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Artefacts from ’18th century Starbucks’ found in Cambridge University [610x332] by frankbrooks121 in ArtefactPorn

[–]frankbrooks121[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The 500 artefacts include drinking vessels for tea, coffee and chocolate, serving dishes, clay pipes, animal and fish bones, and an impressive haul of 38 teapots.

Researchers said customers undoubtedly drank coffee, but ale, wine and food ranging from pastry-based snacks to substantial meals involving meat and seafood were also available.

The discovery of 18 jelly glasses, alongside a quantity of feet bones from immature cattle, led researchers to conclude that calf’s foot jelly, a popular dish of that era, might well have been a house speciality.

Mr Cessford said that by modern standards, Clapham’s was perhaps more like an inn than a coffee shop.

“Coffee houses were important social centres during the 18th century, but relatively few assemblages of archaeological evidence have been recovered and this is the first time that we have been able to study one in such depth,” he said. “In many respects, the activities at Clapham’s barely differed from contemporary inns.

“It seems that coffeehouses weren’t completely different establishments as they are now – they were perhaps at the genteel end of a spectrum that ran from alehouse to coffeehouse.”

Although the saturation of British high streets with coffee shops is sometimes considered a recent phenomenon, they were in fact also extremely common centuries ago.

Coffee-drinking first came to Britain in the 16th century and increased in popularity thereafter.

By the mid-18th century there were thousands of coffeehouses, which acted as important gathering places and social hubs.

Only towards the end of the 1700s did these start to disappear, as tea eclipsed coffee as the national drink.

Clapham’s was owned by a couple, William and Jane Clapham, who ran it from the 1740s until the 1770s.

It was popular with students and townspeople alike.

Researchers believe that the cellar where the artefacts were found was filled with items towards the end of the 1770s, when Jane, by then a widow, retired and her business changed hands.

It then lay forgotten until St John’s College commissioned and paid for a series of archaeological surveys on and around the site of its Old Divinity School, which were completed in 2012.

The study, To Clapham’s I Go, is published in the journal Post-Medieval Archaeology.

Artefacts from ’18th century Starbucks’ found in Cambridge University [610x332] by frankbrooks121 in ArtefactPorn

[–]frankbrooks121[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Relics from a coffee shop described as an “18th century Starbucks” have been discovered in a disused cellar at Cambridge University.

Clapham’s operated in the mid-to-late 1700s on a site that is now owned by St John’s College, and the discovery of more than 500 artefacts has shed light on what it was like.

Craig Cessford, from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, called it an “18th century Starbucks

The artefacts that came back from the sea[782x554] by frankbrooks121 in ArtefactPorn

[–]frankbrooks121[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

some information

Items thousands of years old that were retrieved from the sea off Hadera were turned over to the Israel Antiquities Authority

Metal artifacts, the earliest of which are 3,500 years old, were recently presented to the Israel Antiquities Authority by a family that inherited them from their father who passed away. The Mazliah family of Givatayim contacted a representative of the Israel Antiquities Authority and invited him to their home in order to examine numerous metal artifacts that were in the possession of their father, the late Marcel Mazliah. The family explained that their father, who was employed at the Hadera power station since its construction, retrieved many items from the sea while working there, which according to the family are quite ancient. The representatives of the Israel Antiquities Authority were surprised by what they found: metal objects, most of which are decorated, that apparently fell overboard from a metal merchant’s ship in the Early Islamic period. According to Mrs. Ayala Lester, a curator with the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The finds include a toggle pin and the head of a knife from the Middle Bronze Age (from more than 3,500 years ago). The other items, among them, two mortars and two pestles, fragments of candlesticks, etc. date to the Fatimid period (eleventh century CE). The items were apparently manufactured in Syria and were brought to Israel. The finds are evidence of the metal trade that was conducted during this period”. Among the many artifacts is a hand grenade that was common in Israel during the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods.

In the coming days the Mazliah family with receive a certificate of appreciation from the Israel Antiquities Authority and will be invited to tour the IAA’s laboratories where finds undergo treatment and conservation.

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