A centuries-old mystery surrounding the Knight’s Tombstone in colonial Jamestown has finally been solved. Archaeologists traced the origins of the 17th-century tombstone and, in the process, learned more about historical trade routes.
What Is the Knight’s Tombstone?
Jamestown, a settlement in the Colony of Virginia, was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Over the centuries, the Knight’s Tombstone at Jamestown has been subject to countless surveys and studies. The latest investigation—conducted by Rebecca K. Rossi and Markus M. Key and recently published in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology—aimed to finally pinpoint the geographical origin of the black polished limestone that forms the Knight’s Tombstone.
Archaeologists already knew the Jamestown tombstone belonged to an English knight and that it was erected in 1627. The limestone slab features carved depressions that depict the outline of a knight with a sword and shield. These were originally filled with brass inlays. The Knight’s Tombstone was rediscovered in 1907 and has since been repaired and relocated to the chancel of the reconstructed Jamestown Memorial Church.
The Tombstone Likely Originated in Belgium
Researchers analyzed microfossils contained in fragments of the Knight’s Tombstone. The microbes they found are not native to North America but rather to Belgium and Ireland. The study authors wrote, “We hypothesize [the Knight’s Tombstone] was quarried and cut to size in Belgium, shipped down the Meuse River, across the English Channel to London where it was carved and the brass inlays installed, and finally shipped on to Jamestown.”
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Engraved tombstones were “one of the ways affluent English colonists exhibited their wealth and memorialized themselves,” the study noted. “Wealthy colonists in the Tidewater region of the Chesapeake Bay at this time preferentially selected black ‘marble’ for their gravestones that was actually polished, fine-grained, black limestone….The iconic knight’s tombstone at Jamestown is one such stone. The goal of this project was to determine the source of this stone to help understand trade routes at this time.”
Who Was the Jamestown Knight?
Researchers believe the Knight’s Tombstone most likely belongs to Sir George Yeardley, a 17th-century governor of Virginia and one of the first slaveowners in Colonial America. Yeardley was one of two English knights known to have died in Jamestown around 1627. Additionally, there is a reference to the Knight’s Tombstone in the 1680s will of Yeardley’s step-grandson, who requested that his own tombstone have the same inscription.
Yeardley presided over the first American legislative assembly, which took place in Jamestown in 1619. This historic five-day meeting included Yeardley’s own council, as well as 22 burgesses from other English settlements in the region. A few weeks later, the first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial Virginia. Yeardley purchased several enslaved people, marking the beginning of widespread slavery in the colony. At the time of his death, Yeardley was one of the largest and wealthiest landowners in Virginia.
