All That Once Glittered: Metallic Thread from the St. Mary’s Fort

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Bastions, Buttons, and Burials: Recent Research at Historic St. Mary’s City", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Multiple fragments of tangled metallic threads and a complete woven button were found during the 2023 excavation season in a St. Mary’s Fort cellar feature at Historic St. Mary’s City. These discarded threads once adorned garments that communicated the social and economic status of the wearer, attesting to wealth, position, or both. In order to create these glittering decorative trimmings, precious metals such as silver and gold were drawn, hammered, or curled and combined with organic fibers or more common metals such as copper. Among their many uses, metallic threads were used as fringe, decorative buttonholes, fanciful embroidery, and buttons. This paper will discuss the types and manufacturing methods of St. Mary’s Fort thread fragments, exploring the potential uses of these once shiny adornments.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bastions, Buttons, and Burials: Recent Research at Historic St. Mary’s City   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow