Photograph by Caroline C. Kilgore
Civil War bullets. Wooden dice. Glass bottles of a then novel elixir called Coca-Cola. When construction crews were building MARTA’s east-west line in 1976, a team of urban archaeologists and Georgia State University students were nearby, salvaging and saving trash, trinkets, and the occasional treasure. Now, the Phoenix Project is researching the stories behind the approximately 100,000 items that fill roughly 400 bankers boxes in GSU’s Kell Hall. Dr. Jeffrey Glover, an associate professor in GSU’s anthropology department who’s managing the collection, says the artifacts show us what many history books can’t: what everyday Atlantans used in their lives between the early 1800s and the mid-20th century. “There’s power in materiality,” he says. Though the items are not on display, a growing list of interesting finds—researched by writing students taught by Dr. Robin Wharton—can be viewed at atlantaartifacts.net.
Photograph by Caroline C. Kilgore
Photograph by Caroline C. Kilgore
Photograph by Caroline C. Kilgore
Photograph by Caroline C. Kilgore
Illustration by George McCalman
This article originally appeared in our February 2018 issue.
