Ancient African religious artifact uncovered in Annapolis

[Story]

Could be oldest found in America

By EARL KELLY, Staff Writer

Published October 21, 2008

What could be the oldest African religious artifact ever discovered in America has been unearthed on Fleet Street in Annapolis, University of Maryland researchers said yesterday.

The artifact, a clay "bundle," is filled with small pieces of metal and was unearthed in May from what had been an Annapolis street gutter three centuries ago.

"It is a very important artifact because it is early, because it is African in conceptual origin, and because it is a way of showing that at the point when the city received its (1708) charter, there was a public display of African magic," said University of Maryland anthropologist Dr. Mark Leone, who directs the Archaeology in Annapolis project.

The artifact would have been put in open sight, for everyone to see, Dr. Leone said.

"That means that by 1708, this was not just an English settlement, it was African, too," Dr. Leone said. "And, it established you could practice African magic in front of everybody."

The bundle was found about 4 feet below the surface, next to a log road that Dr. Leone's research team unearthed on Fleet Street in April.

The road was built in the 1680s, well before Annapolis became the colony's capital in 1695.

The bundle probably sat outside a door, researchers said, and was not meant to be buried. Pottery shards discovered near the artifact indicated that it was in place before 1720.

People widely believed in magic and the power of casting spells during this time, Dr. Leone said. The Maryland Gazette, for example, frequently carried stories about malformed babies, dogs born with multiple heads and people being tried for witchcraft.

The bundle is about the size of a football. An X-ray of the artifact showed that it contained about 300 lead shot and roughly 12 nails and 24 common pins, all bound together with clay and sand. The contents were placed inside a leather or cloth pouch, according to Dr. Leone, but the covering has long rotted away.

A prehistoric stone ax points skyward from the top of the bundle.

"Among some African groups, worked metal, particularly worked iron, had special meaning," he said. "The hammering, plus the heat, represented the power of a ... deity."

The artifact was unearthed by a team lead by Ph.D. candidate Matthew Cochran, of the University College London.

Archeologists found the bundle in early May, and spent the summer consulting with experts on West and Central-West African culture.

They concluded the bundle might have had its origins in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, among Yoruba or Mande speakers.

Archaeologists have found a number of more recent hoodoo artifacts in the Annapolis Historic District, including in Founding Father Charles Carroll's house. Scholars say the African religion was practiced in the city until at least the 1920s.

In 2005, for example, a team of graduate students working with Dr. Leone found a bundle of 40 nails, a clear glass spindle and a plate of glass etched with a checkerboard design, all carefully placed beneath the brick-floor basement of the Adams-Kilty house on Charles Street.

The people who buried this African-American artifact beneath the basement floor probably used it as a good-luck charm, in an attempt to keep ghosts and misfortune at bay.

Local historian Janice Hayes-Williams, a student of African and African-American history, said discovery of the bundle shows that Annapolis was an unusual city because blacks and whites lived so close together.

"We didn't have slave quarters, we lived in the main house," she said. "In the Charles Carroll house, he was practicing Catholicism downstairs and the slaves were practicing hoodoo in the attic."

Dr. Leone has been conducting archaeological digs in Annapolis over 20 years.

He said this year's excavations were part of the city's Charter 300 Celebration and, as such, were conducted in areas where the public could watch, including Fleet and Cornhill streets.

Also, the city was looking to bury utilities beneath these streets, and wanted to have the area studied before work began. The utility project has been put on hold because of costs.

"As a resident, I think the archaeological digs are really exciting," said Sen. John Astle, D-Annapolis, who lives on Fleet Street. "It gives us an idea of what was here before."

The African artifact is on display in the window of the Banneker-Douglass Museum, located in the old Mount Moriah A.M.E. Church on Franklin Street in Annapolis.

Wendi Perry, the museum's director, said that in the next few days, the museum will be adding light boxes with X-rays of the artifact to make the display more intelligible to the public.

"It is amazing that these pieces survived in any form or fashion," Ms. Perry said.