Getting to the bottom of DIG!

DIG! has been DUG!

After 5 terrific summers, DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery has come to an end. Last week, staff and Colonial Williamsburg volunteers were allowed to excavate the Archibald Blair Storehouse site, and finally uncover the cellar floor. I joined in on the last day to help out and commemorate my times over the years with this particular program and site.

DIG! Excavation and Prentis Store - October 2019

The mood of the day was ambivalent. Happy to dig, but sad that it was the last time at the site.

Ambivalent Brownies, baked by a DIG!
volunteer. Whatever mood you chose, they
were still delicious.

The goal was to unearth the complete rectangle of the chosen site... unfortunately, that did not happen. One side of the site had 2" of dirt to the bottom. The other side was found to have close to 7".  One corner was filled with clay that did not want to budge. Towards the later part of the day, shovels became more prevalent in hopes of dislodging dirt faster. Great progress and strides were made, but at the end of the day, there was still plenty of dirt.

The final results of 5 summers of DIG!

Digging on the cellar floor of the Archibald Blair Storehouse

There were still treasures to be found: Toy marbles, pieces of decorative plates, rusty nails, clay pipe pieces, bricks, buttons, glass, animal bones, oyster shells, and lots and lots of dirt.

A couple of the unique items found on the last day that I photographed:

A circular metal thing? For a buckle maybe?

Tiny, tiny, tiny piece of glass with an R
etched into it

Someone found the bottom half of a 20th century Coca-Cola glass bottle. When I was looking at it, I noticed it had been bottled at the Newport News, Virginia bottling plant!

Bottom of the Coca-Cola glass bottle, which reads
"Newport News"

Coca-Cola Newport News Bottling building
facade I shot a couple years back. The plant 
is no longer operational.

It was sad to see it covered up by the tarp one last time. There is still 1-2 days worth of digging left to complete what has been dug. There are other features of the cellar outside of the chosen rectangle of the excavation, but utility lines are in the way. As there are no current plans to move these lines, the excavation can go no further.

Shot of the latest version of the Visitor
Center's DIG! display case.

When I was talking with guests about the site, a common question was what's going to happen next? Are you going to rebuild the storehouse? Unfortunately, no. Digging in the dirt is one thing. Constructing a building is another. The cellar will be reburied.

With my current amount of research, I do not know why the storehouse wasn't rebuilt during the Restoration with Rockefeller. Back when I worked for Williamsburg full-time, I located a proposal from 1977 to rebuild it and use it as a retail location, but that did not come to fruition.

Wheelbarrow getting ready to take supplies back...
 one last time.

Will DIG! come back at a new site next summer? I sure hope so. It's a wonderful program that shows a different yet necessary side of the Williamsburg story. It's fun, hands-on, and educational. You get to touch the history! It's a lovely time, with a lovely group of people.

CW Archaeologist Meredith and I
after a last day of digging at DIG!

Sometimes, community can be found in a dirt pit, looking for the past's trash. Thank you to all the archaeologists and volunteers I befriended over the years at this site. Till the next one!


Sources:
Colonial Williamsburg Archaeology Facebook Post - Oct 3, 2019
"Renovation and Fixturing of the John Greenhow Store and Taliaferro-Cole Shop" [Segment of document that I copied pages out of from the CWF Rockefeller Library back in 2015. Apologies for the partial source]

See other stories on DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery:
DIG! during the Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017
DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery 2016
35/15 Part 5 - Ludwell-Paradise

DIG! during the Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017

An artifact marble eclipse during the 2017 solar eclipse!

My latest trip to Williamsburg coincided with the 2017 solar eclipse over North America. While Williamsburg did not get a total eclipse, a partial was still exciting! I decided the best way to avoid looking at the sun was to actively look in the opposite direction -- by searching for artifacts at DIG! Kids, Dirt, & Discovery!

DIG! Progress Report August 2017: The hole grows deeper!

This brick fireplace I photographed last time. Still buried,
but there's been lots of progress!

Another brick formation starting to appear!

These new stairs are already too short! Time to replace them
for next year's DIG!

The small, plastic sand box tubs are now replaced by a large,
permanent sandbox!

For the last program of the day, when the eclipse was to occur, no one had shown up to dig. There was a program on the Palace Green regarding 18th century science and solar eclipses, so everyone was avidly heading in that direction.

For that last hour, some digging happened, of course. Other parts were trying to look at the eclipse -- safely. None of us had any eclipse glasses, so rudimentary pinhole cameras were made.

Pinhole!

Pinhole!

Mini-partial eclipse!

