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The Bones of Ol Pejeta: Clues to the Past

Posted on August 22, 2011 by -

Briana Pobiner, the Science Outreach & Education Program Specialist for the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, has a BA in Evolutionary Studies from Bryn Mawr College, where she created her own major, and an MA and PhD in Anthropology from Rutgers University. Her research centers on the evolution of human diet (with a focus on meat-eating), but has included topics as diverse as cannibalism in the Cook Islands and chimpanzee carnivory. She has done fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Indonesia and has been supported in her research by the Fulbright-Hays program, the Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, Rutgers University, the Society for American Archaeology, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Her favorite field moments include falling asleep in a tent in the Serengeti in Tanzania while listening to the distant whoops of hyenas, watching a pride of lions eat a zebra carcass on the Kenyan equator, and discovering fossil bones that were last touched, butchered and eaten by one of her 1.5 million year old ancestors. She came to the Smithsonian in 2005 to help work on the upcoming Hall of Human Origins, got bitten by the “public understanding of science” bug and hasn’t looked back, continuing to do her research while leading the Human Origins Program’s education and outreach efforts. She currently manages the Human Origins Program’s public programs, website content, social media, and volunteer content training.

Kris “Fire” Kovarovic, PhD, is Lecturer in Human Evolution at Durham University, UK. Originally from Connecticut, Kris moved to Montréal, Canada where she attended McGill University to complete a BA in Anthropology and Religious Studies, followed by an MSc in Archaeology and a PhD in Anthropology from University College London, UK (UCL). Kris subsequently spent time as a postdoctoral researcher in the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and then returned to UCL to take up a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship prior to moving to Durham. Her broad research interests include palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and faunal analysis, particularly at Plio-Pleistocene hominin sites in East Africa. Her current research programme continues to explore the ways in which mammalian communities are shaped by their environments and how this can inform our understanding of the past distribution of mammals and habitats, as well as investigating the differences in habitat signals provided by fossil bovid dentition and skeletal remains. She is most excited and inspired by her role as co-director of BONES with good friend and co-conspirator, Briana Pobiner.

 


Early in the morning in the Kenyan bush, the human and other mammalian residents and visitors of Ol Pejeta Conservancy (or “OPC”) are getting watered, fed and ready for a new day. There are numerous conservancy staff members and a handful of researchers: PhD students preparing for careers in animal behaviour and conservation, teams of Earthwatch volunteers and their leaders and other visiting scientists, all of whom are contributing to our knowledge about and welfare of the many mammal species who call this equatorial landscape home. And there we are thrown into the mix: Dr. Briana Pobiner (Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History) and Dr. Kris “Fire” Kovarovic (Durham University, UK). We aren’t conservationists and we aren’t often focused on the present. We can be variously described as archaeologists, paleoanthropologists, paleontologists, and paleoecologists; broadly speaking we are interested in human evolutionary history and how we evolved in the context of past environments.

We aren’t at OPC to study wildlife in the flesh; instead, we are interested in their bones that accumulate naturally on the ground after death. The objects of our study are often curiously regarded by the other researchers, if not considered somewhat inelegant by those who, rightly so, are awe-inspired and deeply committed to the living objects of their own study. We are not infrequently asked: “What are two people who study human prehistory doing looking at bones of dead animals?” That’s a good question, and the answer rests upon the connection drawn between modern bones on the ground and their fossil counterparts that are collected at palaeontological sites. If we can understand the processes that cause modern bones to deteriorate, accumulate and be buried in certain characteristic ways, or the taphonomy of these remains, we can interpret the same processes and their resultant patterns in assemblages of fossil bones. In 2007 we began our long-term project at OPC, BONES: Bones of Ol Pejeta: Neotaphonomic and Ecological Survey. Our aim is to understand the myriad ways in which a number of ecological characteristics condition bone accumulations.

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A scatter of bones found by Drs. Pobiner and Kovarovic during the summer of 2011 at OPC. Photo credit: Dr. Briana Pobiner

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How we relate mammal bones to environments is, however, another question we are often asked. It’s an important question and one that bears upon a major line of inquiry in the study of human evolution, which is aimed at determining how our hominin ancestors responded to climate change (e.g. Potts 1996; Bobe et al. 2002) in terms of both behavioral and morphological adaptations. We can only understand this if we can accurately reconstruct the environments at sites where hominin, or early human, fossils are found in the first place. Basic ecological theory can help us understand one major way in which mammals are important in this regard: the characteristics of a habitat determine which animals can live there successfully. Therefore, if we know what animals once lived in a particular place, we can glean some idea of what their habitat was like. Any habitat is characterised by both abiotic and biotic factors, such as the soil type, drainage patterns, features of the terrain (abiotic) and the vegetation and animal life present (biotic). These factors combine to provide two broad niches for each species to exploit. The spatial niche is quite literally the space in which a species lives, sleeps and moves around; the trophic niche is essentially the dietary preference of a species. For example, a moist forest habitat will support a number of arboreal species that live and feed on fruits and leaves in the trees. In contrast, a grassland habitat will have fewer of these species because trees are not well represented in the vegetation — but open country, terrestrial, grass-grazing species will be abundant. From the perspective of the fossil record, bones and teeth are clearly relevant for an interpretation of the ecological niches exploited by fossil mammalian communities. The bones of arms and legs will provide information about how and where a species moved or locomoted, or the spatial niche, since limbs that are adapted for swinging about in the trees will look quite different from those adapted to running around on the ground. The teeth and jaws will tell us something about what the species ate, or what trophic niche(s) they exploited, as again those adapted for a diet of meat will look very different from those best adapted to eating plants. Fossils of non-hominin animals are abundant and often well-preserved at Plio-Pleistocene (5 – 1.8 million years ago) sites in Africa, providing ample opportunity to explore past environmental conditions through a study of their remains.

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A Grevy’s zebra with a warthog in the background, both in their “typical” habitat: open grasslands. Photo credit: Dr. Nick Walton.

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We bring unique areas of scientific expertise to bear on the BONES project. One of us (Kovarovic) is an expert in understanding how the different species in a community exploit available niches, especially through the study of adaptive morphologies that can be linked specifically to the efficient exploitation of particular habitats, particularly in the mammalian family Bovidae (hooved, horned ungulates like gazelle, buffalo and related taxa). Evaluating such ecomorphologies is a routine method used in the reconstruction of paleoenvironments at hominin fossil sites (e.g. Kappelman 1991, Kappelman et al. 1997, Kovarovic & Andrews 2007). It has the advantage of not requiring identification of fossil mammal remains to the species or even genus level – what is important is not so much who the animals were, but for what they were adapted. Any fossil that retains ecomorphological information in an assemblage can be studied, so sample sizes tend to be large and therefore the statistical analyses more robust. The other of us (Pobiner) is a taphonomist, with a dual interest in how predator-prey relationships can be understood through an evaluation of the damage that carnivores do to the bones of their prey when they consume them as well as how bones naturally weather on the land surface. Tell-tale signs of carnivore activity, such as tooth punctures, pits and scores, as well as signs of gnawing, are used to determine overall predator pressure and in the fossil record contribute to our understanding of how and when hominins began competing with other carnivores for access to animal resources.

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Drs. Kovarovic and Pobiner collecting data on a bone occurrence. Photo credit: Dr. Nick Walton.

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OPC is an excellent place to situate our BONES project for several reasons. It is a research-friendly environment, hosting a number of projects including a well-established Earthwatch project documenting the ecology of black rhinos. This team collects annual abundance data on the entire living mammal community as well as details of the regional vegetation associations and habitat distributions. Earthwatch Project Director, Dr. Geoffrey Wahungu (Moi University, Kenya) and OPC’s Ecological Monitoring Manager, Nathan Gichohi share detailed GIS habitat maps with us, which allow us to confidently associate bone accumulations to specific habitat types. They also share long-term (decade-scale) data on mammalian abundances, critical information that allows us to correlate the proportions of live animals with information derived from bone accumulations, such as predation patterns that can be reconstructed from studies of carnivore damage. In turn, we share our data and analyses, which facilitate OPC and Earthwatch’s work in monitoring living communities. Finally, the conservancy has presented us with a unique situation: a fence that previously divided a smaller wildlife reserve (formerly Sweetwaters Game Reserve) from a large cattle ranch (formerly Ol Pejeta Ranch) was taken down in 2007, and the whole area became one large conservancy.  The wild animals living on both sides of the fence have been able to migrate to new areas and, as we’re not only interested in reconstructing environmental conditions at one time and place, but in tracing changes in such conditions, this provides us with an opportunity to see how quickly the “bone community” reflects known changes in the living animal community.

Each day in the field we follow an established protocol of walking along 1km transects looking for bones and documenting every one that we encounter (Behrensmeyer et al. 1979). We conduct these walking transects in each of the habitat types at OPC, collecting a variety of different types of data, including things like: (a) exact GPS location of every bone and bone scatter; (b) genus, species and body size of each bone occurrence, where possible; (c) weathering stage, which indicates how long the bone has been on the land surface (Behrensmeyer 1978), allowing us to establish a short term chronology of bone accumulation; (d) habitat information, including broad habitat type and local microenvironment; (e) indicators of carnivore damage which identify the predator species responsible for the kill (Haynes 1980, Pobiner & Blumenschine 2003, Pobiner 2007) and (f) ecomorphological data when the skeletal element is from a bovid (Kovarovic & Andrews 2007, Kovarovic unpublished). In the past, we’ve used old-fashioned paper and pencil to record our data, but this year our research colleague Dr. Nick Walton developed a fantastic digital data collection system tailored for our specific data types and research questions. Using iPaqs and bluetooth GPS units, we can now input all of our data directly into an electronic database while we are in the field, saving the time of later having to transcribe handwritten datasheets onto our computers. Each bone encounter that we record is automatically tagged with a date and time stamp and GPS location, so not only will mapping and spatial analyses be easier to conduct, but we can easily pull up details of the data we have collected each year, in each habitat or on each species.

