Pump Up the Jambs: Expanding the Catalog of Known Colonial Era Decorative Delftware Fireplace Tiles from Archaeological Contexts in North Carolina and Beyond

Thomas E. Beaman. Jr.

Pump Up the Jambs: Expanding the Catalog of Known Colonial Era Decorative Delftware Fireplace Tiles from Archaeological Contexts in North Carolina and Beyond

Year: 2020

Summary

This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1996, I presented a study on decorative delftware fireplace tiles recovered from three structures in eighteenth-century Brunswick Town. At that time, these were the only delftware tiles known or reported from archaeological contexts in North Carolina. Yet in the past 22 years, as a result of more recent excavations and ongoing re-analyses on a number of archaeological collections, more delftware fireplace tile fragments have been identified from colonial period town and rural plantation contexts. This presentation will focus on the now expanded collections of delftware fireplace tile, with specific attention to common decorative motifs and corner designs in North Carolina. Results from ongoing studies of similar tiles in neighboring states will also be considered for comparison to the identified and dated examples from North Carolina.

Cite this Record

Pump Up the Jambs: Expanding the Catalog of Known Colonial Era Decorative Delftware Fireplace Tiles from Archaeological Contexts in North Carolina and Beyond. Thomas E. Beaman. Jr.. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457223)