Schuitenbouwers, Middenstanders en Sjacheraars: Bewoners, bedrijven en materiële cultuur op het Amsterdamse stadseiland Marken, 1592-1815

Bewoners, bedrijven en materiële cultuur op het Amsterdamse stadseiland Marken, 1592-1815

Samenvatting

In the early 20th century, Valkenburgerstraat was the centre of one of the poorest and most densely-populated neighbourhoods of Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter, where large families lived in cramped ‘alley dwellings’. In contrast, in the early 17th century the first occupants of this street on the man-made island of Marken had been wealthy shipbuilders who owned large wharf plots. This article draws on archaeological data from two sites on Valkenburgerstraat in combination with historical records, creating multiple lines of evidence illuminating life on Marken from the late 16th to the 19th century.

Marken was one of the shipbuilding islands created by the city extension of 1592. The modern lots on the northern side of Valkenburgerstraat can be traced back to the original 16th-century shipyards. After 1660, maritime activities shifted to a new maritime quarter and the island became a multi-ethnic, predominantly Jewish, residential area. The former wharf parcels were subdivided, and houses were built in the alleys connecting the main street with the water. At the same time, properties encroached on Uilenburgergracht as private land reclamation projects appropriated space from the canal. 

Archival records provide the names of the occupants in Marken’s alleys, as well as information about their families, religion, occupation and socio-economic position. Connecting these data to the archaeological record offers a unique opportunity to shed light on how different circumstances were reflected in the material culture of these households. Poverty was usually hidden, while material displays often claimed – or attested to – higher status. Despite this, and what is basically a universal urban material culture for each era, the archaeological record can yield criteria for defining poverty by evaluating nuances and significant cultural markers.

The finds from two artefact assemblages on Marken reveal a variety of everyday household material culture common in the 18th and early 19th century. Poverty is reflected by the presence of relatively inexpensive ceramics, and signs of extensive use or repair of objects. Jewish ethnicity is reflected in the animal remains, which point to a predominantly kosher diet. While inventories of Jewish residents' possessions include ceremonial objects, such as Sabbath lamps, these were also found hanging in a non-Jewish grocer's shop. Marken was a not exclusively Jewish neighbourhood of low-paid transport workers, tobacco spinners, hawkers and other economically-disadvantaged people. Records reveal the presence of more affluent middle-class residents of non-Jewish backgrounds, such as grocers and innkeepers.

On Marken though, the majority were living in poverty in dwellings with the lowest rents in the city. The Valkenburgerstraat excavations documented rows of houses in which large families sometimes shared a space no bigger than 20 square metres. These could be one-room dwellings or tenements in which many rooms, floors and even basements were inserted and rented out for occupation. Built as workers’ cottages in the 17th century, extensive modifications in the 18th and 19th centuries had degraded these dwellings into notorious slums by the 20th century.