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Drs. Kovarovic and Pobiner walking a bone transect with their armed guard. Photo credit: Dr. Nick Walton.

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Dr. Nick Walton teaching Dr. Briana Pobiner how to use the new digital data collection system. Photo credit: Dr. Kris “Fire” Kovarovic.

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The data we collect will be used in numerous ecological analyses. The first of these is a “live-dead” analysis in which we test the hypothesis that the bone accumulations can accurately reconstruct the proportions of living species in the community. The habitat data also allows us to see if animals are dying in the habitats they’re adapted for and living in, and we’ll apply ecomorphological models to all bovid bone occurrences to predict the proportion of available habitat types and ecological niches in OPC. These results will be compared to the actual known habitat types to determine if ecomorphology provides a faithful environmental reconstruction or if it is biased against certain habitats.

A determination of the body size and predator involvement of each bone occurrence will then be used to investigate the correlations between these two potential biases and where they are responsible for similar patterns observed in the fossil record. If we find correlations between the proportion of undamaged bones and prey size or predator species, we will have identified a systematic pattern of bias that will result in an under- or over-representation of particular habitats in a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Ecomorphological analyses of carnivore damaged fossil assemblages thus would be similarly biased. Large carnivores are known to cause damage to or destroy skeletal elements of prey of varying sizes while feeding on them, so it is likely that some degree of bias exists, but we are unclear to what extent it affects our analyses (e.g. Haynes 1980, Pobiner 2007). If we wish to contextualize hominin evolution at a finer temporal scale, an understanding of – and possible corrections for – this bias is critical to an accurate interpretation of environmental change in the past.

Our project is intended to be a longitudinal study, and it takes many years of fieldwork to acquire the sample sizes required for analysis. Each year that we collect data we record information from bones deposited at different times in the past; fortunately, these data can be stratified according to the time of deposition on the landscape by applying weathering stage models. Time is an important variable, especially where the fossil record is concerned, so it is important for us to determine if the bone accumulations correlate to known increases or decreases in the abundances of both predator and prey species over the past 10+ years (e.g. Miller & Behrensmeyer 2005, Faith & Behrensmeyer 2006, Western & Behrensmeyer 2009), as well as in ecomorphological representations of the available habitats. OPC welcomes this study as it will offer data on changes in carnivore- and habitat-specific predation pressure over time, which may in turn help to understand temporal and spatial shifts in the living mammal biodiversity. The unique and fruitful collaborations occurring under the auspices of BONES have shown that the linkages between past and present mammalian communities are relevant to our understanding of the modern world, while simultaneously aiding the development of models used in interpreting the fossil record and our evolutionary past.

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Literature Cited

 

Behrensmeyer, A.K. (1978). Taphonomic and ecologic information from bone weathering. Paleobiology 4, 150-162.

Behrensmeyer, A.K., Western, D. & Dechant Boaz, D.E. (1979). New persepectives in vertebrate paleoecology from a recent bone assemblage. Paleobiology 5, 12-21.

Bobe, R., Behrensmeyer, A.K. & Chapman, R.E. (2002). Faunal change, environmental variability and late Pliocene hominin evolution. Journal of Human Evolution 42, 475-497.

Faith, J.T. & Behrensmeyer, A.K. (2006). Changing patterns of carnivore modification in a landscape bone assemblage, Amboseli Park, Kenya. Journal of Archaeological Science 33, 1718-1733.

Haynes, G. (1980). Prey bones and predators: potential ecologic information from analysis of bone sites. Ossa 7, 75-97.

Kappelman, J. (1991). The paleoenvironment of Kenyapithecus at Fort Ternan. Journal of Human Evolution 20, 95-129.

Kappelman, J., Plummer, T., Bishop, L., Duncan, A., & Appleton, S. (1997). Bovids as indicators of Plio-Pleistocene paleoenvironments in East Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 32, 229-256.

Kovarovic, K. & Andrews, P. (2007). Bovid psotcranial ecomorphological survey of the Laetoli palaeoenvironment. Journal of Human Evolution 52, 663-680.

Miller, J.H. & Behrensmeyer, A.K. (2005). Skeletal distributions across time: A multivariate approach to the changing taphonomy of Amboseli Park, Kenya. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 25, 92A.

Pobiner, B. (2007). Hominin-Carnivore Interactions: Evidence from Modern Carnivore Bone Modification and Early Pleistocene Archaeofaunas (Koobi Fora, Kenya: Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania). PhD dissertation, Rutgers University.

Pobiner, B. & Blumenschine, R. (2003). A taphonomic perspective on the Oldowan hominid encroachment on the carnivoran palaeoguild. Journal of Taphonomy 1, 115-141.

Potts, R. (1996). Evolution and climate variability. Science 273, 922-923.

 

Western, D. & Behrensmeyer, A.K. (2009). Bone assemblages track animal community structure over 40 years in an African savanna ecosystem. Science 324, 1061-1064.


The Dedication of Roman Weapons and Armor in Water as a Religious Ritual

Posted on May 27, 2011 by -

Brandon Olson is pursuing his Ph.D. in the department of archaeology at Boston University and has earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology (Fort Lewis College) and graduate degrees in archaeology (Sheffield University), ancient history (University of North Dakota), and classics (Pennsylvania State University). His research interests include the archaeology and history of the Hellenistic and Roman east with particular focus on ancient warfare, epigraphy, ceramics, settlement, GIS applications to archaeology, and social history. He is currently involved with ongoing archaeological projects in the Eastern Mediterranean including the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project in southern Cyprus, the Mopsos Survey in southern Turkey, the Tel Akko excavations in northern Israel, the Polis Chrysochous excavations in southern Cyprus, and the excavations at Mendes in northern Egypt.

Through chance finds, formal excavations, looting, and dredging operations, several pieces of intact, fully functional Roman weapons and armor have been recovered from aquatic contexts in Gaul and Britain dating from the first century B.C.E to late first century C.E. Some scholars have attempted to explain the phenomenon as a series of accidental losses, while others allude to intentional deposition.[1]Although one cannot completely disregard accidental loss, the facts that military equipment was both expensive and heavily regulated and the veneration of water played an important role in Roman religion suggests that, in the majority of cases, gear found in water was a result of a conscious act, most likely of religious nature.

In Roman religion, the dedication of objects to gods took two forms: votive offerings, items dedicated to propitiate a god, and vows, objects dedicated to fulfill a contract with a deity. The religious rites were integral to the relationship between gods and mortals, as they provided a medium through which humans and the divine could interact. Roman religious practice prescribed a strong tradition of dedicating objects and a veneration of water; yet, few works, both ancient and modern, attest to a tradition of soldiers dedicating gear into water as a religious rite. It is the purpose of this investigation to argue that military equipment recovered from aquatic contexts in the western provinces cannot always be interpreted as accidental loss, but rather through emulation of a widespread Celtic practice, Roman soldiers dedicated weapons and armor into water as a religious rite.

Contextualizing the Assemblage

Examining religious praxis by way of military gear is problematic due to the difficulty encountered when attempting to link artifacts with specific behavior without proper archaeological context. Most equipment recovered from water lacks précis provenience, which is a direct result of recovery. Few formal excavations have been conducted in the major rivers and streams in Gaul and Britain, and several of the examples available for study are byproducts of dredging operations. Although the exact context of artifacts is essential for any study of material culture, understanding the manner in which military equipment became archaeological material helps bridge this gap. The following discussion of the processes of deposition will demonstrate that military arms and armor differed greatly from other material forms because they were never regarded as trash or discarded as such; thus, they entered the archaeological record in more specific and deliberate ways.         

Loosely following Schiffer’s life-cycle theory, there are two processes that transform Roman military gear into material culture: cultural deposition processes and depositional processes.[2] Cultural deposition occurred when accoutrements were deliberately discarded or ritually offered in the ground or other concealed places where recovery was difficult. In such cases, the items no longer functioned in their traditional behavioral systems and become incorporated into an archaeological context. These acts include burying gear to prevent others from utilizing it, hoarding, mortuary contexts, cross-cultural utilization and, as will be discussed later, religious dedication. Often, when a garrison stayed at a particular fort for a period of several years, soldiers and officers increased the quantity of their possessions. When it came time to abandon a fort, the army would take what they could and bury the rest, preventing non-Roman forces from utilizing whatever they left behind. During unsettled times, or when abandoning a fort, soldiers would, on occasion, bury valuable possessions in a hoard. For example, the Corbridge hoard in Britain, excavated in 1964, contained an assemblage of equipment that included several pieces of lorica segmentata (metal, plated body armor), spearheads, artillery bolts, nails, wax writing tablets, papyri fragments, iron alloy, copper alloy, and glass fragments.[3] The owner buried the gear inside of an iron-bounded chest covered with a piece of leather. The amount of care taken when interring the items and sheer value of this material demonstrates that the owner planned to reclaim it. In the event of a soldier’s death, a colleague returned his equipment to a repository, buried it with the soldier, or his items simply disappeared. During their service, many soldiers drafted a will indicating who would receive their possessions after death. In some cases gear is found in burial contexts, suggesting it was interred ex testamento (according to a will).[4] Cross-cultural discard occurred when Roman equipment acquired as war booty, tribute, mercenary equipment, and trade objects was deposited in a non-Roman region.[5] 

Depositional processes, on the other hand, constituted the accidental loss of fully functional items within a behavioral system. The transformation from the functional context of the gear to the archaeological context is, therefore, accidental. While on campaign, soldiers did, on occasion, lose their equipment. If a unit crossed a river or was suddenly ambushed, it was possible for soldiers to lose weapons and armor in the chaos. Although it is difficult to identify lost equipment archaeologically, Vegetius notes that accidental loss was a concern. He states, “the passages of rivers are very dangerous without great precaution. In crossing wide or rapid streams, the baggage, servants, and sometimes the most foolish soldiers are in danger of being lost.”[6] One must question, however, to what extent the current assemblage represents a traditional depositional process. As stated earlier, gear was expensive and regulated. Strict laws allowed officials to severely punish soldiers for mishandling their equipment. Legal works, such as the ex Ruffo Leges Militates, Corpus Juris Civilis, and the Strategica, preserve laws that forbade soldiers from losing and haphazardly disposing their gear.[7] If a soldier lost his sword, for example, an official could punish him twice, both for disarming himself and for potentially arming the enemy. Punishments for such an offense included, but were not limited to, flogging, a reduction in rank, and death.

