NMV: A Number of Marked Vessels from Colonial Harvard College

Summary

Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts homogenized its colonial students in many ways, but opportunities for self-determination were endemic to the institution’’s system of control. Scholars ate at ‘commons,’ where attendance was mandatory. In the midst of this strongly communal material experience, however, young men were required to provide their own drinking cups and spoons. Some students scratched initials into their redware cups and bowls, distinguishing their possessions and themselves. Archaeologists have recovered a few such pieces from the cellar fill of Harvard’’s Old College’--site of the dining hall where students came together regularly to eat, learn, and pray. Inscription transforms these sherds from anonymous «’MNV»’ (minimum number of vessels) statistics to «NMV’»: a number of marked vessels with specificity and biography. In context, the pieces are more than evocative curiosities. They manifest the ambivalent place of the individual in the institution and invite a consideration of identity, masculinity, and power. They also challenge us to treat even mundane artifacts as small finds.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Revelatory Power of an Artifact in Context   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-14,14