Wall-to-wall dig

On Monday, there were just a few shallow squares dug into a parking lot off East Bay Street, but as the month unfolds, archaeologists will dig deeper and wider and eventually might unearth a large chunk of Charleston's historic city wall not seen for two centuries.

The dig already has uncovered an apparent foundation of a long-gone tenement building, and it also could find traces of an early city market and even the easternmost foundations of South Carolina's first official court building, also known as the old Exchange or Vendue House, which dates from 1722.

But the wall is expected to be the star of the show.

In January 2008, an archaeological team spent two weeks uncovering a 20-foot-long section of one of the wall's redans — a V-shaped fortification — along the wall during a dig under South Adgers Wharf.

The current dig is taking place immediately to the south and could reveal the point of the redan.

Archaeologists Ron Anthony, Barbara Borg and Martha Zierden and their 13 College of Charleston students plan to spend four weeks sifting through the site's dirt.

"The best case is we will complete the footprint of the wall, as expected, and retrieve more artifacts from the market," Zierden said. "There are so few big open spaces in Charleston to dig, so this is a nice thing."

Charles Towne was the only British colonial city in North America to be protected by a wall, but little survives of this early fortification. The only section still visible to the public is the Half Moon Battery, which can be seen by visitors to the Old Exchange Building's basement.

The wall was built as early as the 1680s, and it eventually encircled about 62 acres of the young city. The walls played an important role in deterring an early 18th century attack, but by the 1730s, the inland walls — thought to have been constructed of dirt — were taken down as the city grew and as the Indian threat eased up. The brick fortifications along the Cooper River survived until the mid-1780s.

In 2005, Mayor Joe Riley created the Walled City Task Force to discover more about the history of wall and to interpret this chapter of the city's history to the public.

The city has helped defray the costs of recent archaeology, and the current dig is taking place on one of its surface parking lots.

The 2008 dig not only reassured archaeologists that significant portions of the wall remain preserved under the city but also shed doubts on the accuracy of Joseph Purcell's plats — nicely detailed 18th century records that historians had relied on, Zierden said. The dig also uncovered hundreds of artifacts that explained how the city's urban land evolved.

As work began Monday, the students uncovered what likely is a foundation remnant from Vanderhorst's North Row, a building demolished a century ago but thought to be very similar to the triple brick tenement that survives just to the south, at 76-80 East Bay St.

The excavation pits are only about two feet deep, but students could dig down to three feet by today — that's the same depth that the wall was discovered underneath South Adgers Wharf.

Nic Butler, a historian, author and co-chairman of the Walled City Task Force, said the dig also could uncover the easternmost foundation of the Vendue House.

"It would be nice to find a little footprint of that," Butler said. "That's the first proper courtroom in South Carolina. I've been teasing the crew of the Exchange Building that they operate 'the New Exchange.' "

The public is invited to drop by and check out the ongoing work, which will take place from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. weekdays, weather permitting.

"It will change every couple of days, hopefully," Borg said. Volunteer docents often will be on site to help explain the latest findings.

One big difference between the current dig and the January 2008 dig is that the Walled City Task Force might try to do something to interpret whatever segment of wall that is found. That could involve creating a sort of window showing the wall fragment or perhaps a brick outline of the wall fragment on the newly repaved parking lot.

"There is no advance plan about how we're going to display it," Butler said. "It's kind of open ended. Something has to be designed and something has to be paid for, but we can't design it until we see it."

Follow the dig

A daily blog and photos can be found at www.walledcitytaskforce.org. Historian and author Nic Butler of the Walled City Task Force also plans to host a wrap-up program on the work at 6:30 p.m. June 30 at the Charleston County Public Library.

Reach Robert Behre at 937-5771 or at rbehre@postandcourier.com.