Military equipment is unique as, unlike most other artifact types, arms and armor, in whatever condition, were never considered refuse at any point in their life-cycle, and entered the archaeological record in specific ways. Therefore, the processes of deposition are fairly predictable, and the exact context of the material is not entirely necessary for a discussion of the connection between military accoutrements and religion. 

Celtic Evidence

The Celtic and Roman traditions of depositing weapons and armor are very similar in practice, and will be compared later to discuss the nature of Roman religion in Gaul and Britain. Celtic religion was deeply rooted in a veneration of water as streams, rivers, lakes, wells, and bogs were sacred places for Celtic worship. Aquatic locations—with the exception of bogs—represented life, curative qualities, fertility, and well-being. Bogs were feared and associated with danger and treachery.[8] Rivers, lakes, and streams became places centered on votive behavior, whereas in bogs individuals made both offerings and sacrifice. It is through the classical sources, presence of Celtic water deities, and the archaeology that Celtic water veneration and the various religious practices associated with it emerge. 

In describing the destruction of Tolosa by Quintus Servilius Caepio, both Strabo and Justinus note how the Celtics ritually deposited valuables in sacred lakes.[9] In 105 B.C.E., the Roman proconsul Caepio went to southern Gaul and fought against the Tectosagi. At the siege of Tolosa, he seized a great treasure of gold and silver from a sacred lake, which was identified as the booty seized from Delphi by the Gauls in 279 B.C.E. Caepio committed a sacrilegious act, according to Strabo and Justinus, by draining the lake and taking the treasure. Later that year, Roman forces suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Arausio and, according to Orosius, the Cimbri and Teutoni seized large quantities of booty. Orosius states:

The enemy, after gaining possession of both camps and great booty, by a certain strange and unusual bitterness completely destroyed all that they had captured; clothing was cut to pieces and thrown about, gold and silver were thrown into the river, corselets of men were cut up, trappings of horses were destroyed, the horses themselves were drowned in whirlpools, and men with fetters tied around their necks were hung from trees, so that the victor laid claim to no booty, and the conquered to no mercy.[10]  

The gold and silver may have been part of the booty seized by Caepio from Tolosa, given that he was a military leader at the battle. Caepio, after being prosecuted by Norbanus for stealing the Tolosa treasure, was exiled to Smyrna and died.

Classical accounts of Celtic water veneration are not restricted to Caepio. Caesar alludes to a deep respect for water when he describes the subjugation of Uxellodunum in 51 B.C.E.[11] Caesar notes that the inhabitants continued to resist his advance until troops fully blocked a spring running through the settlement. The inhabitants interpreted the dry stream as an inauspicious omen and quickly surrendered. Prudentius, a fifth-century C.E. Roman poet from Spain, describes in his Psychomachia the battle between Pudicitia (Chastity) and Libido (Lust). After Pudicitia defeated and killed Libido with her great sword, Pudicitia cleaned the sword in the Jordan River and deposited the victorious weapon into a religious space. Prudentius writes, “she dedicated it to the altar of the sacred spring in the Catholic temple, eternally shining there it shines with light.”[12] Writing in Gaul during the sixth century, Gregory of Tours offered yet another example of the Celts offering valuable items in water. Gregory writes:

In the territory of Javols there was a mountain named after Hilary that contained a large lake. At a fixed time a crowd of rustics went there and, as if offering libations to the lake, threw [into it] linen cloths and garments that served men as clothing. Some [threw] pelts of wool, many [threw] models of cheese and wax and bread as well as various [other] objects, each according to his own means, that I think would take too long to enumerate. They came with their wagons; they brought food and drink, sacrificed animals, and feasted for three days.[13]

The six classical accounts demonstrate clearly that the Celts and other groups dedicated valuable objects into water and that Roman culture had knowledge of the tradition.

Roman contact with Celtic groups initiated ideological reforms for both cultures. Prior to the Roman conquests of Gaul and Britain, the Celts did not wholly identify the divine physically. According to Green, Roman contact provided a catalyst for Celtic concepts of the divine to be freed from anonymity.[14] It is because of this contact that we can begin to identify specific Celtic water deities and classify them into two categories: those attached to a specific river and those attached to water features. The former category includes Verbia (goddess of the Wharfe River), Sequana (goddess of the Seine River), and Souconna (goddess of the Saone River). The latter includes Sulis (goddess of the springs at Bath among other things), Coventina (goddess of a spring at Carrawburgh), and Condantis (a goddess worshipped in Britain, whose name means “watersmeet”).[15] The deities mentioned above served many functions in Celtic religion, but they also played a role in Roman religious practices in Gaul and Britain.      

The Celtic tradition of tossing objects into water as a religious rite originates in the Bronze Age (Hallstatt culture) and lasts through the Roman periods (Le Tene Culture). The archeological evidence for this practice is abundant and extensively studied . Both Wait and Roymans have published comprehensive archaeological accounts of Celtic weapons discovered in water from Britain and Gaul.[16] Wait examines Celtic swords, helmets, and shields in his study of ritual and religion in Britain within three chronological periods: seventh century B.C., Middle Iron Age, and Late Iron Age. Since the focus of the present study is the relationship between Celtic and Roman religious ritual, the material from the Middle Iron and Late Iron ages will be discussed in detail. The Celtic periodization scheme in Britain interprets the La Tene period as beginning at the onset of the Iron Age and ending with the Roman conquest in the first century C.E. Of the 113 Celtic swords dating to the La Tene period discovered in Britain, 66% came from rivers and bogs, 9% came from burials, 1% from hoards, 15% from an archaeological site, and 9% were chance finds. Only three helmets from an aquatic context have been recovered in Britain dating to the La Tene period. Map 1 depicts sword and helmet densities in relation to major rivers in Britain.

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Map 1 (after Wait 1985): Distribution of Le Tene period swords and helmets discovered in aquatic contexts in Britain. Satellite imagery courtesy of Bing.

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Roymans adopted a similar approach in his study of Belgic Gaul. He identified and plotted all the Le Tene swords and helmets from his study area. The periodization scheme for Celtic Gaul differs from the British scheme, as the La Tene period began at the onset of the Iron Age, but ended with the Roman conquest in the first century B.C.E. Of the 15 Celtic helmets found in Belgic Gaul, 27% came from a grave, 40% came from a river, 13% from a cult place, and 20% are of unknown provenience. Of the 109 Celtic swords recovered, 48% are grave finds, 34% came from a river, 13% from a cult place, and 6% are of unknown provenience. Map 2 depicts sword and helmet densities from Roymans’ study area.

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Map 2 (after Roymans 1996): Distribution of Le Tene period swords and helmets discovered in aquatic contexts in Belgic Gaul. Satellite imagery courtesy of Bing.

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Based on classical accounts, the presence of several water deities, and the studies of Wait and Roymans, Celts groups from both the Hallstatt and Le Tene periods had a strong tradition of dedicating military equipment in water for hundreds of years. This tradition both predates and continues well after the Roman conquests of Gaul and Britain. Roman soldiers came into contact with a well-established religious ritual, which, as we will see, was incorporated into their religious system. 

Roman Evidence

There is no question that water held a religious significance in Roman culture. In discussing the importance of water in Roman religion during the Republican period, Edlund-Berry argues that, although the use of water figured greatly in religious practices, it was an unofficial, private affair.[17] Although the veneration of water was not an official state-sponsored ritual, it was practiced in the private realm. The sites of several Roman bridges show evidence of religious activity. Archaeologists excavating the intersection of the Via Appia and the Garigliano River at the site of ancient Minturnae uncovered several artifacts, including 4,918 coins deliberately tossed into the river.[18] Moreover, the Thames River within the urban confines of London also produced thousands of coins, demonstrating that offerings of valuable property were made into water.[19] There are, however, no classical accounts that attest to a Roman practice of depositing military gear or other valuables in water as a religious practice, nor are there water deities similar to those found in Celtic Britain and Gaul attested in the Roman pantheon. If, indeed, water veneration was an unofficial, private ritual, as Edlund-Berry argues, and water veneration among non-Roman groups was deemed abnormal as the aforementioned classical sources suggest, it is of little surprise that historical records do not attest to such a ritual within Roman culture. The archaeological record, however, does provide evidence supporting such a religious ritual.

In his study of Romanization in Belgic Gaul, Roymans also examines Roman military equipment. He categorized and investigated the Roman evidence in the same manner as the Celtic material. All Roman gear utilized in his study dates to the first century C.E. Of the 68 Roman swords discovered in Belgic Gaul, 51% are grave finds, 25% are river finds, 10% are from a cultic place, and 13% come from a military camp. Of the 51 Roman helmets from this region, 8% are grave finds, 69% are river finds, 2% are from a cult place, and 22% are from a military camp. Map 3 illustrates sword and helmet densities in relation to the major river systems in northwest Gaul. Unfortunately, Roymans’ study does not incorporate material from Britain. However, military equipment has been recovered from aquatic contexts at Newstead, possibly Corbridge, and the Thames River.

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Map 3 (after Roymans 1996): Distribution of Roman swords and helmets discovered in aquatic contexts in Belgic Gaul. Satellite imagery courtesy of Bing.

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It is clear that Roman culture adopted and adapted deities and religious practices from other groups. Mithraism, for example, had a strong following among the Roman army. The Persian god was sent to Earth to kill the sacred bull, whose blood symbolized life forces.[20] Several iconic representations from Britain and Gaul survived, depicting Mithras slaying the primeval bull with a serpent and scorpion trying to prevent the blood from reaching the fertile ground. When Rome expanded into new territories, cultural exchange occurred on both ends; Romanization was never a one-sided affair, and it certainly appears that Celtic culture left an indelible mark on Roman religion in the western provinces.   

