Fireproof Roof Tiles Found at Colonial Williamsburg's Magazine

WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA—According to a report in The Virginia Gazette, archaeologist Jack Gary and his colleagues have uncovered several clay roof tiles at the site of the Powder Magazine at Colonial Williamsburg, the partially reconstructed former capital of Virginia. It had been previously thought that the octagonal building, which was originally constructed under the direction of Governor Alexander Spotswood in 1715 to hold gunpowder and arms, had been roofed with flammable wooden shingles. After the Revolutionary War, the building was used as a stable, and later as a church, before it was restored in 1930 as part of the living history museum. “They didn’t have the same amount of evidence that we now have,” Gary said. New information obtained through the excavation will help researchers to reinterpret what the structure looked like and how it was used over time. To read about the Native Rappahannock peoples whom colonists encountered in seventeenth-century Virginia, go to "Return to the River."