AP News, March 10th, 2007
Jamaica's Port Royal was a bustling town known as the "wickedest city on Earth" more than three centuries ago, until an earthquake and tsunami largely destroyed it.
However, while excavations have unearthed evidence of debauchery by its pirates, the most well-known inhabitants, experts say it was far more than its era's Sodom and Gomorrah.
With the exhibit "Port Royal, Jamaica," running at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida in Miami through June 3, historians want to show that the town was once heavily involved commerce and English colonization and was a home of skilled craftsmen.
"We wanted to tell a certain story about this unique place of Port Royal," said Stephen Stuempfle, the museum's chief curator.
Port Royal was the main city of the English colony of Jamaica in the 17th century, attracting both pirates and merchants until the devastating earthquake of 1692, which submerged part of the town. It then served as a British Royal Navy base for 200 years.
In the 1680s, just three decades after its founding, Port Royal already had about 7,000 inhabitants and was comparable to Boston during the same period, archaeologists said.
Underwater excavations have revealed an array of artifacts including pewter plates, silver spoons, glass bottles and ceramic cups, many of which are displayed in the exhibit.
"While we are owners and custodians of these objects, the story of Port Royal is important for the heritage of the world," said Wayne Modest, director of Museums of History and Ethnography at the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston. Many of the objects are owned by the institute, which is collaborating on the exhibit.
Among the objects are an engraved tortoiseshell comb and its case, dating to 1689. The case is engraved with an early version of the Jamaican coat of arms, a couple supporting a shield with a cross of pineapples under a royal helmet and a crocodile.
"It is one of the most beautiful pieces since before the earthquake," Stuempfle said.
A pewter plate bears the maker's mark of a pineapple and the initials SB, for a Port Royal pewter maker named Simon Benning. Archaeologists have found many plates there bearing his initials, and Donny L. Hamilton, a professor at the nautical archaeology program at Texas A&M University, tracked down Benning's will in London archives.
"Essentially, I brought him back to life," Hamilton said.
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Historical Museum of Southern Florida: http://www.hmsf.org/
