This is a great little Facebook post from the Jamestown Rediscovery Project:
What’s an archaeologist’s white whale? A copper alloy spoon, apparently! Director of Archaeology Dave Givens always wanted to find a copper spoon – it was one thing he had never found, despite working here for over 20 years.
On the last day of major excavations in the Governor’s Well, Dave was digging in the mud at the bottom and was mostly scooping mud for screening later when he felt a metal handle. It was a spoon! And not only that, it was a copper alloy spoon. This is one of only three complete copper alloy spoons in the Jamestown Rediscovery collection, though we have several fragmentary parts.
Another thing that makes this find exciting is that there’s a small heart and letters stamped on the bowl of the spoon. This could be a maker’s mark or it could represent the owner of the spoon (imagine getting your spoons monogrammed!).
As the Collections team works to research this spoon (and others in our collection), more information will be available in our online artifact archive! In the meantime, explore more than 200 artifacts excavated at Jamestown at historicjamestowne.org/collections/artifacts.
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