‘The tiny, dirt-encrusted cross showed up in the sifting screen at the Maryland dig site, and when archaeologist Stephanie Stevens spotted it she said she gasped, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”
It was a strange object, with two cross bars instead of one, and unusual flared ends on the vertical and horizontal pieces. Stevens, the crew chief at the newly-discovered colonial fort at St. Mary’s, Md., didn’t know exactly what she had, but she knew it was important.
What she had found was a rare 370-year-old Spanish cross that had likely been made in the pilgrimage city of Caravaca, Spain, around 1650 and had made its way 4,000 miles to a meadow in southern Maryland.”
-Michael E. Ruane. “Rare 370-year-old Spanish cross found at Maryland archaeological site” Washington Post, 23 January 2022