Unfinished Stone Ornament (Archaeological Find)

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Title:

Unfinished Stone Ornament

Subject:

Carved on one side in the shape of a spade, the majority of the stone’s other half is unaltered. Based on the curve of the stone, it is clear that there was never enough material to replicate the spade design on the right half. The left side was worked with care, with minute, rough bumps along the carved curve. The back and base of the feature have straight and diagonal lines chiseled into it, for the purpose of using mortar to attach the ornament to a building. The brown stain is the result of a rusty nail that was found on top of the ornament.

Given that this stone was found in a level filled with architectural and construction debris, including bricks and nails, ranging from the 18th to 19th century, its resting place gives an approximate date and may reveal parts of its life.

While Harvard was in the process of constructing many of the dormitories of Harvard Yard, there was likely leftover or inutile stone around the site. A construction worker may have picked up a discarded stone, and set to work on carving it. Given its shape, the ornament could never have been completed, but its being made anyways may have been to alleviate boredom or to practice the technique of making such an ornament for another project. When the worker abandoned the stone, it was discarded in the construction debris area, where it was uncovered in 2021. Stone decorations like this were used to adorn buildings, similar to the foliate stone carvings of Harvard Yard’s Matthews Hall, pictured above.

Source:

Bunting, Bainbridge, and Margaret Henderson. Floyd. 1985. Harvard : an Architectural History. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

A written example of decorative stone being used in Matthews Hall, the building nearest the archaeological site where the stone ornament was found; a similar use to one this ornament may have had.

Gage, Mary, and J. E Gage. 2002. The Art of Splitting Stone. 1st ed. Amesbury, MA: Powwow River Books.

A book detailing the variety of methods of breaking stone in post-colonial contact New England; one method of which could have been used to initially break this stone at a quarry.

Gilson, Thomas, and Gilson, William. 2012. Carved in Stone : the Artistry of Early New England Gravestones. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

A description of stone chiseling in the Old Burying Ground, a site across the road from where this stone was found, similar to the marks on the stone.

Object Name:

Unfinished Stone Ornament

Peabody Number:

2021.6.45

Intrasite:

H972, Level 4

Depth:

24.5 cm

Class 1:

Architectural

Class 2:

Stone

Quantity:

Height (cm):

Height: 10.3 cm

Width (cm):

Length: 20 cm

Depth/Thickness (cm):

Depth: 5.1 cm