Name/Title
French Military Doublet Button Jean Rebault Fleet Matanzas Massacre Site #1Description
This button was recovered by a former colleague in the mid-1980s from a beach site near the Matanzas Inlet. While the exact massacre site of Jean Rebault's crew remains officially unknown (to state archaeologists), the site's exact location absolutely is known to a small group of local metal detectorists and historians (who are at still in a long-running dispute with state archaeologists and so will not share the site's location).
This button was cast in bronze alloy and then hand finished by the craftsman. Originally, it would have been gilded in gold. It is of the cast open-work type, which was in common use by both Spanish and French forces from the early 16th to mid-17th centuries. This is one of a rare matched pair (its mate was sold last month). It measures approximately 11.57mm.