Using the pit to create a bigger eclipse shot
through the pinhole

It was pretty fun. At the peak eclipse, the sun's light got noticeably dimmer. It was a spooky effect. Shadows through the trees became crescent-shaped. 

I tried to get a shot of the eclipse through my camera, but the sun was too bright.

One of the (many) shots of me trying to get a picture of the
eclipse through my camera. It didn't work.

Some people that were passing by would let us borrow their eclipse glasses from time to time. I got a pretty good shot putting the glass over my camera lens:

THE GREAT WILLIAMSBURG PARTIAL SOLAR
ECLIPSE 2017!!!

We finished off the dig session eating Moon Pies, of course. It was a good day, and no one lost their eyesight!

DIG! is done for the year, but it will be back again next year!

Visit Also:

Discovery! Archaeology CW Blog: Eclipsed!

35/15: Governor's Palace Wallpaper II

What is 35/15? Read the Introduction first.

This post is a sequel to 35/15: Governor's Palace Wallpaper.

35/15 is back, two years later! Should this post actually be titled 35/17? Who knows! Let's move on!

One of my favorite Williamsburg discoveries from the 35/15 Photo Project would have to be the existence of Governor's Palace Wallpaper.

In my first post, I wondered where it had gone? What had happened to it? One does not simply give up. This is iconic wallpaper that was on display in a major tourist attraction. There had to be some trail.

So, I used the best tools in my arsenal -- Google and Pinterest image searching. I was looking for hours, getting distracted by very artistic Chinese wallpapers, finding dead ends, trying new keywords. Someone had to have a picture online somewhere.

One of my wallpaper "well that looks fancy" excursions led me to de Gournay. de Gournay is a premiere custom wallpaper company. Their wallpapers have been featured in Vogue, perfume commercials, interior decor magazines, even called upon for use in the 2015 Met Gala. 

Looking through their extensive online collection, I came across a design that was very, very similar. So, I inquired about it.

It turns out, the design was based off the Governor's Palace wallpaper. de Gournay had seen some panels of the wallpaper being auctioned off, and created their own design, "Earlham," based off of it. (Many of de Gournay's wallpapers are named after historic English estates/homes.)

Some time later, they were approached by Michael S. Smith, a well-known US interior designer. He had a client that had 6 original Governor's Palace panels that they wanted restored, as well as ordering new panels to go along with the old ones. So, there you go! A good amount of it is still out there, being used, in good condition, and surrounded by immaculately-designed surroundings.

Clicking through de Gournay's website, it is fascinating to see the different variations on the design that they can do. While the original Williamsburg colors (which de Gournay named "Sung Blue Williamsburg" in honor of its past) will always be my sentimental favorite, de Gournay and their clients are not consigned to always replicate it. Check out this one in a light gold. Do you like the color green? How about colored flowers? How about we ditch wallpaper altogether and go with a cushion? The possibilities can be endless.

So, it is great to hear the wallpaper is still being used. It's also amazing I could one day own my very own Governor's Palace-inspired wallpaper! 

View the whole 35/15 Project:
Introduction
Part 1 - College of William and Mary 
Part 2 - Merchants Square
Part 3 - Buildings that Move
Part 4 - Market Square
Part 5 - Ludwell-Paradise
Part 6 - Queen Street to Botetourt Street
Part 7 - Raleigh Tavern
Part 8 - Paints
Part 9 - Botetourt Street to the Capitol Area
Part 10 - Capitol
Part 11 - No Longer Here
Part 12 - Francis and Nicholson Streets
Part 13 - Garden Edition
Part 14 - The Governor's Palace Gardens
Part 15 - Inside the Governor's Palace
Conclusion 

Bonus 35/15 Posts:
35/15: A Dessert Order
35/15: Life in Williamsburg in 1935
35/15: Governor's Palace Wallpaper
35/15: Governor's Palace Wallpaper II (You are currently viewing this one)

DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery 2016

DIG! Kids, Dirt and Discovery's dig site

Two weeks back, I volunteered for one of my favorite Colonial Williamsburg programs - "DIG!: Kids, Dirt and Discovery."

When I worked at Colonial Williamsburg, the DIG! site was my favorite site to oversee (you can read some my enthusiasm from last summer at the end of Part 5 of the 35/15 Photo Project). Luckily, they liked having me, so they invited me back this summer as a volunteer!

From the first summer, a lot of progress has been made. For little legs, there are now stairs for entering the site.

Dig site early summer 2015

Dig site late summer 2015

Dig site July 2016

Let's walk through a day at the DIG!. Each day is broken up into four 50 minute sessions. Each session consists of a brief introduction, digging, sifting, and categorizing.

