Transcript Slide 1

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Silver Skeleton Seal
This silver seal bears an intricate
scene
reminding its owner of the short
time he
had on Earth. A skeleton holds both
an
hourglass and an arrow, representing
the passage of time and the
shortness of life. The owner's initials,
"LF," are above the hourglass. After
pushing it into hot wax, the seal would then have been
pressed onto documents in order to seal them. This image
of the seal has been digitally reversed, as the initials would
need to be backwards so that they would appear correctly
on the document.
The seal was found inside James Fort, near the northern
bulwark. This area was rich in artifacts and was the location
of the artifact-laden early-17th century well.
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"Yames Towne" Lead Tag
This small lead plaque, reading "Yames
Towne," is the equivalent of a modern-day
luggage tag. The plaque was probably marking
some merchandise that had been warehoused
in London before being shipped out to Jamestown. The odd "Y"
spelling may suggest a German or Dutch origin for the goods as
those languages represented "j"s with "y"s during this time
period. This tag was one of the remarkable finds discovered in an
early-17th century well just inside the northern bulwark of
James Fort in the Summer of 2006. Other artifacts found inside
the well include a Scottish pistol, a halberd bearing the crest of
Lord De La Warr, several Bartmann jugs, a child's shoe, and even
a 400-year-old tobacco seed.
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Memento Mori Ring
The early 17th-century gold ring
depicts a skull with the initials C L and
the Latin legend: Memento Mori or
"remember thy death." Bly Straube,
Historic Jamestown's Senior Curator,
speculates that the initials could be
attributed to Captain Christopher Lawne
who was a member of the first Virginia General Assembly. Straube
indicates "The ring would have been very expensive and would
have been worn by a person of significant wealth and stature."
Captain Lawne arrived at Jamestown on April 27, 1619, with
fifteen settlers and established one of the first English settlements
in Isle of Wight County on a creek that still bears his name. Captain
Lawne and Ensign Washer represented Lawne's Plantation in the
first House of Burgesses that met at Jamestown on the 30th day of
July 1619. Lawne died in November of the same year.
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Silver Ear Picker
A status symbol and hygienic tool, this ear
picker was found at the James Fort site by APVA
Preservation Virginia archaeologists and
undoubtedly belonged to one of Jamestown's early
gentlemen. The ear picker is in the form of a sea
creature -- probably a dolphin -- which was a
popular image during the adventurous sea
explorations in the Age of Discovery.
Made of silver, this tool was a costly status symbol, and the owner
would have proudly displayed it to represent his status, probably suspended
from a chain attached to a belt around his waist.
Ear pickers, though not all of silver, were used by all levels of society in
medieval and post-medieval England. As was the fashion for many of these
tools, this one is double-ended. The pointed end was used to clean teeth and
nails, and the spoon-shaped end was used to remove earwax. The 17th-century
English knew about plaque, which they called "scale" or "surf," and they were
encouraged by their doctors to scrape their teeth frequently. They also knew
that a buildup of earwax could cause deafness. As gross as that may seem to us
today, the earwax was often saved and used for coating sewing thread to make
it stronger and easier to use.
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Robert Cotton Pipe
The inclusion of a tobacco pipemaker in the first
groups of craftsmen is as enigmatic to researchers today
as it apparently was to John Smith when Robert Cotton,
"tobacco-pipe-maker," arrived on the Phoenix in January
1608.1 No other mention is made of Cotton, so it is not
known how long he remained at Jamestown; he is not
listed in the muster of 1624-25, so presumably Cotton had
either perished or returned to England by then. With
archival information lacking, the material evidence of very accomplished mold-made
clay tobacco pipes, fabricated from the Virginia red clay and decorated on the stem
with European stamps, provides the sole documentation for this early craftsman's
work. These distinctive pipes only occur in the early James Fort features that date
around 1610 and have not yet been recorded on any other early Virginia sites.
The design of the stamp on the pipe stems consists of four fleur-de-lis
forming a cross within a diamond. The sides of the diamond are incurving as on the
1580-1610 pipes documented in England and thought to be the product of London
pipemaker, William Batchelor.2 Robert Cotton must also have been a London
pipemaker because pipemaking was almost entirely restricted to that city by
monopoly, until the second decade of the 17th century.3 Other aspects of Cotton's
stamp reflect decorative motifs of late 16th-and early 17th-century London pipes,
which most often include incuse "diamond patterns enclosing initials, crosses or fleurde-lis on the stems."4
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Brass Nuremberg Thimble
Some tools traditionally used by tailors have been
excavated from early contexts within James Fort and may relate
to the presence of the first seven tailors. These include
thimbles, needles, straight pins, pressing irons, and bodkins. . . .
This brass Nuremberg thimble was found in the bulwark trench
of James Fort. There is a maker's mark in the symbol of a bell
just above the decorative band of foliage. Fourteen thimbles
have been recovered from the excavations within James Fort.
The word thimble means thumb or thick finger2. This reflects its
purpose as a protection for the finger in pushing a needle
through fabric or leather.
Eleven of the James Fort thimbles are made of brass and six of them were recovered
from the same pre-1610 location and manufactured in Nuremberg, Germany. By the middle of the
16th century, Nuremberg prevailed in the production of small brass objects, particularly thimbles.
This dominance is due to the discovery of a high-quality brass, produced by alloying copper and
zinc, "which created a smooth bright brass of an even texture."3 Also, the craftsmen developed a
technique to make two-part thimbles. This simplified the process of decorating the thimbles, as it
could be done while they were in flat sheets. The sides were then rolled onto cylinders and
soldered together, the cap similarly attached on the top edge. The prior technique had involved
heating the brass and punching it into molds. Any decoration then had to be applied by hand to the
molded thimble.
Nuremberg thimbles typically are tall and narrow with a flat or only slightly rounded top.
They are punched by hand around the sides in a spiral that continues over the top. Often, these
thimbles bear decorative stamping around the border and/or maker's marks in the way of initials or
symbols. This brass Nuremberg thimble was found in the bulwark trench of James Fort.
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Nuremberg Lion
Counterweight
A brass lion played a role
in the Jamestown economy.
Made in Nuremberg, Germany
it was used as a
counterweight to a coin scale. As the 17th
century progressed, the common use in
Virginia of tobacco as currency was
supplemented by coins of various precious
metals, which were only as valuable as their
weight on a standardized scale.