Swedish limestone paving in 17th-and 18th-century English buildings

Documents concerning buildings by Christopher Wren record the use of Swedish and Danish marble as a paving material. In order to establish the origin of these marbles, original pavings are examined at St Paul's Cathedral and elsewhere. Through analyses of samples and by means of other evidence both marbles are identified as Orthoceras Limestone from the Swedish island of Öland. The stone industry of Öland is described and the import of Swedish stone into England in the 17th and 18th centuries is traced through Scandinavian and English customs accounts.     

18th- and 19th-century shipyards at the south-east entrance to the West India Docks, London

Archaeological fieldwork in 1997 on the Isle of Dogs, at the south-east entrance to the West India Docks, recovered evidence of 17th- to 19th-century shipyards, associated activities and foreign trade. Reused timbers may be the remains of the 17th-century Rolt's yard. Reclamation along the natural inlet was accompanied by the construction of a timber dry dock probably in the late 18th century. This soon fell out of use and was filled in with the construction of new dry docks to the south in 1806 by Thomas Pitcher. Much of the debris dating to the first half of the 19th century from ship repairing and building and from a range of ancillary crafts, together with ceramics from Iberia and the Far East, probably came from Pitcher's yard.     

Great Moor Farm,Sowton, Devon: the recording and excavation of a 16th- and 17th-century farmhouse

SUMMARY: The demolished Great Moor Farm provided a unique opportunity to study the development of a Devon farmhouse combining detailed fabric recording, excavation and documentary research. The building had a complex structural history, and neither the recording of the standing structure nor the excavation on its own provided sufficient information for the confident identification of the sequence of phases and their dating. The development of the house can be followed from its original construction in the early 16th century, as it was adapted, improved and enlarged following the prevailing fashions of comfort and style, to become a relatively large and comfortable house by c. 1700. Its growth coincided with a prosperous period for Devon farmers and with the evolution of the medieval to the modern house.     

Characterization of bricks and tiles from the 17th-century brick Chapel,St. Mary's City,Maryland

The brick Chapel at St. Mary's City, Maryland, built around 1667, would have been an impressive structure on a colonial frontier where all the other buildings were built only of wood. While the building is no longer extant, the bricks remaining in the buried foundations hold information about the technologies and materials used by brickmakers in the 17th-century Chesapeake region. Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and petrographic analysis of thin sections were used to compare the Chapel bricks and other 17th-century bricks and tiles from several Chesapeake contexts to locally available clay sources. While the composition of the Chapel bricks is generally consistent with that of clays available in southern Maryland, these historic materials could not be linked to any one deposit, and may reflect the mixing of clays from multiple sources. In contrast, building materials from other 17th-century buildings at St. Mary's City could be more precisely “matched” to specific local clay deposits. This paper reports on our initial investigations toward understanding the technology of the Chapel bricks and their relationship to other bricks from St. Mary's City.     

Some Evidence for 12th- and 13th-century Linen and Woollen Textile Processing

FLAX-RETTING POOLS, hitherto unrecognized, still survive in the landscape of NW. England, in close association with fulling-mill sites, tenter banks and simple potash pits. The retting-pool sites have common characteristics—usually on flat land; close to a river, but utilizing small streams which have been channelled to provide a controlled water supply; and raised banks for the drying of the retted flax. The field evidence occurs in documented contexts which show that a widespread linen industry was contemporary with, and often linked to, the 12th- and 13th-century demesne woollen industry.     

Children accused of witchcraft in 17th-century Finnmark

This article deals with six children accused of witchcraft in the district of Finnmark, Northern Norway, during a witchcraft panic in 1663. Through a narratological approach, the article presents close-readings of court records, trying to detect the various voices heard in the documents: the voice of the accused person, the voice of the law and the voice of the scribe. The article draws attention to four points discussed within ongoing witchcraft research: the role of the scribe, the individualized character of the children's confessions, oral transference of witchcraft ideas and the speed of transmission of ideas about witchcraft. The analyses show that children confessed to similar demonological elements as adults, similarly seen in other European countries. The contents must be known before the children were brought before the court, as their answers to leading questions were detailed. The voices of the children are individualized, there is no indication that the confessions are constructions made by the scribe. The influence of specific persons had great influence on transference of demonological ideas.     

An 18th-century timber wharf in Copenhagen Harbour

Abstract

An archaeological investigation prior to the building of Copenhagen's new Opera House examined an impressive wooden wharf built in the 1780s around Ankerøen, the island on which the Danish navy stored its anchor stocks. When considered with documentary evidence, the excavated structure can be shown to employ a distinctive method of construction, comparable to that used in the so-called 'Hamburg' type of wharf, with a heavy box-like frame fronted with slanting storm posts. It was abandoned by the mid-19th century, when the shape of ships' hulls changed.     

A 17th-century Kiln Site at Woolwich

Abstract

This report describes the results of the excavation of two adjacent kilns at Woolwich, one producing earthenware and one producing stoneware. Both date from the third quarter of the 17th century, though evidence suggests that the stoneware kiln is the earlier of the two. The report also includes a discussion of an earlier feature, a clay-lined pit, as well as several features associated with the three main features. The earthenware kiln had twin stoke holes and produced domestic pottery. The stoneware kiln had a single stoke hole and produced Bellarmine jugs with other stoneware vessels, and is the only stoneware kiln of this period yet discovered in Britain.¹     

Mapping colonial Quechua through trial interpretations in 17th-century Cajamarca

Andean linguistics has not determined the geographic extent in which Quechua was spoken in Peru's Cajamarca region during the colonial period. The debate centers on whether it ranged beyond where it is currently found in the ‘enclaves’ of Porcón and Chetilla. No previous systematic efforts have attempted to clarify this problem. Here, we seek to reconstruct 17th-century Quechua distribution using data from trial interpretations (oral language translations carried out during the testimonies) in the document series ‘Protector de Naturales' (‘Advocate of the Indians’), held in the Regional Archive of Cajamarca. We represent this data cartographically using the dot density map technique, a visualization method that allows us to conclude that in the 17th century Quechua covered a wider territory than that which is currently observed. We suggest that this method could be applied in other contexts, to increase knowledge of the historical distribution of indigenous languages in South America.     

A Reappraisal of Dinas Powys: Local Exchange and Specialized Livestock Production in 5th- to 7th-century Wales

RESULTS OF THE analysis of a previously unstudied group of animal bone from Dinas Powys are tested against the original report and subsequent interpretations. Assumptions inherent in the initial sampling policy and analysis are discussed. The present interpretation explores the concept of social production in early medieval Wales.     

Clarke Hall,Wakefield; architectural innovations in 17th-century West Yorkshire

Abstract

Clarke Hall stands one mile north-east of Wakefield (SE 342222) at the side of the A642 Aberford Road. Believed to be of early Elizabethan date, the house was purchased by the West Riding County Council in 1971 for conversion into a schools museum. Over the following three years the writer undertook a programme of documentary research and excavation which established that the building was entirely renewed in the late 1670s, its materials and plan clearly illustrating the transformation from medieval to post-medieval building practices in West Yorkshire.     

Fregatten Mynden: a 17th-century Danish Frigate Found in Northern Germany

The remains of a small 17th-century Danish frigate were investigated off the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, northern Germany. Through research in the Danish National Archives in Copenhagen it was possible to identify the ship. Using documentary and archaeological sources, the layout, equipment and appearance of one of the small and less prestigious warships of the 17th and early 18th century could be reconstructed. In addition, aspects of shipboard life will be illustrated.
© 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society