Digging
This is pretty self-explanatory. Each archaeologist-in-training is given a pair of gloves, a trowel, and a bucket. Using their trowel, they scrape away the dirt. Everything they find, from dirt to artifacts, goes into their bucket.

Due to site excavations in the 1940's with less-detailed archaeological practices than today's, there are plenty of real artifacts in the soil, with none of the normally-found dirt layers. This site is the perfect place for kids to get a first taste for archaeology.

There are three groups, each one is led by one of CW's archaeologists. Each has their own section of where to dig.

Kids getting last minute instructions before
they get digging!

Dig time!

Looking down the stairs at the dig

One one side of the excavation, you can start to see some of
the higher brick features of the Archibald Blair storehouse
peeking through the soil. The bottom of the foundations
are 7 feet below the ground level!

Sifting
Once the digging portion has ended, the dirt collected in the buckets is dumped onto a screen over a wheelbarrow. Even if you think you found everything you dug up, there could be something you missed hidden in the dirt. The dirt gets pushed through the holes, while the artifacts stay behind. All the artifacts found get bagged for future analysis.

Sifting!

Pushing dirt through the screen

All the excess dirt from each session is wheeled away to a pile in a corner. Every month or so, a truck comes by to take the dirt away so it doesn't take over the property.

Mount Sifted Dirt. Not a catchy name.

Categorizing
After everything is screened and bagged, the leaders bring the archaeologists-in-training back to a shaded picnic table to go through what was found. They help guide the kids to discover and identify for themselves the different kinds of artifacts that are present.

Sorting artifacts by types

These kids are using wands with magnets in
them to see if any rusty-looking globs have
metals inside.

DUG!
After the last DIG! session, the site closes down for a quick clean-up, then reopens as a free-flow site for DUG!. As the name suggests, this program centers around things archaeologists do after they dig everything up, so there is no digging during this time. The program is different every day. Sometimes, it's cleaning artifacts, or putting together broken pottery examples. Sometimes, it's a Q&A with an archaeological expert or a special guest (The Father of American Archaeology, Thomas Jefferson, has visited from time to time).  The day I was there, it was cleaning artifacts. Artifacts can be delicate, so wet toothbrushes are used to wash off the dirt. For smaller nooks and crannies, we used a long toothpick-like stick.

Cleaned artifacts!

More treasures found

It's always fun to answer people who ask, "What did you find today?" "Oh, you know," I say, "Lots of broken glass, rusted nails, bones..." And they seem perfectly fine with children handling these normally-abhorred objects because they are artifacts. Ah, well. The present's trash is the future's treasure.

Other objects usually found at the site are pieces of tobacco pipes, oyster shells, broken ceramics and porcelain, buttons, bricks, mortar, and, of course, plenty of dirt.

The Prentis Store next door was a car repair shop before it was restored, so there have been a few automobile items found. It can be an interesting mix. There have been other oddities, but you will have to come by the site yourself to learn about them!

It's like a puzzle with lots of scattered and missing pieces.

After the dig, check out the DIG! artifact display case in the Visitor Center. It has had at least three changes since being established.

Visitor Center Artifact Display
Fall 2015

Visitor Center Artifact Display 
Winter 2015/2016

The latest update has been "Curated By KIDS!"

Visitor Center Artifact Display
Summer 2016

I think this is a great program that allows the future another opportunity to learn from the past.

It's a fascinating site. Most of what you see around Williamsburg is a final product of hours and hours of behind-the-scene work. Here, you get a peek at how it's done. I'm so glad DIG! came back for a second summer. Hopefully, it will continue after the Archibald Blair site has been excavated.



For DIG!, a free ticket reservation can be made the day of at any ticketing location with a valid admissions pass. Ages 5-16 are welcome. Capacity is limited to 20 kids/session, so the earlier you get your ticket, the better. The 9:30am session requires no ticket, it is first-come, first-serve. I recommend coming earlier in the day, as the sun heats things up, shadows disappear, and the soil become harder to dig into.

For DUG!, the site is free-flow 3-4:30pm, no ticket is required.

The official blog for DIG! can be found HERE.

(Want to still dig without getting dirty? Do a virtual dig in the non-CW online game Excavate!)

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A little background on me and Archaeology. I love archaeology. It's still on my list of things I want to do when I grow up. I was a master sandbox digger starting at a toddler age. I proudly boasted I would find the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island (that's still on my to-do list). I was fascinated by Pompeii. Around the turn of the millennium, I did a CW kids dig at Carter's Grove. Apparently I also toured the house, but I can only recall the dig. That dig's artifacts were all planted, and the dirt had layers, so it was a bit different than DIG!.

