WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — Archaeologists in Virginia are uncovering one of colonial America’s most lavish displays: an ornamental garden where a wealthy politician and enslaved gardeners grew exotic plants from around the world.

Such properties were common in the British colonies and were considered status symbols for the elite. In the 18th century, they were the equivalent of buying a Lamborghini.

The garden in Williamsburg belonged to John Custis IV, a tobacco plantation owner who served in the Virginia colonial legislature. He is perhaps best known as the first father-in-law of Martha Washington. She married the future US President George Washington after Custis’ son Daniel died.

Historians have also been fascinated by the elder Custis’ botanical adventures, which were documented in detail in letters and later in books. And yet this dig is as much about the people who cultivated the land as it is about Custis.

“The garden may have been Custis’ vision, but he wasn’t the one who did the work,” said Jack Gary, senior director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum that now owns the property. “Everything we see in the ground and related to the garden is the work of enslaved gardeners, many of whom must have been very skilled.”

Archaeologists have carved fence posts from red cedar that were three feet thick. Gravel paths have been uncovered, including a large central path. Patches in the ground show where plants grew in rows.

The excavation also uncovered a pierced coin, typically worn by young African Americans as a good luck charm, and fragments of an earthenware chamber pot, which served as a portable toilet and was likely used by slaves.

Animals were apparently deliberately buried under some of the fence posts. These included two headless chickens and a single cow’s paw. A snake without a skull was found in a shallow hole that probably contained a plant.

“We have to ask ourselves, are we seeing traditions here that are not European,” Gary said. “Are they West African traditions? We still need to do more research. But it’s features like these that keep us trying to understand the enslaved people who were in this space.”

The museum tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through interpreters and restored buildings on 120 acres that include parts of the original city. Founded in 1926, the museum did not begin telling stories about black Americans until 1979, even though more than half of the 2,000 people who lived there were black and the majority were enslaved.

In recent years, the museum has stepped up its efforts to tell a more comprehensive history while attracting more black visitors. It plans to rebuild one of the oldest black churches in the country and is restoring what is believed to be the oldest surviving schoolhouse for black children in the country.

There are also plans to recreate Custis’s home and garden in Williamsburg, then known as Custis Square. Unlike some historic gardens, the restoration will be done without the aid of surviving maps or diagrams, but will draw on what Gary called the most detailed landscape archaeology work in the museum’s history.

The garden disappeared after Custis’ death in 1749, but excavations revealed that it was about two-thirds the size of a football field, and descriptions from the time refer to statues of Greek gods and topiaries shaped into spheres and pyramids.

The garden’s legacy lives on through Custis’ correspondence with British botanist Peter Collinson, who traded plants with other gardeners around the world. From 1734 to 1746, Custis and Collinson exchanged seeds and letters on trading ships crossing the Atlantic.

The men may have introduced new plants to their respective communities, said Eve Otmar, Colonial Williamsburg’s director of historic gardening. For example, Custis is believed to have written one of the first records of growing tomatoes in Williamsburg, which were then known as “apples of love” and were native to Mexico and Central and South America.

Custis’ gardeners planted strawberries, pistachios and almonds, among 100 other imported plants. His letters do not always indicate which of these were successful in Virginia’s climate. A recent pollen analysis of the soil indicates earlier presence of stone fruits such as peaches and cherries, which was not a great surprise.

The garden existed at a time when European empires and slavery were still expanding. Botanical gardens were often used to discover new profitable plants that could make colonial powers rich.

But Custis’ garden was primarily a display of his own wealth. A study of the area’s topography revealed that his garden was in direct view of Williamsburg’s only church building at the time. Anyone would have seen the garden’s fence, but few were invited inside.

Custis delighted his guests with, among other things, the crown imperial lily, which originally comes from the Middle East and parts of Asia and has clusters of drooping, bell-shaped flowers.

“In the 18th century, these were unusual things,” said Otmar. “Only certain sections of society could experience something like that. A wealthy person today buys a Lamborghini.”

The museum is still trying to find out more about the people who worked in the garden.

Crystal Castleberry, Colonial Williamsburg’s public archaeologist, has met descendants of the more than 200 people enslaved by the Custis family on its various plantations, but there is too little information in the surviving documents to determine whether an ancestor lived and worked at Custis Square.

Two people named Cornelia and Beck were listed as property of the Williamsburg estate after the death of Daniel Custis in 1757. But their names only raise further questions about who they were and what happened to them.

“Are they related?” Castleberry asked. “Are they afraid of being separated or sold? Or will they be reunited with their loved ones on other properties?”