Bent square nail (Archaeological Find)
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Title:
Bent square nail
Subject:
While nails today may be uniform and mundane, nails of the 17th and 18th centuries were nothing of the sort. Until the end of the 19th century when extruded wire nails were invented, each nail had its own character since they were all either handwrought or machine-cut with imperfect technology (Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello). Archaeologists can utilize these quirks to date nails and thus the other artifacts that surround them. For example, handwrought nails, such as the one shown above, taper on all four sides and come to a point, unlike machine-cut nails which taper on only two sides and come to an edge (Fairfax County Park Authority).
The condition of nails can also indicate what they were used for. In the case of this nail, its near 90-degree bend hints at the fact that it may have been removed from whatever it was originally hammered into. Given that it was excavated next to Holden Chapel in Harvard Yard, one might reasonably suspect that it was removed from Holden Chapel when the building underwent one of its renovations. The Harvard University Archives contain some records of the renovations in the form of sketches and floor plans of the alterations undertaken in 1850. Roughly half of the pages in the folio have the words “as now existing” while the other half have the words “as proposed to be remodeled” with accompanying illustrations (Alterations to Holden Chapel). This primary source document may connect people in the present to the moment that this nail found its temporary home in the soil.
Source:
Fairfax County Park Authority, “Hand-Wrought Nails in Early America”, https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/artifacts/hand-wrought-nails.
This blog post from Fairfax County, Virginia describes how nails were made in the 18th century and the many types of nails that archaeologists encounter in the field.
Alterations to Holden Chapel, Harvard College, 1850. Records of early Harvard buildings, 1710-1969, UAI 15.10.5, Box: 3. Harvard University Archives.
This primary source document housed in the Harvard University Archives contains sketches of alterations to Holden Chapel carried out in the summer of 1850.
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, "How to Make a Nail in the 18th-Century," YouTube, January 29, 2019, video, 1:03, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF6mXGrV4tM.
This brief YouTube video from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation demonstrates the process of making nails in the 18th century from iron rod to finished product.
Object Name:
Bent square nail
Inventory Description:
Square body nail. Bent to ~70 degrees. No clear head.
Peabody Number:
2023.11.48
Intrasite:
H977 level 1
Depth:
0-16.5
Class 1:
Metal
Class 2:
Arms
Class 3:
Nail
Quantity:
1
Height (cm):
6.4
Width (cm):
0.7
Depth/Thickness (cm):
0.6
Century:
Pre-1850