Cahokia
tablet. This incised sandstone tablet was found beneath the
East Lobes of Monk's Mound, which
date from the 1300's. Possibly related to a burial, the tablet
depicts an "eagle dancer." The figure appears to
wear a mask and a wing like apparatus on his left arm. A similar
style is known from Etowah with a date no earlier than 1300.
Cahokia Museum. |
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At left is the reverse side of the same
tablet (above) |
Stockade,
reconstructed east of Monk's Mound. About 400 acres of
Cahokia, probably only the innermost
central city, was surrounded by a stockade. This stockade
which crossed a plaza east of Monk's Mound, was rebuilt four
times, with bastions with raised platforms interspersed at
70 foot intervals. Wooden stockades regularly occur at Mississippian
centers. |
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Line drawing of perforated, incised
pottery disc. This disc, found near the east section of the
stockade, was incised with human profiles wearing different
expressions and hairstyles. |
"Woodhenge," west
of Monk's Mound. Around A.D. 1000 four circles of wooden
posts were
built. Four of the original 49 posts have been reconstructed.
These consisted of 48 posts with a central post. The latter
was not in the true center of the circle but five feet to
the east of center. This was probably a correction for the
latitude of Cahokia in A.D. 1000, because the pole on the
left marks the place of the summer solstice sunrise, the
middle pole, the equinoctial sunrises, and the right pole,
the winter solstice sunrise in 1000. |
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From the center observation
post, the middle post sights directly on the southwest comer
of the first terrace of Monk's Mound. The significance of this
fact to the Cahokians is impossible to ascertain. |
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