At least three Roman deities were subjected to substantial Celtic influence while retaining a Roman identity.[21] For example, a goddess identified as Sulis Minerva, worshipped at the Roman site of Bath, attests to a dual cultural origin. The name is preserved in several inscriptions and lead curse tablets.[22] The combining of the Celtic goddess Sulis and the Roman goddess Minerva demonstrate a Romano-Celtic deity. Other hybrid deities include a Celtic Mars and a Romano-Celtic sky god from Britain. A statuette from Martlesham in England depicted a mounted warrior with an inscription dedicating it to Mars Cocidius. An altar from Chester possesses a dedicatory inscription to Jupiter Optimus Maximus Tanarus, who was a Celtic thunder deity from Gaul and Germany.[23]

Discussion and Conclusions

Classical accounts, the presence of specific water deities, and the archaeology of Celtic groups in Britain and Gaul suggest that soldiers stationed in the western Roman provinces witnessed and eventually adopted a strong religious tradition of water veneration, whereby individuals dedicated valuable military gear in water. Comparison of the density maps of the Le Tene and Roman material from Gaul (Map 2 and 3) and the pie charts in Figure 1 (below), provides evidence of a similar practice, though locations of deposition and types of military gear were different. Unlike the Celtic material, Roman helmets far exceed swords, and the highest concentration of Roman gear is found along the Rhine River, the frontier between Rome and Germany. Figure 1 depicts the specific artifact densities of swords and helmets from the Roman and Le Tene periods in Gaul. Despite subtle differences in preferred material types and depositional locales, the archaeology demonstrates a great degree of cultural exchange and continuity in the religious realms of the Celts and Romans.  

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Figure 1: Pie charts comparing the depositional practices of Le Tene and Roman period military equipment.

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The hybrid Romano-Celtic deities and the similar practices in the deposition of arms and armor in water paints an interesting picture of Roman and Celtic religion and interaction from the first century B.C.E. to first century C.E. The religious practices of the Roman army did not take over and replace native Celtic forms nor did Celtic religion remain the same. The Roman practice of offering military gear in water was a result of Celtic interaction. The purpose and belief systems behind such a tradition varied across time and space. Celtic culture saw water as a life force, key to wellbeing and fertility. It is impossible to determine if Roman soldiers who dedicated their gear perceived water or their newly adopted ritual in the same way. Although generally, in practice, the Roman and Celtic traditions concerning water appears similar, different cultural and ideological backgrounds gave the ritual a distinctively different meaning.     

Cover Photo Top: Roman infantry soldiers. Courtesy David Fiel, Wikimedia Commons

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Works Cited

Alcock, Joan. “Celtic Water Cults in Roman Britain.” American Journal 122 (1965): 1-12.

 

Allason-Jones, Lindsay, and Mike Bishop. Excavations at Roman Corbridge: the Hoard. London: Historic Buildings & Monuments Commission for England, 1988.

 

Bishop, Mike, and J. C. N. Coulston. Roman Military Equipment: from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2006.

 

Brand, C. E. Roman Military Law. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969. 

 

Breeze, David, Joanna Close-Brooks, J. N. Graham Ritchie, Ian Scott, and A. Young. “Soldiers’ Burials at Camelon, Stirlingshire, 1922 and 1975.” Britannia 7 (1976): 73-95.

 

Czarnecka, Krystyna. “The Re-Use of Roman Military Equipment in Barbarian Contexts: A Chain-Mail Souvenir?” Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 5 (1994): 245-253.

 

Edlund-Berry, Ingrid. “Hot, Cold, Smelly: The Power of Sacred Water in Roman Religion, 400-100 BCE.” In Religion in Republican Italy, Yale Classical Studies 33, edited by Celia Schultz and Paul Harvey Jr., 162-180. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

 

Green, Miranda. The Gods of Roman Britain. Oxford: Shire Archaeology, 1983.

 

Green, Miranda. Celtic Myths. Austin: Texas University Press in cooperation with British Museum Press, 1993.

 

Klumbach, Hans. Romische Helme aus Niedermanien. Koln: Rheinland-Verlag, 1974.

 

Oldenstein, Jurgen. “Two Roman Helmets from Eich, Alzey-Worms District.” Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 1 (1990): 27-37.

 

Rald, Ulla. “The Roman Swords from Danish Bog Finds.” Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 5 (1994): 227-241.

 

Rhodes, Michael. “The Roman Coinage from London Bridge and the Development of the City of Southwark.” Britannia 22 (1991): 179-190.

 

Robinson, H. Russell. The Armour of Imperial Rome. New York: Scribner, 1975.

 

Roymans, Nico. “The Sword or the Plough. Regional Dynamics in the Romanisation of Belgic Gaul and the Rhineland Area.” In From the Sword to the Plough: Three Studies on the Earliest Romanisation of Northern Gaul, edited by Nico Roymans, 9-126. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996.

 

Ruegg, S. Dominic. Underwater Investigations at Roman Minturnae. Jonsered: Paul Astroms Forlag, 1995.

 

Schiffer, Michael. Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987.

 

Smith, Charles R. Illustrations of Roman London. London: Printed for the Subscribers and not Published, 1859.

 

Tomlin, R. S. O. Tabellae Sulis: Roman Inscribed Tablets of Tin and Lead from the Sacred Spring at Bath. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988.

 

Wait, G. A. Ritual and Religion in Iron Age Britain, BAR British Series 149(i). Oxford: B.A.R., 1985.

 

Webster, Graham. Celtic Religion in Roman Britain. New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books, 1986.

 

[1] For accidental loss, see Hans Klumbach, Romische Helme aus Niedermanien (Koln: Rheinland-Verlag, 1974); H. Russell Robinson, The Armour of Imperial Rome (New York: Scribner, 1975) and Jurgen Oldenstein, “Two Roman Helmets from Eich, Alzey-Worms District,” Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 1 (1990): 27-37. See Mike Bishop and J.C.N. Coulston, Roman Military Equipment: from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2006), 26-34 who tentatively suggest votive deposition.

[2] Michael Schiffer, Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 25-140.

[3] Lindsay Allason-Jones and Mike Bishop, Excavations at Roman Corbridge: the Hoard (London: Historic Buildings & Monuments Commission for England, 1988).

[4] David Breeze, Joanna Close-Brooks, J. N. Graham Ritchie, Ian Scott, and A. Young, “Soldiers’ Burials at Camelon, Stirlingshire, 1922 and 1975,” Britannia 7 (1976): 73-95.

[5] Ulla Rald, “The Roman Swords from Danish Bog Finds,” Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 5 (1994): 227-241 and Krystyna Czarnecka, “The Re-Use of Roman Military Equipment in Barbarian Contexts: A Chain-Mail Souvenir?” Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 5 (1994): 245-253.

[6] Veg. Mil. 3.7.1. Translations are the author’s unless stated otherwise.

[7] All legal works are published in C. E. Brand, Roman Military Law (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969). See ex Ruffo Leges Militares 29 and 59; Corpus Juris Civilis (Book XLIX, Title 16 Military Affairs): 3. Modestinus, Punishments, Book 4.3 and 14. Paulus, Military Punishments, Book 1.1 and Strategica (by Maurice) 7.

[8] Miranda Green, Celtic Myths (Austin: Texas University Press in cooperation with British Museum Press, 1993), 51-52.

[9] Strabo Geographica 4.1.13 and Justinus Epitome 32.3.

[10] Paulus Orosius Historium Adversum Paganos V.16 (Deferrari).

[11] Caesar De Bello Gallico VIII.43.4.

[12] Prudentius Psychomachia 106-108.

[13] Gregory of Tours In Gloria Confessorum 2 (Van Dam).

[14] Miranda Green, The Gods of Roman Britain (Oxford: Shire Archaeology, 1983), 12.

[15] For Celtic water deities see: Joan Alcock, “Celtic Water Cults in Roman Britain,” American Journal 122 (1965): 1-12; Green, Celtic Myths; and Graham Webster, Celtic Religion in Roman Britain (New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books, 1986).

[16] G. A. Wait, Ritual and Religion in Iron Age Britain, BAR British Series 149(i) (Oxford: B.A.R., 1985) and Nico Roymans, “The Sword or the Plough. Regional Dynamics in the Romanisation of Belgic Gaul and the Rhineland Area,” in From the Sword to the Plough: Three Studies on the Earliest Romanisation of Northern Gaul, ed. Nico Roymans (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996), 9-126.

[17] Ingrid Edlund-Berry, “Hot, Cold, Smelly: The Power of Sacred Water in Roman Religion, 400-100 BCE,” in Religion in Republican Italy in Yale Classical Studies 33, eds. Celia Schultz and Paul Harvey Jr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 180.

[18] S. Dominic Ruegg, Underwater Investigations at Roman Minturnae (Jonsered: Paul Astroms Forlag, 1995), 68.

[19] Charles R. Smith, Illustrations of Roman London (London: Printed for the Subscribers and not Published, 1859) and Michael Rhodes, “The Roman Coinage from London Bridge and the Development of the City of Southwark,” Britannia 22 (1991): 179-190.

[20] Green, The Gods.

[21] Green, The Gods, 43.

[22] R. S. O. Tomlin, Tabellae Sulis: Roman Inscribed Tablets of Tin and Lead from the Sacred Spring at Bath (Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988).

[23] Green, The Gods, 46.

 


The Minoan Connection

Posted on May 16, 2011 by -

There is no question that the ancient Levant could be described as a major crossroads of civilization. Over and over again, dig sites throughout Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have turned up artifacts left by the armies and settlers of one empire after another. Through this interview conducted by Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dr. Eric H. Cline, Co-Director of excavations at the site of Tel Kabri in northwest Israel, explains why this site stands out from the rest. The unfolding story of investigations at this site continue to intrigue scholars and the public alike………..   

 

Q: What brought your attention to this site [Tel Kabri] in the beginning?

