April 3, 2025
Sometimes artifacts that come across our desks are familiar. When cataloging artifacts from the excavations on the East Lawn, this creamware sherd caught our eye due to the unusual placement of a molded decoration on the interior base. Wouldn’t an uneven surface beneath your teacup be inconvenient?
This design, known as “Bead and Reel,” is intended to appear as a cable or rope. It is often found on early molded refined earthenwares. The examples in this artifact highlight are all British creamware, produced between 1762-1820.
Figure 1. Creamware ceramic sherd with molded decoration recovered from the current excavations on the East Lawn.
Thanks to the Monticello Study Collection, a type collection curated to represent the most common and the most unique artifacts recovered across Monticello, we were able to match this small sherd to a previously excavated artifact. The partially reconstructed saucer is from the West Kitchen Yard, Dry Well & MRS 1 project and excavated between 1979 and 1982 (learn more about these excavations from the DAACS project page) (Photo by author).
Figure 2. Mended saucer excavated from West Kitchen Yard, Dry Well & MRS1, exhibiting the same molded element on the base (photo source: DAACS).
Teabowls with similar “Bead and Reel” patterns, from the same project as the saucer, may also answer our concerns about the decoration location- the footrings on the base fit inside of the molding. Could all these artifacts belong to the same tea set? What led to their distribution?
Figure 3. A creamware tea bowl in a drawer of the Monticello Study Collection with molded “Bead and Reel” decoration (photo by author).
We ask these questions because finding relationships between artifacts, and across different sites, offers insight into the relationship between people and place. The reconstructed saucer and tea bowls come from the West Kitchen Yard, a workspace associated with the South Kitchen where enslaved people, including cooks Ursula Granger and James Hemings, prepared food. Archaeologists believe that the West Kitchen Yard served this purpose from the early 1770s until around 1809, when construction of the South Dependencies and second kitchen finished (Bates et al. 2013). In contrast, the East Lawn is part of the ornamental landscape framing Monticello, through which visitors would approach and enter Jefferson’s home.
Figure 4. A map of the Monticello Mountaintop notated with two archaeology sites, the West Kitchen Yard and the East Lawn, with images of molded creamware excavated from each site (image by author; map courtesy of the Monticello Department of Archaeology).
We can also learn more about the processes that resulted in artifact deposition as excavations on the East Lawn are helping us further understand the landscaping and two leveling episodes of the mountaintop.
REFERENCES
Bates, Lynsey, Elizabeth Sawyer, and Fraser Neiman. 2013. "West Kitchen Yard, Dry Well, & MRS 1: Background." The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery. Website. Accessed 4/3/2025.
