Wishful Thinking: Crystal, Coin, or Cache: Interpreting the Evidence at Williamsburg’s First Baptist Church

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Colonial Williamsburg’s Department of Archaeology has been engaged since 2020 in the excavation and analysis of the First Baptist Church, site of one of the first churches in the nation established by and for an enslaved and free Black congregation. Excavation around the door of that structure recovered artifacts that could be interpreted as components of spirit deposits: a quartz crystal, coin, and straight pins. Interpreting such materials can be complicated, raising questions about association (real or attributed?) and placement (intentional or wished-for?). This paper will examine the significance of these artifacts individually, as well as possible connections between them. Primary discussion, however, will center on the location of these artifacts at the doorway of a church, an apparent syncretism. How did congregants shape and express their spiritual beliefs as they moved from outdoor worship to the confines of an urban church? Importantly, how can archaeologists work with congregational descendants to understand the evidence?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53705