Spangles

Like today’s sequins, 17th-century spangles were used to embroider clothes and other textiles to catch light and draw attention to the wearer or decorated item. Sometimes referred to as ‘oes’ in the 16th and 17th centuries, spangles were made from various metals, including silver, gold, and copper alloy. Made by punching out the desired shape from a thin metal sheet, spangles were relatively inexpensive to manufacture and, therefore, widely used in embroidery to enhance worn garments, accessories, or other fabrics of the elite at Jamestown.

Jamestown’s collection contains over 25 loose spangles and a multitude of spangles adorning the captain’s sash. Curators have identified three varieties of spangles thus far based on material type and decoration. Teardrop-shaped spangles, including those in the captain’s sash, are made of silver and the most common type site-wide. They were all recovered from a mix of early and mid-17th century features, including the Governor’s Well, the West Bulwark Trench, and the Blacksmith Shop/Bakery. Similar spangles can be seen in historic paintings embellishing the clothing of the elite and on extant garments in museum collections.

The second type of spangle is round and made of a copper alloy that has been silvered, meaning that a thin layer of silver has been applied to the exterior of a copper alloy shaped ‘oe’. Most of these spangles were recovered from Pit 8, including several tangled in a thin, silvered copper alloy wire. This shape and style are more consistent with examples of those used in the embroidery of clothing, furnishing fabrics, and textile art.  Though they could be suspended as a fringe, like the teardrop-shaped ones, the rounded spangles are often sewn into the fabric and incorporated into the decorative pattern of the textile. There is only one example of a third type of spangle. Similar to the other round spangles, it may have been used more in traditional embroidery. However, despite its similar shape to the silvered copper alloy spangles, it is a flattened butted ring rather than an uninterrupted circle. The spangle is also silver gilt, meaning the item is silver with a thin layer of gold applied to the exterior. This is one of only a few gold or gilded artifacts in the Jamestown collection and was recovered from a mid-17th-century context.

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