Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
On Saturday my buddies Stan and KMac invited me to make a return trip to our favorite early colonial pit without our friend Dan who unfortunately had scheduling issues. We picked up where we were digging last time which was an area absolutely loaded with debris down to almost the 4 foot level. Huge oyster shells were packed in tight along with plenty of brick, bone and early glass making for very difficult digging. We were all dying to get our hands on a few more wine bottle seals, but they were quite elusive in spite of the heavy concentration of black glass. One interesting observation was the very early bottle shapes that were being recovered, many of which represented late 1600s shaft-and-globe-to-onion transitional varieties. Near the end of the dig KMac decided to take a short break and invited me to jump in and dig in the little hotspot he’d been working. It wasn’t more than 5 min later while removing material from the very bottom of the hole when I stumbled across an amazing find, and one that I unfortunately damaged with the shovel. It turned out to be a complete example of a small, but heavy wine bottle that was similar in form to many of the other large fragments we had been digging. In one of my reference books I found a nearly identical example dating to the 1680s which is spot-on for this shape. I told KMac this was his bottle, but he very graciously insisted that it belonged to me. What a wonderful gesture and friend!! I really felt bad taking it, but he sincerely wanted me to have it. I’ll never forget that moment – thank you again KMac! The bottle had some lip damage and we meticulously sifted the dirt in search of the small missing pieces, but came up just a little short of finding them all. I had a blast and can’t wait to go back with my good friends and see what other amazing treasures await.
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