The interior of the Arsenal quadrangle near the former junior officer's quarters (now Rains Hall, the President's office) has been the site of archaeological investigation on two occasions in recent years.*  In 1996-97, artifacts were recovered from a trash pit just outside of the rear of the building.  During the summer of 2001, we located the original arsenal well in the same area.

In the picture (above) anthropology students are excavating a refuse pit in the President's Garden area near Rains Hall.  The refuse pit yielded a good many artifacts from the early days of the Arsenal (1830-50), some of which can be seen below.

The blue-decorated ceramic ware (above) was imported to the United States, mostly from England, occasionally from China, and was a mark of relatively high status.

Typical (left) early to mid nineteenth century, hand decorated, china.  Such items were very likely used at the table of the junior officers who lived in building adjacent to the pit where they were found. 

(Right)  Food bones from the kitchen were disposed of in the refuse pit at the rear of the junior officer's quarters.

Artifacts found in the Arsenal quadrangle near the northwest corner.  They include parts of broken bottles, glass stoppers, coins, smoking pipes, buttons, bullets, a musket ball and gun flint.

One of the more unusual finds (below) in the Quadrangle is this Spanish half peso minted in 1782.  Both the condition of the coin and the fact that the Arsenal Quadrangle was built no earlier than 1827 suggest that this coin had traveled far before being deposited on this site. 

It is known that many kinds of coins were in circulation in the colonial and early American periods, so perhaps this one's presence is not so surprising.

*For more detailed information and analysis of material excavated in the Arsenal Quadrangle during the mid-1970s see "Reviving the Past on Campus: Archaeology and Preservation at Augusta State University" by Christopher P. H. Murphy and David C. Crass in Early Georgia, Vol. 24, No. 2, 1996, pp. 42-75.