A: I became involved because of its international relations 3,700 years ago. That’s my professional interest — international relations in the ancient world, particularly between Greece and the Near East. Kabri, which is a Canaanite palace, has Minoan wall and floor paintings in it.  So I was intrigued by the question: Why would a Canaanite ruler have a Minoan artist painting his walls and floors? And is there any evidence that there were Minoans living at the site, or Cycladic artisans, and what does it say about the ancient world?

We already knew about this site because Kabri had been excavated before by Kempinski and Niemeier from 1986 to 1993, and they found a painted floor and about 2,000 fragments of painted plaster.  

Q: Were they [the painted floor and fragments] recognized as possibly Minoan or Aegean at the time of the discovery?

A: Yes, absolutely. Niemeir [an expert in identifying Aegean/Minoan artwork] joined the project back then when they started to find these things, but their project was over in 1993 and the site then lay unexcavated.  

Assaf Yassur-Landau, the excavation Co-Director, excavated there as a volunteer in 1990 and thought at the time that he wanted to come back and dig there himself.  We [ Assaf and I] were both excavating at Megiddo, so we knew each other. He did some preliminary testing at Kabri in 2003 with some geophysical equipment and saw indications that the palace was perhaps as much as twice as big as Kempinski and Niemeier thought. So when I ran into him in 2004 he asked if I wanted to re-open the excavations at Kabri with him. I said yes.  In 2005 we did a very preliminary season of excavations just to see if the geophysical indications were correct:  Was the palace realy twice as big?  And was there anything worth a new multi-season excavation?  During the excavations, we found walls and floors at a good distance from the previous excavations. So the answer to both questions was yes.  

Before we really started to do any digging we needed to do a regional survey of the area.  In 2006 and 2007 we surveyed what we thought would have been the kingdom of Kabri and came up with some interesting data that indicated that it was probably a fairly large [Canaanite] kingdom, but that it only lasted for about 250 years. It apparently had a meteoric rise and just as meteoric a fall after the palace was destroyed by unknown people.

Q: Were the Aegean/Minoan paintings discovered previously by Kempinski and Niemeier dated to that 250-year time period? 

A: Yes. The palace was only occupied for about 250 years and it goes through about four phases. It looks like the paintings date to one of the middle phases. We believe they were up on the wall and on the floor, and then they were torn down during a renovation phase before the palace was destroyed. It seems that somebody liked them so they put them up. Then somebody didn’t like them and they took them down. Or they may have simply fallen off. 

It should be noted that there are only four other places [archaeological sites] in the Near East that have these kinds of paintings. One is Kabri, the only one in Israel. Another is Tel Dab’a in Egypt, and then in Turkey there is Alalakh which Sir Leonard Woolley excavated. Finally there is Qatna in Syria, which is being excavated right now by a German/Italian/Syrian team. 

Q: How does the Canaanite structure at Tel Kabri compare to the Canaanite structure found at Hazor, considered the largest known Canaanite site?

A: The one at Hazor is larger. In terms of size, Kabri is about the third largest in all of Israel. But it is dated only to the Middle Bronze period. 

We also have an interesting situation where the excavations at Hazor have shown that the temples for the same time period show a Syro-Mesopotamian influence. But Kabri appears to show a Western influence. We have published two articles attempting to explain that. The answer, we think, may be as simple as the fact that Hazor was larger and wealthier and could afford the goods and services from Mesopotamia. Perhaps Kabri could not afford that, so it looked elsewhere for innovation. Perhaps artisans from the Cyclades were cheaper. During our excavations in 2009 we found 100 more pieces of plaster at the site supporting this view to add to the Kempinski/Niemeier record. Sixty of these were painted fresco pieces.

Q: You went back to the site in December 2009/January 2010 to excavate. What emerged from that excavation?

A: There is a certain feature at Kabri that the previous excavators [Kempinski and Niemeier] had uncovered. They suggested that it was the bottom of a staircase. When we started excavating there, it became clear that it was not a staircase. It was a plastered corridor. In 2008 we started digging just to the east of it and we found what looked like a drain connected to it. So in the summer of 2009 we started excavating more to find out why there was a drain associated with it. It turned out that plaster, which is of the same time period as the painted floors, was on top of this ancient corridor. The corridor had pottery in it, strewn all at one depth, as if something sudden had happened. In the side of the corridor, hidden in the wall, was at least one entrance and perhaps as many as three entrances. One of the entrances had a cracked block that, had we been excavating in Greece, I would have said it was the lintel block to the entrance to a tomb. So we could see this cracked block with soil beneath it, in what was otherwise a solid stone wall. Next to it was another faint outline where the stones looked like they were horizontal and vertical, indicating the possibility of a blocked opening in the wall, and then another one [blocked opening] on the other side, as well. We didn’t know what this was. But it was in the middle of the palace, it was a hidden entrance in a wall, which one could not have seen unless one was actually in there.  This was interesting because at the site of Qatna in Syria they had just found similar openings in their palace.  Those openings led to a royal tomb.

In December 2009/January 2010 we returned to conduct some additional probes.  We took the top off of the associated wall, and found that the lintel block was just the first of seven. We could see that what we really had was a corbeled passageway that went directly through the wall.  It was a hidden passageway, but it didn’t lead to a tomb as at Qatna. It led into a room that we didn’t know existed, either in another part of the palace or outside the palace. The room to which it led is plastered with a very thick floor and the pottery there in that stratigraphy pushed the dating of the palace back by another 50 years.  It was an earlier part of the palace.  And although we had not found the entrance to a tomb [as at Qatna], we found something very peculiar, as it is a secret passageway made through a wall in the basement of the palace. We think it could have been a sally port [a secret back entrance] so that if the enemy is attacking the front gate, for example, defenders within the palace can go out the sally port at the back and come back around and destroy the attacking enemy.  Or, as a subterranean way to get from one part of the palace to another, could it have been used for secret purposes?  We have no idea.

The pottery in the corridor continues to be a mystery. It was at the entrance to this passageway. Does it represent some sort of ritual? Now we are thinking that when they filled in the corridor and plastered it over, they may have used it as a garbage dump before filling it in and plastering it. We will be investigating that further. So there may be another opening or two, but they are probably not connected to royal tombs.

[Another significant outcome of the December 2009/January 2010 excavations was the discovery that the palace was built some 150 years earlier than previously thought, making it one of the earliest Middle Bronze Age palaces found in Israel to date.]

Q: Getting back to the Aegean-style paintings: We know that the volcanic eruption at Santorini (ancient Thera) ocurred around 1628 B.C.E., and that it may have caused an exodus of people who then spread to other places in the Mediterranean area. Is there any possibility, given your Aegean-style fresco painting findings, that a group of Minoans escaping this eruption may have settled at Kabri?

A: There is no evidence so far that Minoans, or any other Aegean people, such as those in the Cyclades or mainland Greece, migrated to and settled at Kabri as a group. We don’t have enough Minoan pottery to support that. I suspect that, yes, the eruption at Santorini may have caused a migration of people from the island, including artisans who may have painted at Akrotiri or Knossos and were in need of employment, staying at Kabri temporarily. Certainly the paintings at Kabri look an awful lot like the ones on Santorini [ancient Thera].  So it may have been a refugee situation, but that would be mere speculation. The one thing we can support right now is that, if there was a group of Aegean people at Kabri, they were only living there temporarily.

But that does not discount the possibility that a group of ancient Minoans lived permanently at Kabri after an exodus and resettlement. Here is an interesting case in point:

Ancient tablets of Assyrian origin were found at the site of Kanesh in Turkey (ancient Anatolia). Back in the 19th century B.C.E. merchants from Assyria went and lived at Kanesh in Anatolia, trading textiles for silver and tin, and we would never had known that there were Assyrians there, if not for the tablets. The tablets record that they were there. When the Assyrians arrived at Kanesh, they completely adopted the Anatolian ways, so it may be that Minoan people migrated to Kabri and simply adopted Canaanite ways, in which case we would never know that they were there, except for the paintings.  

And here is another possibility: The one thing about pushing the timeline of the palace back earlier [as we discovered during the 2009/2010 excavations] is that it is conceivable, pending Carbon 14 datings, that the paintings at Kabri are a little older than we think. It was at one time thought that the paintings were 16th century (B.C.E.). We are now quite sure that they are 17th century. In fact, we think that the paintings we found may possibly be the oldest discovered in the Near East. Any date earlier than the 17th century would suggest that the influence had gone from east to west.

Q: Is there evidence at the site that might support that?

A: No. It is very unlikely that the Kabri frescoes are earlier than the late 17th century, but Sir Leonard Woolley had originally suggested that this technique of painting on fresco came from the East and went west to the Aegean. That was later discounted and determined that it went the other direction. But there is an outside chance that Woolley was right, and I would not rule out the possibility that it started in the East.  For example, the inlaid daggers found at Mycenae have also been found elsewhere, and their antecedents are at sites like Byblos in the Near East. The whole idea of inlaid metal is actually eastern that gets taken later to the Aegean. It is therefore possible that the fresco painting technique originated in the East and went west, as well. So there are all kinds of possibilities. And this would apply to explaining the Aegean influence at Kabri. 

Q: What is it about the frescoes/paintings that clearly identify them as Aegean or Cycladic in nature?

A: There are a couple of things: One is this whole technique of painting on the plaster wall while it is still wet. That is an Aegean technique. In the Near East, they more often painted after the plaster was dry. Second, there is a technique of using strings to help in the painting process. For example, the Minoans took a string and just tightened it so that it contacted the wet plaster and created a perfectly straight line. We have plaster at Kabri that shows that. The other thing they did was take string and dip it in, for example, red paint, and tighten it quickly against the plaster. The red paint thus makes a perfectly straight line. That is how the floor at Kabri was created. That is a Minoan technique.

Q: Have you found any symbols or designs, things or animals, etc. in the fresco paintings that would tell you that they are Cycladic or Aegean?

