SALISBURY — Historic Salisbury Foundation has invited state archaeologists to Salisbury Saturday to discuss what they have found in examining at lot at 317 E. Bank St, once the entrance to the Salisbury Confederate Prison.

Dr. Roy Stine of the State Archaeology Department will speak Saturday at the site with some HSF board members and a few volunteers, according to HSF President Susan Sides.

Stine and his crew have been to Salisbury twice to investigate the vacant lot with ground-penetrating radar equipment in search of any artifacts or other evidence related to the prison site.

Sides said when Stine and others have been here before, they used equipment that would penetrate the ground to a depth of 4 feet. Sides expects the archaeologists to bring ground-penetrating radar equipment that goes as deep as 8 feet Saturday.

Jim and Gerry Hurley donated the West Bank Street lot to the foundation several years ago. “It was given to us because of its historic significance,” Sides said in an email.

“There had been some talk about putting some type of memorial there, and I had the thought that before we put anything on the property, we need to explore underneath the ground.”

Sides said she wrote N.C. Secretary of Natural and Cultural Resources Susan Kluttz, a former mayor of Salisbury, and asked for the assistance of the State Archaeology Department.

— Mark Wineka