52 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



was black, rich, and very fine, and seemed to liave been brought to it in pots, the 

 fragments of which were seen through every part of the mound. About four feet 

 below the layer of cinders the workmen took up the tooth of a carnivorous animal, 

 and an arrow-head of flint very neatly shaped into an acute-angled triangle. 

 "When they began the central hole they came upon some flat rocks, partly covered. 

 After raising tliem, and digging about a foot below, they found a piece of metal 

 of an oval form, about the size of a ninepcnny piece of silver, but more than 

 twice as thick, with an indented representation of the head of a woman on one 

 side. It is supposed to have been of European manufacture, and resembled a 

 watch seal. This medal was found beneath where the house of Mr. Charleville 

 stood in 1714, and for many years before. This mound also had been stockaded 

 by the Cherokees between the years 1758 and 1769. Very large burying- 

 grounds once lay between the mound and the river, extending thence westwardly 

 to the creek. The vast extent of the burying-ground, and the great number of 

 interments, induced the belief that a population once resided here which greatly 

 exceeded that of the present day. 



Caleb Atwater, in his " Description of the Antiquities discovered in the State of 

 Ohio and other Western States," has given the figure of an image found in a 

 tumulus near Nashville, and deposited in the Museum of Mr. Clifford, of Lexing- 

 ton, Kentucky.^ This object represents a man in a state of nudity, whose arms 

 have been cut off close to the body, and wliose nose and chin have been muti- 

 lated. Upon the head is a fillet and prominence. In these respects, as well as in 

 the peculiar manner of plaiting the hair, it resembled an image found by Professor 

 Pallas, in liis travels in the southern part of the Russian Empire.^ 



The Nashville image was made of a clay peculiar for its fineness, which is quite 

 abundant in some parts of Kentucky. With this clay was mixed a small portion 

 of gypsum. 



A medium sized pyramidal mound, about seventy feet in diameter at the base 

 and about fifteen feet high, with regular angles, is situated near the Franklin Pike, 

 about two and a half miles from Nashville, upon the slope of a hill overlooking 

 the valley of Brown's Creek. As far as my examination extended, this mound 

 was in like manner used for religious piu'poses. Numerous stone graves have 

 been found in the vicinity, and a number of relics obtained. A number of stone 

 graves were exposed by the earthworks hastily thrown up by the Confederate 

 troops under the command of General Hood, in the field adjoining this mound. 



One of the relics discovered in this locality was described as a water vessel, 

 in the form of a circular hollow tube, the inner circle being large enough to go 

 over the head. It was thought that this earthen vessel was so constructed as 

 to be carried around the neck, the weight resting on the shoulders. 



A gentleman who once resided near this mound presented to me a small iron 

 hatchet or tomahawk, much corroded, which was said to have been exhumed from 

 a stone grave in this locality by an aged negro man. As this was the only iron 



' Archoeologia Americana, vol. i. p. 210. 

 ^ Pallas' Travels, vol. ii. Vignette, No. 11. 



