Sylvester Manor Collections Update

278 boxes!

We have just completed a large undertaking – to locate and inventory all boxes associated with the 1998-2006 excavations that took place at Sylvester Manor, a former provisioning plantation located on Shelter Island New York. These boxes are spread across three floors on our campus and span all excavation seasons at the site. This process took about a year, and in all 278 boxes have been found! Eighty-two off these boxes contain architectural material, 45 of are faunal material, and 27 are soil samples.

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Our inventorying process included barcoding each box to be entered into our Box Catalog, and recording what contexts and artifact types are in each box and whether the artifacts have been cataloged.

Our next step in reevaluating the Sylvester Manor collection is to catalog material that has not been cataloged before. Over 250,000 artifacts have previously been identified through old digital catalogs and physical catalog sheets. However, thousands more remain uncatalogued. In cataloging these contexts, we will be able to have a complete artifact count of the entire Sylvester Manor collection, improving future research.

Images:

Enoch with a cart of Sylvester Manor artifact boxes that he brought up from storage so that they could be barcoded and inventoried.

Contents of the boxes, by artifact type.

Our FileMaker box inventory layout, recording box contents.