" ...to have some good book alwayes in store, being in solitude the best and choicest company." The Recovery Of Book Hardware From the Site Of James Fort.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Many unique and one of a kind artifacts have been recovered over 20 years of excavation at the site of James Fort. Each artifact tells a story about the people and the lives that were led at the site. One artifact that stands out both for its function and the questions it raises is book hardware. When examining an artifact and doing the research, many questions are raised. Knowing that the colonists brought books with them, what were the reasons? Comfort from religious text, enlightenment from renaissance or ancient writers, or information in the areas of agriculture and animal husbandry? Would site distribution indicate the areas where those who were more likely to be literate had lived? Lastly, if the purpose of the hardware is to protect the book, why has so much hardware been recovered? Was the hardware repurposed or had the books been destroyed?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow