Editor in Chief Bill | 30 Jul 2016 8:15 p.m. PST |
Archaeologists digging at the Alamo have discovered an adobe wall that may provide clues to the famous site's Spanish Colonial history… link |
boy wundyr x | 30 Jul 2016 11:16 p.m. PST |
Are they looking for the basement? |
Winston Smith | 31 Jul 2016 7:24 a.m. PST |
How did they lose it in the first place? |
Weddier | 31 Jul 2016 7:39 a.m. PST |
How did they lose it in the first place?
Ordinarily, someone decides that the object is in the way/unsightly/no longer needed and they knock it down, cart off the loose bits and dump some dirt on the foundations, which are then forgotten. This can become extreme. Ancient Troy has 9 main levels and 46 distinct sublevels, each forgotten under the next one built by the inhabitants. In places like London or Paris or Rome you can hardly dig up a garden without turning up something Roman or medieval. |
jowady | 31 Jul 2016 9:32 a.m. PST |
What we see today of the Alamo is a very small part. Most of it is now Downtown San Antonio. For example, where Jim Bowie's quarters were and where he likely died is across the street and now a store. If you go the Alamo on a weekend and take the 15.00 Battlefield walk they take you to areas that were part of the Alamo. In the early part of the 20th Century there were proposals to knock the Alamo down. Jim Bowie's quarters were somewhere in the area now covered by this building. theminiaturespage.com
"TMP link |
jowady | 31 Jul 2016 9:36 a.m. PST |
And across the street from the Alamo proper and just to the left of the building in my post above is this, part of the foundation of the Indian Quarters and used by the Texicans as barracks. theminiaturespage.com
"TMP link |
jowady | 31 Jul 2016 9:40 a.m. PST |
So while we think of this as "the Alamo" the reality is that this was just the Church (and even it has been modified from the way that it was in 1836. theminiaturespage.com
"TMP link |
jowady | 31 Jul 2016 9:41 a.m. PST |
How did they lose it in the first place?
I think that Santa Ana and his Army had something to do with it. |
attilathepun47 | 31 Jul 2016 4:49 p.m. PST |
@Jowady, Well done! I read somewhere that U.S. Army Engineers actually added the curved portion on top of the church facade in order to "dress up" the Alamo, but I don't remember just when that was done. |
piper909 | 31 Jul 2016 10:48 p.m. PST |
Jowady, My suggested correction, based on my own years of Alamo researches: Not Bowie's, but Travis' HQ may have been located where the store/street view your photograph shows. This is where the West wall was and the commandant's quarters was there, at about the midpoint. Bowie's room is generally held to have been in the South wall near the main gate, which would have been approximately where the small cluster of tourists is in the right foreground of your last photograph, looking at the front of the Alamo church. And yes, it is well established that the US Army added the Italianate "hump" to the top of the Alamo church in the 1840s (the exact year escapes me offhand, but is noted in my library) when they roofed the church ruins and cleaned it up for use as a military warehouse. They also carved out the two outer windows on the upper level. |
jowady | 01 Aug 2016 6:38 p.m. PST |
Piper909, then you are at odds with what the guides at the Alamo say. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I was repeating the information given me this past June. The Alamo isn't my battle, I was just visiting. |
piper909 | 01 Aug 2016 11:46 p.m. PST |
With due respect to Alamo tour guides or docents, they are not scholars or historians. Lots of careful Alamo maps, art and diagrams out there by researchers like Nelson, Huffines, Zaboly, Lemon. |