A: Yes and no.  The first excavators, Kempinski and Niemeier, found a floor with a pattern of red squares with flowers or vegetation in it. There is something that looks like an Iris and other floral motifs — maybe Aegean, maybe not. The 2,000 fresco fragments that they found, when placed together using ancient Santorini artwork as a model, does look very much like the miniature fresco at Santorini. Little pieces that look like ships and other pieces that look like architecture were found. There are a couple of pieces that look like they are part of the wing of a griffin.  In one of my lectures where I talk about Aegean style paintings I laugh a bit because other excavators at other sites have found bits and pieces of what they say come from a griffin. So imagine our surprise last season when we came up with 5 or 6 pieces of a fresco that have a deep rich blue background (a typical Aegean-style fresco color that has never been found in Israel before), with a figure in the foreground in white with black outlines (also typically Aegean), and as we are looking at it we are thinking that we have seen this before.

Q: What is it?

A: There are a number of possibilities. One could be the wing of a flying fish, like that found at Melos. It could also be a palm tree. It could be a woman’s white hand, but there are no fingernails. Compared to a griffin piece found at Mycenae, however, there is a close resemblance. We think we may have the wing of a griffin, in which case it is really funny that I have been making fun of everyone else about the griffin interpretation. There are another couple of pieces that add to the interpretation of it as part of a griffin. But the problem is that this griffin image type is dated to the 14th century B.C.E., and we are looking at 17th century fragments. A three-hundred year difference may be a little too large.  But if our find is a griffin, it is interesting to note that griffins are in both Near Eastern and Aegean cultures.

These fresco finds have told us something else that is important, however. Where we found them, and this is where it gets very interesting, was nowhere near where the original excavators [Kempinski and Niemeier] found theirs, so we are in a totally separate part of the palace. Their fragments were found used as packing material underneath a threshold. Ours were found face down on a white plaster floor and the only way that we realized they were there was when we were cleaning the floor. A white piece would pop up. And as we turned the white piece over to reveal the colored front, we could see that our wall painting had been ripped off the wall anciently and then used to patch the floor. And our wall fragments are completely different from the fragments that they found. Ours are in a different scale. This means we have a second wall painting. As we excavated the squares, we could see that one of these pieces was part-way into a balk [a section of an area that is left un-excavated for stratigraphic and other purposes], so we know that when we go back and take out that balk, there will be more pieces. There were also more pieces found to the east, and we did not excavate the square to the east. So we have high hopes that we will find more wall fresco fragments.  Moreover, one of the fragments was thicker than the others, which indicates that it was not a part of a wall. It must have been part of a floor. The original painted floor that Kempinski and Niemeier excavated is not missing any pieces, so our piece must be from another floor from somewhere else in the palace, reused as a patching piece on another [unpainted] floor. We are now looking for that other floor.

It is interesting to note that their [Kempinski and Niemeier’s] floor and wall painting discoveries and our floor and wall painting discoveries date from the same phase. So did some artist come and say, “Hey, I can redo your palace for you.”  Or, was there a succeeding king who wanted to redo it all?  We think there may be a whole Aegean theme throughout the whole palace.  Perhaps in this other part of the palace it is not as grand as in the first part. And, It may be that we will find Minoan pottery or other evidence of them actually being there. Answers to these questions await further excavation.

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Painted fresco fragments excavated at Tel Kabri.  Courtesy Tel Kabri Excavations.

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Painted fresco fragments excavated at Tel Kabri.  Courtesy Tel Kabri Excavations.

 

Painted fresco fragments excavated at Tel Kabri. Courtesy Tel Kabri Excavations.

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Q: Based on what you have done so far, and your idea of how big this palace might be, what percentage would you say has been excavated thus far?

A:  Hard to say, until we find the limits. We found what we believe is the northern or enclosing wall, and a very strange road or walkway adjacent to it on the outside, so we know how far it goes on the north. We are not yet sure how far it extends on the east, nor do we know how far it extends on the south. We think we know how far it is to the west, and we are looking for that because that should be the entrance. So, because we don’t know how big it is, we can’t guess how much we’ve excavated. But I would be surprised if we have excavated any more than 10 to 20% of the palace site. There is a lot more to do.  And based on what they are finding at Qatna, which has similar dates, I think we still have some very interesting things to find, especially because our palace, like that at Qatna, ended in a fiery destruction. We may find some very interesting things that got caught in that destruction. So what was horrible for them may be a bonanza for us, and I think we have only begun to scratch the surface on the palace.

Then there is the rest of the site aside from the palace. We have not yet touched the fortifications. It had a huge mudbrick set of fortifications. Up on the acropolis of the mound, previous excavators have found evidence of Greek mercenaries from the Iron Age. The palace part was basically abandoned until the Iron Age and then it is only inhabited sporadically in our area. So at some point we want to go up and investigate the acropolis portion of the mound where they have found evidence for the presence of Greek mercenaries. Think of the coincidence — or is it a coincidence — that in the Middle Bronze Age we have Minoans painting the palace and then in the Iron Age we have Greek mercenaries at the site.  What is it about Kabri that the Greeks or Aegeans like so much?  

The other question I have is this: If this site was inhabited in the Middle Bronze Age and the Iron Age, why isn’t it inhabited in the Late Bronze Age, when there was so much contact with and influence from the Myceneans in this part of the world?  

Kabri is like no other site I have ever investigated, because it is so huge and because it was only occupied during the Middle Bronze Age, with a puzzling absence of occupation and then suddenly an Iron Age presence on the acropolis.  

Q: Do you think the MB palace at Kabri is considerably larger than the same at Megiddo?

A: Yes, the palace is probably larger than the one at Megiddo. But it depends upon what period we are talking about. For the Middle Bronze period, it is probably larger. It is interesting because when you are driving to the site, there is a little bump in the road, and that means you have just driven over the fortifications. So the palace, including the fortifications, is huge.  

Q: What are your plans for this coming dig season?

A: We want to reconstruct the history of the palace. If we can reconstruct the life-cycle of the palace in its 250-year history, including evidence of feasting and things like that, that would be good. Along the way, if we should happen to find more painted frescoes, then that would also be very good, and we are anticipating that we will find more. If we are able to investigate the other features in that mysterious corridor, that would be a plus, and we are planning to do that. And then, as I mentioned, outside the northern wall we see this very strange, intriguing stone feature that is only one level of stones thick. It zigzags, which is usually seen on Crete. It is either a walkway or the bottom of a wall. If it is a wall, then it is a protective wall going around the palace. I think it is a roadway and that the road may well be extending around the palace.  A similar roadway can be found at Knossos and elsewhere. If it is a roadway, and this is the northern perimeter of the palace, and the entrance is on the west, then what we see may indeed be turning a corner and headed to the entrance. So if we continue to excavate in that direction this coming season, it may lead us to the missing entrance to the palace. 

So what we are basically doing is making sure we understand not just the history of the palace but also its size and what is immediately happening outside of it.  

 

To summarize, the coming season should help us understand a bit more about the history, life-cycle and size of the palace, as well as uncover more painted plaster and define what is going on with the mysterious corridor. We also hope to see what is going on just outside the palace with the roadway or wall feature and whether or not we can locate the missing entrance. All of these things will also hopefully give us more insight into what is happening inside the palace.  

All in all, even though what we are doing is supplementing and expanding upon what the previous excavators have done, it turns out that there is much more to investigate than previously thought.

*Courtesy Tel Kabri Excavations. 

Top Cover Photo: Aerial view of Tel Kabri. Courtesy Tel Kabri Excavations.

Second photo from top: Excavating the corridor feature of the Middle Bronze Age Palace. Courtesy Tel Kabri Excavations.

Eighth photo from top: The curious “zigzag” structure excavated at Tel Kabri. Courtesy Tel Kabri Excavations.

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About Eric Cline

Dr. Eric H. Cline, a former Fulbright scholar, is an award-winning author, teacher, and advisor with degrees in Classical Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, and Ancient History from Dartmouth College (1982), Yale University (1984), and the University of Pennsylvania (1991) respectively. He currently serves as Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Cline’s primary fields of study are the military history of the Mediterranean world from antiquity to present and the international connections between Greece, Egypt, and the Near East during the Late Bronze Age (1700-1100 BCE). He is an experienced field archaeologist, with 28 seasons of excavation and survey to his credit since 1980. He has worked in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States, including eight seasons at the site of Megiddo (biblical Armageddon) in Israel, where he is currently the Associate Director (USA). He is also Co-Director of the new series of archaeological excavations at the site of Tel Kabri, also located in Israel.

A prolific researcher and author with ten books and nearly 100 articles to his credit, Dr. Cline is perhaps best known for his book, The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age (Ann Arbor 2000; paperback 2002), which received the 2001 Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) Publication Award for “Best Popular Book on Archaeology,” was a Main Selection of the Natural Science Book Club, sold out its first printing in less than four months, and has now been translated and published into Croatian (2005). 

Dr. Cline has been interviewed by syndicated national and international television and radio hosts including Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum on Fox New Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Fergus Nicoll on the BBC World Service/The World Today, Kojo Nnamdi on NPR’s “Public Interest” show, Michael Dresser on “The Michael Dresser” show, and Richard Sheehe on WRGW.

Born in Washington, DC (at GWU Hospital) and raised in California (San Francisco and Los Angeles), Dr. Cline is married and has several children, two cats, and varying numbers of fish.

 

 


The Archaeology of Montpelier’s Enslaved Community

Posted on February 22, 2011 by -

Matthew Reeves is the Director of Archaeology at James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange, Virginia.  His specialty is sites of the African Diaspora including plantation and freedman period sites, and Civil War sites.  In his work over the past two decades, Reeves has maintained a focus with public archaeology, most especially involving descendent groups and involving the public with experiential learning.


