Wall excavation offers new insight

No 'point,' but dig wasn't pointless

After more than a week of digging in the dirt under South Adger's Wharf, a team of archaeologists and experts on colonial Charleston never got to the point.

But that's OK, they say, because they still uncovered a 20-foot section of the original city wall — a section that has been buried for more than two centuries —and gained many new insights into this earlier brick fortification.

They dug in this spot mostly because of a unique opportunity that arose when the Charleston Water System had to rip up the cobblestone road temporarily for its sewer tunnel project.

And they dug here because it's thought to be the spot of one of wall's redans, a pointed structure whose angled walls allowed several cannons to fire at a wider range of ships.

The 20-foot section of wall unearthed didn't include the "point" or tip of the redan, says Eric Poplin, an archaeologist with Brockington Associates.

"The most surprising thing we've seen is the wall isn't where we thought it was," he says. "It's a little farther south and a little farther west than we thought."

The redan's walls that face north also are only about 3 feet thick, thinner by 2 feet than in other sections. That might be because these walls didn't face the direction from which enemies would arrive.

"It was possibly just saving bricks," Poplin says. "The threat is going to come from the south side of the harbor. That would save them money and bricks."

The spot of the dig once was the city's waterline, and anyone stopping by the dig site can appreciate how much the city has filled in since.

The work also uncovered remnants of a city market that was built there after the city began to raze the wall in the mid-18th century.

"We have a number of leather shoes that were pulled up when we were digging very deep at the water table. There was a lot of refuse that was being thrown over the wall and into the harbor, maybe when the wall was first built," Poplin says. Other artifacts include early 1700s bottles and fragments, plus lots of bones from butchered deer, cows and pigs.

And the work dig unveiled eight separate paving layers of South Adger's Wharf, including an inch-sized gravel layer and a wooden layer.

While people might think of the street's large cobblestones as historic, they might not be. "There's no evidence they used stones that big until those stones were put in, which was in the early 20th century maybe," Poplin says.

For Katherine Saunders of the Historic Charleston Foundation and the Walled City Task Force, the results were a big payoff after helping raise more than $25,000 for the dig.

She knew there was a chance the Task Force's biggest project to date could be for naught, because no one knows how intact the ground is until the digging starts.

"I didn't want to be like Geraldo Rivera when he came across Al Capone's vault," she says. "I was relieved that we found what we were looking for."

Another pleasant surprise was the large number of people who stopped by to take a closer look. About 40 people volunteered, and hundreds more — both residents and tourists — lingered at the edge of the hole.

"It's been easy to get people excited about Charleston's colonial past," she says.

A blog created by Task Force co-chairman Nic Butler has received several hundred hits and has a detailed record of the findings. It can be found at www.walledcitytaskforce.org.

The dig continues through Wednesday, so there's still a chance to see this long-buried part of the past close-up.

"When people start learning about stuff, they have more desire to care for it," Saunders says.

This is a big week for architecture as well as politics. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the city of Charleston and the Historic Charleston Foundation will unveil the new Historic Preservation Plan for the city. The event will be held in the Charleston Museum and is open to the public at no charge. Call 723-1623 for more information.

Also, the lecture series "Timeless or of its Time" continues at 7 p.m. Thursday, also at the Charleston Museum. The first lecture of the series, which was inspired by the ongoing architectural style wars in Charleston, was well-attended. On Thursday, at least one architect with Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects of New York will talk about contemporary design excellence

Robert Behre can be reached at 937-5771 or by fax at 937-5579. His e-mail address is rbehre@postandcourier.com and his mailing address is 134 Columbus St., Charleston, SC 29403.