276 A N (.' I E X T ^[ O N U M E N T S . 



the figures, those upon one side corresponding with those upon the other, and the 

 two central ones being also alike. It will be observed that there are but three 

 scrolls or figures, four of one description, and two of each of the others. Probably 

 no serious discussion of the question whether or not these figures are hieroglyphical 

 is needed. They more resemble the stalk and flowers of a plant than anything else 

 in nature. What significance, if any, may attach to the peculiar markings or 

 graduations at the ends, it is not undertaken to say. The sum of the products of 

 the longer and shorter lines (24X7-)-25><8) is 368, three more than the number 

 of days in the year; from which circumstance the suggestion has been«advanced 

 that the tablet had an astronomical origin, and constituted some sort of a calendar. 

 We may perhaps find the key to its purposes in a very humble but not therefore 

 less interesting class of Southern remains. Both in Mexico and in the mounds 

 of Mississippi have been found sfnmps of burned clay, the faces of which are 

 covered with figures, fanciful or imitative, all in low relief, like the face of a 

 stereotype plate. These were used in impressing ornaments upon the clothes or 

 prepared skins of the people possessing them. They exhibit the concavity of the 

 sides to be observed in the relic in question, intended doubtless for greater con- 

 venience in holding and using it, as also a similar reduplication of the ornamental 

 figures, — all betraying a common purpose. This explanation is oflTered hypotheti- 

 cally as being entirely consistent with the general character of the mound remains ; 

 which, taken together, do not warrant us in looking for anything that might not 

 well pertain to a very simple, not to say rude, people.* 



Fig. 196. . From one of the mounds, numbered 1 in the plan of the great enclo- 

 sure on the North Fork of Paint creek, (Plate X,) were taken several singularly 

 sculptured tablets, of one of which the figure here presented is a copy, so far 

 as it has been found possible to restore it from the several fragments recovered. 

 It represents a coiled rattlesnake ; both faces of the tablet being identical in 



* The following just observations are from the piiblisliod notice of this relic, accompan3'ing the com- 

 munication of Mr. Gest, above quoted : 



" The relic found here was with a skeleton, in the very centre of the mound, and all the external 

 evidence favors the belief that it was placed there when the tumulus was raised. But the best evidence 

 of its genuineness is this, that a person in our limes could scarcely make so perfect an engraving as this 

 stone, and not make it more perfect ; the engraving repre.sonts something, \yhatevcr it is, the two sides 

 of which are intended to be alike, and yet no two curves or lines arc precisely alike, nor is there the least 

 evidence of the use of our instruments to be discovered in the work. So difficult is it to imitate with our 

 cultivated hands and eves the peculiar imperfection of this cutting, that some excellent judges, who at 

 first doubted the genuineness of the relic, have changed their opinion upon trying to imitate it. What 

 the sculpture means is another matter," 



