Archaeologists Discover Thousands of 'Rich' Items That Provide 'Rare' Opportunity to 'Study Enslaved Africans Where They Worked

More than 10,000 items have been recovered from a dig in an old laundry house behind a historic Charleston, South Carolina home, experts have announced.

According to the Charleston Post and Courier, since March archaeologists have sifted through the laundry building of the Aiken-Rhett House located in historic downtown Charleston. The building, built around 1835, is attached to what used to be the slave quarters and protected much of the material found inside from deteriorating.

Archaeologists have found more than 10,000 artifacts inside of a laundry building behind a historic Charleston, South Carolina home. Experts have called this dig a rare opportunity "to study enslaved Africans where they worked." (Image via Twitter @postandcourier)

Brandy Culp, a curator with the Historic Charleston Foundation, the group that owns the house and property that now functions as a museum, told the Post and Courier that she thought the dig would yield some interesting pieces — especially as tourists and passersby could easily see artifacts just poking out of the dirt of the building — but she didn't predict it would be this big.

"The material is so rich and informative," Culp said of the artifacts found in the two-story building that range from egg shells to buttons.

Led by archaeologists Andrew Agha and Nicole Isenbarger, both of the nonprofit Archaeological Research Collective, the dig will soon be completed, but the analyzing of the findings will last until 2016.

"There’s more rubble than dirt here," Agha said. "This is a workspace, and we rarely get a chance to study enslaved Africans’ where they worked. That is why this is really cool."

So far, the project has uncovered a lot of food waste, including egg shells, animal bones and oyster shells — many of which are still mostly intact. The dig has also uncovered pottery and buttons made of iron, brass, shell, bone and porcelain as well as clothing fasteners, straight pins and snap buttons. Some buttons are ornately carved.

According to the Post and Courier, the dig has uncovered an "unusually rich seam of artifacts."

The most interesting find for Agha has been the interior of the building that the slaves used for doing laundry. The remaining brick structures in the northeastern corner was modified several times, presumably as the people attempted to create better ways to wash clothes. 

"The Aikens were what we call 'first adopters,'" Culp told the Post and Courier. "They would have been in line for the iPhone 6 when it came out."

The Aiken-Rhett home was built in the 1820s and was sold to William Aiken Sr. who died unexpectedly soon after. His son, William Aiken Jr., a successful businessman, rice planter and politician, acquired the house and would later become the governor of South Carolina and serve in the U.S. House for several years. Aiken ran for Speaker of the House in 1855 but lost in what was called the "longest and most contentious Speaker election in House history."

The home remained in the family for 142 years until it was sold to the Charleston Museum and opened in 1975. The Historic Charleston Foundation, which acquired the home in 1995, plans to convert the laundry building into a family history center that depicts the slaves and owners who worked at that area and the technology they used.

Scroll through some photos of the site and the archeologists' findings here.