Jim Young, Associated Press Queen Elizabeth II watches actors take part in a ceremony at the Jamestown Settlement museum in Williamsburg, Va., Friday.

By Mackenzie Carpenter
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette JAMESTOWN, Va. -- Even a British monarch needs to have some fun on the job.

Clad in a brilliant teal outfit, glittering brooch and an enormous matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II was all studious attentiveness yesterday, during a half-hour tour of an archaeological museum on the grounds of this historic landmark, where the first permanent English settlement in the New World was established in 1607.

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As she walked through the "Archaearium," a new 7,500-square-foot facility, displaying the fruits of an ongoing excavation at the nearby Fort James site, the queen peered at clay pipes, pottery shards, and pearl cutters. as well as the skeletal remains of early settlers who had to contend with malaria, starvation, and sometimes hostile Indians.

It was the second day of a six-day trip to mark the 400th anniversary of Jamestown -- 50 years after her first visit to mark its 350th anniversary -- along with her husband, Prince Phillip.

During the visit, she was accompanied by Vice President Dick Cheney and Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, In his welcoming remarks, Mr. Cheney noted the queen's last visit to Jamestown in 1957.

"Half a century has done nothing to diminish the respect and affection this country holds for you. We receive you again today in that same spirit," Mr. Cheney said.

The 81-year-old monarch seemed engaged as she murmured quietly to her guide, Bly Straube, senior curator at the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, which owns the site.

The queen smiled slightly when Ms. Straube showed her a piece of silver jewelry that included a spoon used for earwax, or as it was referred to in its time, ear kippers.

Later, the queen stopped to examine a display of antique medical instruments. Among them was a spatula to treat constipation, "a disease that killeth many," read an inscription quoting the device's inventor, John Woodall, a London surgeon.

"David," the queen called to the Royal Navy doctor who travels with her, "look at this."

Cmdr. David Swain was immediately by her side, clutching a large medical bag.

"You ought to have some things like that," she said with some amusement, motioning to the spatula, replicas of which are for sale in the museum's gift shop.

After the museum tour, the queen went to the small brick church at Jamestown, built in 1907, near the original church frame dating to 1617. It was there that the queen presented a handmade, elaborately carved Windsor chair. The chair, constructed from American cherry wood and Scottish elm, was a gift to the people of Virginia.

"Try it out," she told Mr. Kaine, motioning to the chair.

"Why not?" the governor replied, sitting down to applause and laughter.

Then it was back to Williamsburg, where she had spent the previous night, for lunch at the Governor's Palace with a host of VIPs, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Mr. Cheney and his wife, and Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy.

"Prince Phillip and I are delighted to be back in Williamsburg 50 years after our last visit," she told the group. "Some of the most vivid memories of the early years of my reign are from that first visit here in 1957."

The queen said she found her visit to the Jamestown settlement fascinating and said she was moved by the poignancy of walking around the archeological site where the original fort once stood.

The Jamestown landing, she said, isn't just a part of history, but is a symbol of the convergence of civilizations and "of the deep and enduring friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom."

While the queen ate in Williamsburg, her husband was in Norfolk, where he met with the families of 14 service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He asked each of them how their loved ones were doing and when they would be coming home.

After lunch, at the College of William and Mary, the queen was welcomed at a gathering in the courtyard of the Sir Christopher Wren Building. Built between 1695 and 1699, it is the oldest college building in the United States, school officials said.

The royal couple then left for Louisville, Ky., where the queen will attend Saturday's Kentucky Derby. Her plane landed shortly before 6 p.m. Next week she visits President Bush in Washington.