Montpelier was the family home of former U.S. President James Madison and an enslaved community that, during the Madison ownership, boasted over four generations of enslaved families.  This enslaved community was sold and dispersed during the 10-year period prior to Dolley Madison (his surviving spouse) selling the home in 1844 after his death in 1836.  Following this sale, the homes of these slaves were abandoned and over the next five years were either razed or left to decay in place.  Despite the changes that occurred to the house in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the sites of these slave quarters remained undisturbed.  What this has left for archaeologists is a treasure trove of information related to the material world of the enslaved community at Montpelier.  Aside from one insurance plat dating to 1837, there is no documentary record for the location of these homes.  Archaeologists have relocated these structures through surveys and excavations and have discovered over a dozen slave quarter sites for field slaves, house slaves, and skilled artisans.  The diversity and preservation of these sites presents an unparalleled opportunity to examine the dynamics of an enslaved community and test commonly held generalizations concerning enslaved communities at large plantations. 

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there is some consensus among scholars that both skilled workers (those employed in a specialty task such as the stable, gardens, or carpentry) and house slaves often had greater access to material goods such as clothing, household items, and “refined” housing.  This greater access to goods is in comparison to those enslaved workers who held roles in the field and often lived further from the main house and had limited contact with the owner.  Whether this greater abundance of goods reflects the owners providing these slaves with more household and personal items or these slaves having the economic means to purchase these items has not been fully explored.  Moreover, there is little comparative data to verify whether those slaves who worked in close association with the owners actually owned more household goods than those slaves who lived and worked farther from the owner (specifically field slaves). To test this hypothesis, the Montpelier archaeology department is conducting a three-year archaeological study of various slave quarters at James Madison’s Montpelier estate to reconstruct the material world of the 19th century slave community (Reeves 2010).  

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Figure 1. Three sites for slave quarters overlain on the modern Montpelier landscape

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This information is especially relevant to Montpelier archaeologists today as the grounds and home of President Madison have witnessed a dramatic change through the restoration of Madison’s home back to its 1820s appearance (as it appeared during the Madisons’ retirement from the White House) and restoration of major parts of the mansion formal grounds.  From 2002-2007, Montpelier archaeologists conducted intensive archaeological studies of the mansion cellars, the formal landscape, and surrounding road networks.  During the restoration of the mansion (2002-2008) many of these areas were restored based on archaeological evidence.  In addition, multiple seasons were spent excavating trash deposits related to the Madison household.  These  trash deposits were analyzed to assist in the furnishing of the house, which is an ongoing project to this date.  All of these investigations provided an important context for not only returning the Madisons’ home to its early 19th century appearance, but for providing a larger context to understand the enslaved community who lived and worked within the mansion grounds.

What remains ‘invisible” today at Madison’s home is the plantation itself—the homes of the enslaved work force, the network of fields, work areas, and roads that gave Montpelier its character as a Virginia planter’s home.  The first step in understanding this lost plantation is in-depth research on the enslaved community that called Montpelier home.   While future work (2012 season) will encapsulate the quarters for field slaves, previous seasons (2008 and 2010) and this season (2011) will focus on examining those enslaved households that were directly associated with the Madison’s entertaining at the mansion.    A particular focus of these excavations has been the homes of those slaves who worked and lived in and adjacent to the mansion grounds.  These quarters were home for both house slaves (the South Yard) and those slaves who likely worked in either the stable or garden (the Stable Yard) (see Figure 2).  We begin our description of these enslaved homes with our most recent set of excavations.

 

Figure 2.  Early 19th century appearance of mansion grounds.  The area shown in light green is the formal boundary of the mansion grounds (curtilage) as defined from archaeological features and period descriptions.  The area of the South Yard shown in yellow while the Stable Yard is in orange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discovery of the Home for an Enslaved Artisan

Our most recent excavations took place at the quarter for enslaved artisans—those individuals who either worked in the stable or nearby craftshops just up the hill from the mansion.  This site, known as the Stable Quarter, is located just outside of the formal grounds for the mansion in the area known as the Stable Yard.  Prior to our excavations and surveys in 2010, very little was known about this site aside from surveys that had located late 18th and early 19th century artifacts in this area. Previous excavations had located two ash-filled pits and linear features at the site.  Our surveys in 2010 revealed a craft complex in this area along with structures and work areas related to the stable and carriage house—which were related to the Madison’s constant flow of guests arriving at Montpelier during their retirement years.  These surveys also defined the extent of the site for a slave quarter located at the northern edge of the Stable Yard. 

Our excavations from June through December of 2010 revealed this site to be the location of a slave quarter dating from the 1790s-1844.  This site turned out to be remarkably well preserved as following abandonment in the 1840s, the structure was razed , and the site was incorporated into the larger mansion grounds.  For over 160 years, the site was covered in grass and was not subject to any disturbances beyond bioturbation.   What this allowed for was the preservation of a well-defined set of architectural and yard features relating to the log home that once sat at this location.

The most exciting aspect of the Stable Quarter was the rich architectural evidence recovered at the site for the size and form of the home.  The features and strata at the site reveal the slave home to be of log architecture with a stick-and-mud chimney.  Such log homes with non-masonry chimneys were quite common in early 19th century Viriginia.  One English traveler who visited Montpelier in the 1820s recounted from his travels in general for Virginia and Maryland:

The negro huts are built of logs, and the interstices stopped with mud, of which material also the floor is composed.  At one end is an enormous large chimney made of logs, which are of a large size at the bottom, and gradually smaller towards the top.  The lower part of the chimney, in the interior, is covered with earth or mud, to prevent its catching fire (Fitch 1820).

This description by Fitch seems to be a match for the structure we located at the Stable Quarter.

Some of the clues at the site that suggested such a structure were the complete absence of a masonry chimney base, the presence of an at-grade hearth, and multiple borrow pits across the site (Figure 3). 

 

Figure 3.  Overhead shot of excavations at Stable Quarter site, November 2010.  A+B=ash-filled borrow pit, C=sub-floor pit, D=large hearth, E=small hearth

 

The first set of architectural evidence we encountered at the Stable Quarter was a brick hearth.  This hearth was made up of bricks laid directly on the clay subsoil.  What was unmistakable about this hearth was the presence of scorched brick on the outside edge which suggested the location for the daily fire and by extension the chimney flue.  With no masonry chimney base existing to mark the fire box, this absence suggested the chimney consisted of stick and mud.  A second smaller hearth was located later in the season and this area not only contained the charred remains of the last log on the brick hearth but also intact portions of the bottom logs for the stick and mud chimney (Figure 4).  This incredible preservation was facilitated by a large amount of clay that lay atop this second hearth—likely the collapsed remains of the chimney lining that accumulated on this hearth following abandonment.  This second hearth not only confirmed the stick and mud construction present for both chimneys, but also served to book end the structure in terms of its size (20 ft in length).  In addition, the fact that both hearths were set at grade suggested the floor of this structure was a clay floor, not a wooden plank floor set on joists.

 

Figure 4.  Montpelier archaeologist cleaning remains of burnt log in hearth at the Stable Quarter.

The second aspect of the site that suggested not only stick and mud construction for the chimneys but also a mud daubed log home were the large borrow pits present at the site.  Located to the southeast of the hearth bases, we found two large oval-shaped pits that were filled with hearth ash and household trash.  These pits were originally found in the 1990s excavations but without the discovery of the associated structure, interpretation of their function was difficult.  However, once we realized we were dealing with a potential stick and mud chimney, the most obvious answer was that these pits started out life as borrow pits for the construction of the quarter (Figure 5).  The ceramics and nails from these pits evidenced a fill date of the mid to late 1790s.  Given that most of the other ceramics at the site typically range in the 1810s, this earlier date suggested that the pits were filled very early during the site occupation.  Combined with this early date, the size and depth of these pits pointed toward initial construction when the largest amount of clay would be needed for not only lining the chimney but also filling the cracks between the logs of the home.  The combined evidence of an absence of piers, the clay floor of the home, and the absence of post holes (that would suggest a post-in-ground architecture) pointed to the structure being built of log.  Three other shallower borrow pits were located to the east and contained later dating ceramics—these pits were likely the source for clay to repair daub between the logs and the clay chimney lining.  As repairs would not necessitate as much clay as initial construction, these pits were much shallower.

Figure 5.  Montpelier archaeologist beginning the excavation of the western half of the borrow pit at the Stable Quarter.  Notice gray ash deposits in the profile.

The fill from the larger borrow pits proved to contain a rich deposit of artifacts related to the foodways of the household residing at this site.  All of the soils from these features were waterscreened through window-screen or smaller mesh and then floated (Reeves 2007).  Large amounts of charred seeds, bone (fish along with wild and domesticate), egg shell,and artifacts (beads, straight pins, ceramics, and glass) were contained within these waterscreen samples.  Analysis of these remains will provide a wealth of information regarding the diet of the home’s inhabitants.  One additional feature, a sub-floor pit, located within the structure was also filled with ash and trash debris (Figure 6).  This feature contained ceramics dating to the mid period of occupation along with large amounts of food remains similar to those found in the large borrow pits.  This sub-floor pit was located adjacent to the hearth and is very similar in size and position to root cellars used during this period for storing sweet potatoes (Katz-Hyman and Rice 2010). 

Figure 6. Completed excavation of hearth and sub-floor pit at the Stable Quarter.

One of the more exciting aspects of these pits is that the associated artifacts provide a comparison through time of diet at the site from the 1790s and the 1810s and 20s.  Analysis of faunal materials recovered from the Madison table indicates that there was a notable shift from a mix of domesticated and wild animals to total dependence on domesticate cuts during this same time period for Dolley and James Madison’s diet (Pavao-Zuckerman 2008) and we are interested in determining if there is any parallel for the larger plantation community.  In the Fall of 2011, we will be sending this floral and faunal material off for analysis as soon as we have finished processing, cataloguing, and analyzing for our site reports.

In addition to the wonderfully preserved architectural features and features containing food remains, the site contained large broadcast scatters of trash throughout the yard.  Analysis of the spatial patterning of these trash deposits is underway, but the initial observed patterns reflect the typical patterning of trash being disposed of away from work areas.  In addition, a wide array of ceramics occurs in these deposits, including many ceramics whose origin appears to be from the Madison table.

