," the statement said.
The documents were removed Thursday afternoon, a person familiar with the situation said on background. The temperatures that day in Washington rose into the upper 90s.
The undercroft was closed for most of the day Thursday, according to a sign posted at the entrance. It reopened about 5 p.m. Inside, a notice informed visitors that the historic documents had been removed and replaced by "identical replicas."
Uri Yokel and his wife, Kathy Rodriguez, had 3:30 p.m. tickets for the undercroft, but when they showed up Thursday afternoon with Rodriguez's brother and his wife, who were visiting from Chicago, they were disappointed to see the museum was closed.
A security guard told them it was closed for maintenance, Yokel said, "which we assume may have something to do with those documents they had to hustle out of here."
Yokel, who lives in Greenbelt, Maryland, said he was glad officials were trying to preserve the documents but would have appreciated them letting his group know before they arrived: "How about sending us an email?"
The rare copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution both bear the original signature of Abraham Lincoln and other Civil War-era notables.
They will be moved to a climate-controlled facility and undergo a detailed inspection, the person speaking on background said.
The documents were loaned for the new exhibit in the memorial undercroft by Griffin, a hedge fund billionaire, who bought them last year at auction for a reported $18 million. (The originals are in the National Archives.) They were to be on display through next June.
The move comes after City Cast DC reported that the documents were being kept in unsafe conditions, citing National Park Service employees as saying that screens designed to protect the documents from light have been defective and temperatures inside the display case have repeatedly reached levels above 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
The National Archives says on its website that temperatures for historic documents should be kept "between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit with fluctuations of no more than 5 degrees during any 24-hour period."
A spokesperson for the National Park Service, which oversees the Lincoln Memorial, said in a statement Wednesday night that it was working with Griffin's philanthropic team, Griffin Catalyst, and the National Park Foundation to relocate the documents during the heat wave.
"The National Park Service is committed to the preservation of these historic resources and would not display them if their preservation or security were compromised," read the statement. "Once this work is complete, the documents will be returned."
The National Park Foundation, which facilitated the loan of the documents, said in a statement: "Our absolute priority is their long-term preservation."
The 1865 copy of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery in the United States, is handwritten on lined parchment.
The copy of the Emancipation Proclamation is a so-called broadside printed on paper.
The new $69 million exhibit space takes up 15,000 square feet of the basement of the Lincoln Memorial, an area that measures an enormous 50,000 square feet.
The undercroft was previously home to lost construction equipment and old graffiti.
The new space allows visitors to see, through floor-to-ceiling glass, the massive concrete foundations that support the memorial.
The undercroft, its new displays and the Lincoln documents were unveiled amid fanfare to the news media on June 18.
Griffin and the National Park Foundation "through their grace and their generosity [are] allowing us to display original signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment," Kevin Griess, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, told reporters and photographers that day.
"No flash, please," he told photographers.
Griffin has said in a statement: "The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment marked a profound step forward, abolishing the scourge of slavery and moving the country closer to its founding ideals."
The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on May 30, 1922, an event attended by thousands, including Lincoln's 78-year-old son Robert on what was then called Decoration Day.
The memorial, with its 44-foot-tall columns tilted slightly inward for architectural effect, was modeled on the Parthenon, the Greek temple to the goddess Athena.
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