Excavations at the Alamo Shrine [page 25]depth. The fill consisted of mixed soil types including caliche, but generally dark gray to brown in color with inclusions of artifacts and many animal bones. The artifacts included a variety of lead and bronze balls, ranging from pistol and musket balls to large canister shot. Two large fragments of 8-inch howitzer spherical shells (bronze), one exhibiting part of a fuse hole, were also found. Other artifacts include metal and bone buttons, square nails and other objects of metal, fragments of bottle and window glass, and a variety of pottery sherds. These and other objects collected will be discussed in more detail in the chapter on artifacts.
Also during excavations, traces of what appears to have been the edge of a second palisade trench were uncovered in Units 7 and 12 (Fig. 3). The remnant of this second probable trench is located 1.90 m (6 ft.) south of the first trench, extending parallel with it, and is of the same orientation.
The temporary fortification installed here, probably in preparation for battle, is described as consisting of two rows of cedar piles six feet apart, with the space between filled with earth from a ditch dug in front (Chabot 1941:24).
Excavations against the building wall exposed sections of the foundation which provided a view of the construction and its condition. The foundation wall which supports the large church structure is nearly four feet in width and is very sturdy. The foundation, at least in our limited tests, was found to be dry and in excellent condition, and is the reason the building stands firm today.
The base of the church wall, which rests upon the foundation, is 24 cm below the present flagstone paved surface. At this level, there appears to have been older flagstone paving possibly dating to the mission period. Some flagstone fragments were found to butt against the wall base. These earlier flagstones were possibly either part of an old walkway extending along the building wall or remnants of church courtyard paving.
The building foundation wall is thicker by several centimeters than the church wall it supports, and it extends down 60 cm to where it rests upon a wall footing of the same thickness. This level is coincidental with the top of the dark brown clay, which evidently was the original construction-period ground surface. The foundation wall is constructed of large, load-bearing irregular stones and slabs which are roughly dressed on the facings and maintain fairly even coursing and alignment (Figs. 8, 9, 10). These stones, which are generally around 10 to 20 cm in height and roughly 20 to 40 cm in length, are laid in rough horizontal coursing, using gray to occasionally pink sandlime mortar and many spalls to fill the larger mortar joints and to aid in setting the stones.
The footing upon which the foundation wall rests is not as carefully built, and uses rubble stones and slabs set without coursing in yellowish sandlime mortar. It appears that the footing trench had been dug through the dark brown clay to the underlying base caliche, a depth of more than a meter. Stones and mortar had been placed into the trench to provide the footing. These were not merely dumped into the trench but were carefully set to bear the load. It seems possible that