After the existing buildings were demolished, the archaeology team began their excavations of the 1.5 acre site.  Instead of trowels and brushes, the crew worked with skilled backhoe operators to successfully locate 13 brick water wells and privies. Buried up to 26 feet beneath Fifth Avenue – amidst a sea of rock, concrete and metal – were fragile hand painted dolls, delicate French urns decorated with gold, a sash pistol, and thousands of other unique objects. The last time these artifacts were seen, canal boats entered Pittsburgh on a watered viaduct and Native Americans Indians hunted buffalo across the Plains.

Back in the laboratory, as archaeologists carefully cleaned and identified the artifacts, an unknown and extraordinary chapter in the city’s history was revealed.  Discovering the relationships between these artifacts and written history created a new perspective of the lives and work of those who once occupied the space where Three PNC Plaza now stands.  The chronicle of this excavation documents their place in history, a time when Pittsburghers shaped a frontier village into a great city.

See the artifacts in person on permanent exhibit in the new Fairmont Hotel Pittsburgh Opening Soon….

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10068/1041196-437.stm?cmpid=news.xml

http://www.wqed.org/tv/sebak/right-beside-the-river/index.php

When archaeologist Christine Davis excavated the C. Yeager & Company shaft on a wintry morning last year, many of the original items were, to great surprise, still intact. An English-made porcelain statue of Gen. George McClellan, the Union commander sacked by President Lincoln in 1862; a French-made, beehive-shaped garniture, or ornament, studded with liquid-gold flowers; a cup believed to have been made for Pittsburgh’s centennial anniversary in 1858; and the head of a rosy-cheeked porcelain doll made in the 1850s by Germany’s Kestner & Co., its hair the color of black ink, its lips red and eyes wide open.

Top 50: PNC site a treasure trove of Pittsburgh archaeological finds

Video: Digging in the Past

Photo Credit: V. W. H. Campbell, Post-Gazette

Click here to watch the video clip on KDKA.com

CDC is B for Braddock

CDC worked with Rick Sebak on the film Pittsburgh A to Z. (We’re “B” for Braddock’s Road.) To purchase a copy, see

http://www.wqed.org/tv/atoz/index.shtml ]]> http://christinedavisconsultants.com/2007/02/pittsburgh-a-to-z/feed/ 0 http://christinedavisconsultants.com/2006/05/post-gazette-article-on-cdc-and-westinghouse-park/ http://christinedavisconsultants.com/2006/05/post-gazette-article-on-cdc-and-westinghouse-park/#comments Wed, 03 May 2006 15:29:50 +0000 http://christinedavisconsultants.com/?p=18 Check out the Post-Gazette’s article on some of the work we have been doing in Westinghouse Park.

Vanished Westinghouse estate here yields some secrets
Post-Gazette, May 2, 2006