Bringing history to life

The decorations on these Chinese-produced ceramics were used on a range of bowls, cups, spoons and dishes. The patterns contain characters and symbols that are centuries old. Over time, the patterns sometimes changed, such as the characters on the base of the bowls. Typically, such markings stated the reigning emperor and year made. Yet the information is not clear on these bowls.

Flowers had a range of meanings. The four seasons, four flowers pattern includes one flower for each season—peony for spring, lotus for summer, chrysanthemum for winter and plum blossom for winter. They are placed around a central image of a peach, which symbolises longevity. As well as representing the seasons, these flowers have other symbolic and auspicious meanings. The peony is the ‘king of the flowers’ and stands for wealth and honour. The lotus is a symbol of purity, harmony and wealth. The chrysanthemum and plum blossom represent perseverance and purity, and are also symbols of longevity.

The colour of Winter Green (which looks like jade) is associated with Jun Zi—a well-educated Chinese man with the highest moral virtues. The colour was also associated with heaven and the colour of the clear sky after rain.

Rice bowls were the most basic tableware for southern Chinese people. Their diet was primarily rice-based, supplemented with small amounts of meat, fish and vegetables. The high proportion of fish bones and butchered animal bones found in the well suggests these foods were eaten by the Chinese furniture makers and families who were working and living on site.

In family settings, members would have shared meals around a table, each with an individual rice bowl. Each worker in Ah Toy’s factory probably had his own rice bowl too, with lunch often provided by their employer and served out of common cooking pots directly into these bowls.

Chinese people living at George Street were not without the flavours and comforts of home. Along with a large range of bowls and cups, food and medicine was also imported. The large jars found on site were made in southern China, sealed with stone lids, and then shipped to food-processing factories. The fut how nga (wide-mouthed jar) was used for storing a variety of fermented soybean sauces. The nga hu (shouldered jars with a spout) would carry liquor, soy sauce, vinegar or oil.

Little glass bottles would have contained a single dose of medicine. Once the medicine was consumed the bottle was discarded.

These objects could have been found on the table of a great number of Victorian households. Hundreds of families lived and worked in the buildings that occupied this site during the nineteenth century. Mrs Ellis, Mr Schweigert, Mr Charles Evans, G Bennis and Mr PB Murphy are just some of the shopkeepers who might have sat down to the table for a meal with these things.

The Brosley pattern on this cup is just one of the many ceramic patterns available to the Victorian consumer in Sydney. Mass produced with a huge range of patterns, full sets of dinnerware were suddenly readily available and priced affordably for households. Some patterns remained in use for decades, and are still in use today.

Steel cutlery was also found. It’s likely that these knives and forks would have been attached to bone handles as shown here, or timber which did not survive.

Limited evidence of food was recovered during excavations but rock oyster and mud oyster shells were found in great quantities, suggesting that these were a popular meal. Bones recovered indicate a diet of commonly-available cuts of meat, with large quantities of sheep, cow, pig and fowl bones. Some more interesting bones were found including, including three butchered horse hooves!

Bottles and jars such as these were ubiquitous in the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. They could be found in private households and public hotels alike. They were used for storage and the sale and transportation of a range of common goods. Dark olive-coloured glass bottles were used for beer and wine. Ginger beer had a very distinct stoneware bottle. The one with bulbous lip and salt glaze is a good example. Other bottles with wide openings could hold pickled foods and chutneys, allowing the contents to be spooned out.

More valuable liquids like medicines needed to be prepared individually and were sold in smaller quantities. Small bottles were generally filled and refilled by druggists as required.

Home decoration and display was popular in the past, just as it is today. Shells and figurines typically sat on mantlepieces and fireplaces within Victorian homes. Unlike most of the assemblage, these items have no function other than to decorate and brighten the rooms. Mass produced and reasonably priced, figurines were popular among working people. Strangely only a small number of figurines were identified at the site, such as this badly damaged one of a man who appears to be holding a bird in one hand.

Exotic shells were collected and traded for natural history collections. During the Victorian period this was a popular hobby, and unusual shells, plants or animals were collected and displayed, often as part of a cabinet of curiosities. The shell of a chambered nautilus has been a source of curiosity since the Renaissance. Each chamber is formed by the growing nautilus, before it moves its growing body into the larger space and seals the old one behind it.

Someone painstakingly carved the matte exterior of this shell away to form an elegant and delicate raised floral design. This was commonly done by sailors, producing intricate patterns. More extravagant examples were mounted on stems to form cups and used to decorate homes. This shell was likely to have taken pride of place as part of a family’s natural history collection. It is a rare object of beguiling and captivating beauty.

Children and adults played games for fun and amusement. This small doll’s arm was likely owned by one of the many children who lived here. Marbles were a common toy for children but were also used in board games. The marbles are all ceramic and probably came from Germany. The Germans dominated the marble-making market before World War I. A wide variety of marbles were found. ‘Chinas’ were made of porcelain painted in bands, the pink-swirled ‘aggies’ were clay and made to imitate expensive stone marbles. Most plentiful, were the cheap and readily available ‘commies’; buff-coloured and poor-quality earthenware.

Chinese coins like this couldn’t be used as money in Australia but could be used in fortune telling or as tokens in gambling games such as fantan.

A simple musical instrument like the jaw harp could be played by adults or children. The frame is placed between the players teeth, and the central tongue of flexible metal (missing here) is plucked to create a note.

A peculiar range of goods were recovered across the site that were made or sold by the many businesses that operated here in the nineteenth century.

The letter ‘s’ pehaps relates to the printers that operated here; first Stephen and Stokes, then the Sydney Morning Herald. Sewing equipment like buttons, needles and cotton reels, and a good deal of fabric was found. In 1880, the Robinson Clothing Factory was established here, with a shop fronting George Street. These objects maybe from a dump of their rubbish. As well as professional seamstresses, it’s also likely that the women who lived here were sewing and mending for their families. It was common for women to take in extra sewing work to supplement the family income.

The origins of other items are less certain. Could the hinges and furniture fixtures represent the work of Ah Toy’s cabinetmakers? Items like the boot and harness polish within the many blacking bottles could relate to both the daily lives of the merchants and the stock they sold.

A range of strange and unknown tools were also found. Are these remnants of the light industries people operated in their yards, like Frederick Felton’s ironmongering shop? Or are they perhaps a selection of the goods sold by Nock and Kirby’s large emporium, operating here until 1945? What do you think?

Opium was used for recreational purposes in Europe, China and elsewhere during the nineteenth century and earlier. These objects present strong evidence of the practice which is otherwise absent from much of Sydney’s archaeology. Because of the low social status of immigrant labourers, the media often portrayed opium use through lurid and dramatic accounts of depravity and vice. Fact and fiction were blurred, yet the eastern side of George Street was particularly well-known for its gambling and opium dens, with a large community of Chinese families living and working here.

Discovered in an old well at the rear of Ah Toy’s timber yard, these items were probably part of a load of rubbish used to fill the well in order to construct his sheds. The origin of his rubbish heap, however, is still a mystery.