- The farthest south burial
has some very interesting artifacts coming out of it,
including a bunch of silver spangles that are all in situ
and might be part of some clothing
that was on top of this particular individual.
Due to the fragile nature of the artifacts,
we were not able to excavate them in the field,
and we decided to remove them in a block of soil and take it into the lab.
Through our partners at the Smithsonian, they put us in touch with Cornell University,
that has a Xradia micro CT machine
that could actually handle a sample as large as our block of dirt.
And what we needed to do was actually see inside this box
and see the actual construction of these artifacts.
- Hi, I'm Mark Riccio, the director of the Cornell University micro CT facility
here in the Biotechnology Resource Center.
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by some archaeologists at Jamestown
who wanted to know if we could help them look inside some historical artifacts,
objects which they could not open or disturb.
X-ray computed tomography, or CT, is a non-invasive, non-destructive method
of looking inside objects in 3D.
Now that we've placed our large object inside this chamber, you can see
that it can be accommodated by our x-ray instrument.
This is the only machine in the world that can accommodate objects this large
and objects as small as these butterfly eggs and still achieve sub-micron resolution.
Inside the x-ray instrument, we have an x-ray source,
which remains fixed,
and we have the x-ray detectors, which remain fixed.
They can get closer and further away from our object on these tracks
as we need to zoom in and achieve higher resolution.
The sample, on the stage, is rotated 360 degrees,
and while it's rotated, we are digitizing
the 2-dimensional x-ray images with our bank of detectors here.
So now let's slice, virtually, into the dataset, into the specimen.
Underneath that dirt is a tremendous structure
of silver wire and spangles, all intertwined
in a very intricate pattern. Wow.
- Upon receiving the data from Cornell, we were able to see through the block of soil
at these silver threads, which are doubled on themselves,
twisted into a twist that doubles back, leaving a little loop at the bottom,
and there are silver spangles or sequins attached as well.
So we're able to see a whole bundle of this with folds and layered upon itself,
and we were trying to figure out what this might have been,
and the way it has laid in there, it appears to be a metallic fringe.
Here's an example of a similar piece of fringe.
It's about the same thickness, but our fringe was a little bit shorter,
but you can see the similarity in the weave here at the top where it attached to the fabric.
And we could clearly see this in our scan,
folded up on itself with different bends and layers,
and we think it was a piece about this long, which is a yard.
We've consulted with costume and textile experts at Colonial Williamsburg
and with the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of London,
and we all seem pretty agreed at this point that this is part of a sash,
or was attached to a silken fabric sash
that was probably indicative of rank.
It was a ceremonial sash.
So this was a very special object
to be buried with somebody of a particular rank.