Some of the pieces recovered from the Stable Quarter are the same pattern as found in trash deposits containing broken and discarded items from the Madison table.  In particular, we have located Chinese export porcelain that is not only an exact match for pieces recovered from the rear lawn of the mansion, but an actual mend to the same vessel (Figure 7).  Other pieces found at the Stable Quarter are from the massive dinner sets that the Madisons owned including a transfer printed ware known as Bamboo and Peony and pieces of French porcelain manufactured by the Nast porcelain factory.  The question arises, if these pieces are from the Madison table, how did the discarded fragments end up over 120 yards from the mansion?  Among the possible answers are that these pieces might have become chipped or cracked and the Madisons ordered the house slaves to remove them from the service.  The enslaved domestics would make the choice of either disposing of the vessel in the midden to the north of the house (Dolley’s Midden) or reusing the vessel back at their own home.  However, the platter fragments that mend with pieces recovered from the rear lawn suggest more than simply chipped pieces being brought back to the home, but that these vessels might have broken at the house, but for some reason were disposed of away from the house.  Before we jump to any explanation, we need to address the place of the residents of this home in relationship to the mansion and how this structure relates to those slave quarters closer to the mansion.

Figure 7.  Mended platter recovered from the mansion rear lawn (left side) and the Stable Quarter (right side).

 

Placing the Stable Quarter in the Context of the Larger Mansion Grounds

Excavations at the mansion grounds have shown the formal grounds were surrounded and defined by a picket fence, ha has (trenches used to keep animals out), and roads.  Inside this fence, the Madisons arranged the space surrounding the mansion in a formal ordered fashion with carefully contrived views through alleys of trees, formal gardens laid out in falling terraces, a large level lawn in the rear, and walks lined with rounded river gravel.  Amongst and within this formal enclosure are the homes of the enslaved domestics in the South Yard—or the work area directly south of the mansion that includes three duplex residences, two smokehouses, and a detached kitchen.  The homes within this space are in marked contrast with that seen at the Stable Quarter.  Archaeological excavations have revealed these homes to include masonry chimneys, glazed windows, raised wooden floors, and sills set on piers.  In addition, these structures are laid out on the same orientation as the mansion and are placed such that their walls align with the mansion walls (see Figure 8).   These homes were, in many ways, designed to be seen from the mansion as they were less than 50 feet from the mansion and in direct sight of the rear lawn where Dolley would hold her famous fetes and in direct sight of the terrace atop the one-story south wing (see Figure 9).

Figure 8.  2008 excavations in the South Yard showing exposed chimney base, fenceline and yard surface for the NorthEast duplex (#2).  White rectangles represent quarters with the area surrounding and between 1 & 2 being the focus of the proposed study during the 2011 field season. 

 

Figure 9.  3-D digital rendering of view into South Yard from the south terrace of the mansion.  From this view, it is obvious that Madison’s guests would have direct visual access into the houseyards of quarters for the mansion.  Image courtesy of University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities.

What is fascinating about this space is the fact that it was designed to be seen by Madison’s guests.  There are even period reminiscence by visitors who recall walking from the house to the quarters to bring the enslaved residents “scraps” from the breakfast table.   Seen in this light, it might come as little surprise that these spaces were potentially designed with the same care as the placement of the front fence and the terracing of the formal garden.  The combined documentary and archaeological evidence speaks to Madison being inspired to design the South Yard from landscape treatises of the late 18th century that illustrate idealized worker housing (Reeves 2010; Wulf 2011).  These texts suggest designing worker housing in duplexes where neighboring households can aide each other and creating tidy cottages with raised wooden floors, sashed windows with glass, masonry chimneys and space enough below structures to allow circulation of air (which would have a distinct disadvantage in the winter).  Such structure design can be seen directly in the spaces Madison provided for the enslaved residents of the South Yard.  What this formalized structure tends to emphasize is a space made for presentation of slaves’ daily life rather than an organic space designed for convenience of slaves’ daily lives.  This can be seen nowhere more clearly than in the contrast of the South Yard with the adjacent spaces of the Stable Yard.

The South yard represents a very different form of living space for slaves than the Stable Quarter located just on the other side of the fence from the formal grounds of the mansion and within 20 feet of the duplexes for the South Yard.  In contrast with the South Yard, the Stable Quarter residence is aligned with the orientation of the ridge on which it sits.  This would allow it to not only be positioned to take maximum advantage of the slope in the area for yard layout, but also maximize southern exposure during the winter.  The South Yard structures had very little surface area facing the south and would have been at an extreme disadvantage during the winter for warmth.  In addition, the orientation with the mansion positioned the homes in the South Yard such that level yard space was at a premium.  What is evident in the Stable Yard is much more space being available for daily activities and more flexibility for slaves in their arrangement of activities.

What are we to make of this contrast in placement of homes and differences in architectural style?  On one level, one might argue that the structures in the South Yard benefited from an overall high quality of architectural elements with glazed sashed windows, wooden floors, and masonry chimneys.  For the residents, however, these “benefits” were tempered by less advantageous arrangement of yard space, structural siting, and being positioned to be in direct surveillance from the mansion.  In addition, archaeological survey and excavations have located paths in the South Yard that link these structures directly with the cellars of the mansion where much of the daily tasks for the mansion took place.  These paths were stone and brick paved to reduce traffic of clay into the house.   The manner in which these paths link to the cellars speak to the orchestrated movements of house slaves from their homes to work areas.  Within the mansion, the movement of house slaves was even more carefully orchestrated through the use of service stairs and entries into first floor of the house that minimized the direct interaction of slaves and the Madison family and their guests.  Slaves would be always present to serve, but rendered to the background during the social occasions in which their services were needed.  This code of behavior likely influenced the home life of slaves in the South Yard—as this home life was set within the formalized structure of the mansion grounds. 

By contrast, those slaves living in the Stable Quarter resided in a space outside of the carefully contrived environment of the mansion grounds.  Their homes were set within the larger work spaces of the stables, carriage house, and craft complex to the south and outside of the formal fence space of the mansion grounds. While this area still served the needs of the Madisons and their guests, it was also quite separate from the formalized activities of the mansion and its associated formal grounds.  In the case of the stable and craft yards, enslaved artisans did not come in direct contact with the many guests who visited the Madisons.  However, they did come in direct contact with the personal slaves that accompanied guests and this contact brought the daily flow of activities and bustle of news into this service space.  As such, while activities in the Stable Yard was spatially distinct from the mansion grounds, this space was privy to the events that took place at the mansion and the opportunity for meeting new contacts from the outside world.

This brings us back to the presence of the broken platter in the Stable Quarter yard.  Was the yard of the stable quarter a zone in which actions of the enslaved could be screened from the Madisons?  Could the broken platter (and perhaps other dishes present in this yard) have been intentionally disposed of in the yard after breakage as a means to avoid discovery?  Was the space found in the Stable Quarter separate enough to allow evasion from the surveillance but close enough to serve as a informal harbor for activity?  Does the higher quantities and diversity of household goods of the Stable Quarter reflect this household’s ability to “profit” from the enhanced contact with outsiders and ability to network for social and economic advantages?  The answers to many of these questions rests with examining the Stable Quarter in relationship to the South Yard.  

In comparison with the Stable Yard, was the South Yard and its yards one of contested space frought with the tension of being caught within the surveillance of the Madisons?  How would households living in this space carve out a semblance of privacy within the controlled space of the Madisons?    It is by contrasting these two very distinct but linked spaces that we will bring to light the means by which slaves maneuvered within the rigid constraints established by chattel slavery.  What is more important in the context of Montpelier is the ability to rediscover the role that Madison held within this constantly negotiated and contested space.

 

As the architect of the Constitution, Madison was very concerned with establishing the ideals of citizenship that define American society to this day.  In Madison’s day, however, the rights of citizenship were limited to a select group of individuals—mainly white, male landowners.  The majority of the population who lived at his plantation home did not expect to see in their lifetime the application of the right to vote, legally own property, or even ensure the stability of their own family, much less the ability to control their own destiny.  As a slave owner, Madison was very concerned about the conflict inherent in owning humans as property.  While Madison never resolved this internal conflict on his own personal level, might he have sought out means of amelioration at his own home?  Were the conditions evident in the South Yard of applying idealized housing standards to a select group of slaves a way of showing his paternalistic patronage to a group of slaves closest to his household?  Or was the structure imposed on the residences in the South Yard simply a manner of situating the actions and lives of these enslaved residents into the ordered grounds of the mansion?  Addressing these questions through the archaeological record hold great potential for our understanding of Madison’s personal identity as a slave owner, as well as implications this had for the many enslaved households that called Montpelier home. This summer we hope to bring to light the answer to these questions and many others through the excavation of the southern duplexes whose residents were the immediate neighbors to the Stable Quarter. 

 

You Can Get Involved

During the 2011 season, the Montpelier Archaeology Department welcomes the help of individuals interested in helping us to explore and research the South Yard.  Montpelier hosts nine one-week long excavation sessions where the public can live on the property and work side-by-side with trained archaeological staff to rediscover the hidden minds and lives of the Montpelier enslaved community.  This unique experience provides participants a unique opportunity to experience history first hand and learn the techniques that archaeologists use in working at such an incredibly well preserved site as the South Yard. For more information, see the website at www.montpelier.org.

Photos courtesy Montpelier Archaeology Department 

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REFERENCES

Reeves, Matthew

2010 A Community of Households: The Early 19th-Century Enslaved Community at James Madison’s Montpelier, In African Diaspora Archaeology Network 2010 (1).

 

Katz-Hyman, Martha B.  and Kym S. Rice

2010 World of  a Slave: Encyclopedia of the Material Life of Slaves in the United States.  Greenwood, Santa Barbara, California.

 

Wulf, Andrea

2011 Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation.  Knopf Publishers, New York.

 

Pavao-Zuckerman, Barnet

2008 Preliminary Analysis of Zooarchaeological Remains from Dolley’s Midden, Montpelier Mansion (44OR249).  Stanley J. Olsen Laboratory of Zooarchaeology, Arizona State Museum.  Report on File at the Montpelier Archaeology Department