Me digging at Carter's Grove
June 26, 2000

After that, I don't think I had any other archaeological experience before last summer. It has been great to reconnect to (or should I say, dig up?) a lost part of me.

Me sifting for overlooked artifacts
with CW Archaeologist Libby

Thank you to Meredith, Libby, and Victoria for letting me help you DIG!

CNU Archive Donation

   This past summer was pretty busy for me. Along with The 35/15 Photo Project, I moved twice, held a full-time job, and performed in a community theater show. On top of all of that, I did yet another project! (I wondered why I never had any time) (The fall has kept me busy, which is why this is posting now instead of a few months ago)

   Since 7th grade, when I got my first digital camera, I have been taking pictures of everything. For a good bit of that, I've been surrounded by construction/renovation projects. It's fun to come by every week/day and see what has changed.

   During my time at Christopher Newport University (CNU), the college built and tore down several buildings. The campus of 2015 looks very different from when I started in 2010.

CNU campus via Google Earth. Areas in red roughly mark
what has been altered on campus between Summer 2010 to Summer 2015.

   Since I lived on campus, I saw and photographed all of the changes for fun. When I was getting close to moving out of the area, I started thinking on what could I do with these images. I am a chief believer in giving back to your community, so I decided to donate a portion of those to the CNU Archives, the record keepers of the college's history. As well as holding important documents and memorabilia, they have loads of pictures from 50+ years of college history. I interned for them in early 2012, scanning and filing things for their digital online archive SAIL. They have also helped me out from time to time in any research project I was looking into.

   In late May, I put all of my CNU construction photos together. I had taken 7,347 pictures. I knew this was not an acceptable number to donate, so long story short, I whittled it down. On August 12th, I had brought that number down to 2,049. Still a big number, but to be fair, there are almost 50 different categories I cover, giving an average of 41 pictures per category. The pictures cover every building constructed, every building demolished, any change that happened in established buildings, and a few sections covering random events during my time on campus (topping out ceremony, time capsule opening, etc). Some cutting decisions were easy (blurry, no actual importance, another pile of dirt), many were hard. I had to really push myself to keep cutting it down. I am proud to say the pictures that remain are essential to tell the CNU expansion story.

   In late August, I finally donated the pictures to the Archives. They are still developing a plan of action (it's not every day someone donates over two thousand photos), so none of the images are available to the public yet.

   All of these pictures were taken outside of construction fences, so these were shots anyone could have taken. To my knowledge, no student or staff member did anything like this.

   We live in a time where there is ample amount of documentation happening, but there is no organized method for what people should do with it all. So it's spewed out onto social media, to be forgotten about. It's very wasteful. No one's really thinking about the future, they are more about living in the now. There is nothing wrong with that, but the fact remains the present will be history tomorrow. Your documented memories could be worth something. That is why I try to preserve the past and present. Sometimes, you don't know what will have importance.


Back to the images, here are a four samplings I randomly picked:

Santoro Hall, Summer 2011

   Summer 2011, Santoro Hall (my freshman dorm). They installed new air conditioning vents on the roof that summer. During the same time, they took down the front corner roof structure (pictured in the bottom right, down to its metal beams). They never replaced it. Santoro looks incomplete without it there. Pictures of Santoro with its topper still cover CNU's website and promotional material.

CNU Front Entryway, Summer 2013

   Summer of 2013, they tore out the whole road in front of the Trible Library to create a shared pedestrian/vehicle road. Pictured above is when they had finished clearing the old concrete and asphalt away, getting ready for the new layout.

CNU, Fall 2010

   This view seems to be nondescript, but its value comes from hindsight. This view barely exists today. The road, parking lot, sidewalk, and trees are gone. The Wise Woods, to the right, were cut down for Luter Hall. The building at the end of the road is the Freeman Center, pictured in the midst of its expansion. The covered path was for students to safely enter/exit the building while construction happened around them.

Christopher Newport Hall, Summer 2014

   Here we see Christopher Newport Hall under construction. It's a massive building. CNU's scale for story height is huge compared to usual building standards. This shot is one of my series-shots, where I took an image from the same vantage point over and over. This is from the corner of the center brick partition of the access ramp for the Trible Library.

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There are plenty of more stories to tell, but that will have to wait until CNU opens the pictures up to the public.

I will leave you with this: When you donate your memories, you gain immortality. It is you who is narrating your life to the future. Someone will look at your name, and wonder "... Jalenec? Gilinic? Jell-O Neck? Glad I didn't have that last name."