Stamps, dishes among items from parliament dig site
Archeologists digging up the site of a pre-Confederation parliament in Montreal this summer came across plenty of items they expected to find hidden deep in the earth — and a few they didn’t.
Digging began in late July at the Old Montreal site that housed the parliament of the United Province of Canada between 1844 and 1849, when it was burned to the ground.
A handful of the 300,000 unique items plucked from the site in the last few months were put on display Tuesday by officials at Montreal’s history museum.
Dishes, plates, bowls and cutlery likely used in the parliamentary restaurant were uncovered, as were oyster shells - the seafood apparently being a rich parliamentarian snack of the day.
In addition, grooming items were also found — toiletries like a straight razor, a basin for washing and a pair of scissors.
But the prize of this year’s digging were two stamps, which were used to authenticate official documents.
“To find some unexpected things is at the heart of archeology,” said Louise Pothier, chief archeologist at Pointe-a-Calliere museum. “This summer, we found some very incredible artifacts.”
One of the stamps, believed to be made of a copper alloy, was found in an area thought to house the clerk’s office and was inscribed with the words “legislative assembly Canada” in capital letters.
The other was marked “legislative council library” and was located where historical documents suggest the library would have been. It was also near where charred books were found.
“These are very precious items, very rare,” Pothier said. “They’re probably the only ones in Canadian collections.”
The parliament was housed in a building known as St-Ann’s Market, which was rebuilt following the fire and then razed in 1901.
After that, the site was used as a parking lot for several decades, enabling it to be preserved as a sort of time capsule.
In all, about 50 per cent of the former building was excavated in 2017.
The items from this summer will be added to the 500,000 items found in two previous digs dating back to 2010.