On Tuesday, technicians hired by the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill will begin using ground-penetrating radar and other means to try to discover long-neglected unknown graves in the African-American sections of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Environmental Services Inc. of Raleigh will conduct the two-day survey in hopes of generating a new map of burials in an older part of the cemetery, known as Sections A and B, where many of the headstones have been removed or vandalized.

"We wanted to determine how many graves are in these sections," said Ernest Dollar, executive director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill. "By doing this we hope to give respect to their final resting place and give the community back a piece of mind about their ancestors."

Dollar said that once long-lost graves are found, efforts will be made to identify whose remains they contain, and, he hopes, to raise funds to restore their resting places to appropriate condition.

"Finding them and mapping them is the first step," he said. "Then we would ask for help from community, see if we can get some calls helping us tell who is buried there. It's a blend of science and oral history. Eventually, I think, we'd want to see whether we can put the field stones back."

Dollar, in researching the history of the African-American portion of the graveyard, discovered a history of neglect and vandalism. The earliest documented burial in these sections was a slave, Ellington Burnett, who died in 1853. His gravestone has been toppled onto the ground and broken in multiple pieces.

Five 19th century headstones were tipped over and smashed the day before Charles Kuralt was buried in the cemetery. On Nov., 27, 1974, 40 to 50 monuments were broken and pushed off their bases.But the moment that stirred local activist Rebecca Clark and the Preservation Society into action came in 1985 when football fans eager to get good seats for the Clemson game parked in Sections A and B causing even more damage to the old and fragile grave markers.

The Preservation Society study was made possible by two $2,000 grants from the Strowd Roses Foundation and the Kelly Webb Trust.

The public is invited to come to the ceremony Tuesday and Wednesday and watch the study.

For more information, contact Ernest Dollar at chpreservation@mindspring.com or 942-7818.