Full Description
The prehistoric native peoples of the Mississippi River Valley and other areas of the Eastern Woodlands of the United States shared a complex set of symbols and motifs that constituted one of the greatest artistic traditions of the pre-Columbian Americas. Traditionally known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, these artifacts of copper, shell, stone, clay, and wood were the subject of the groundbreaking 2007 book Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, which presented a major reconstruction of the rituals, cosmology, ideology, and political structures of the Mississippian peoples.
Visualizing the Sacred advances the study of Mississippian iconography by delving into the regional variations within what is now known as the Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere (MIIS). Bringing archaeological, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and iconographic perspectives to the analysis of Mississippian art, contributors from several disciplines discuss variations in symbols and motifs among major sites and regions across a wide span of time and also consider what visual symbols reveal about elite status in diverse political environments. These findings represent the first formal identification of style regions within the Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere and call for a new understanding of the MIIS as a network of localized, yet interrelated religious systems that experienced both continuity and change over time.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction (F. Kent Reilly III, James F. Garber, and George E. Lankford)
General Studies
Chapter 1. Regional Approaches to Iconographic Art (George E. Lankford)
Chapter 2. The Cosmology of the Osage: The Star People and Their Universe (James R. Duncan)
Regional Studies: Middle Mississippi Valley
Chapter 3. The Regional Culture Signature of the Braden Art Style (James A. Brown)
Chapter 4. Early Manifestations of Mississippian Iconography in Middle Mississippi Valley Rock-Art (Carol Diaz-Granados)
Regional Studies: Lower Mississippi Valley
Chapter 5. Mississippian Ceramic Art in the Lower Mississippi Valley: A Thematic Overview (David H. Dye)
Chapter 6. The Great Serpent in the Lower Mississippi Valley (F. Kent Reilly III)
Regional Studies: Cumberland Valley
Chapter 7. Iconography of the Thruston Tablet (Vincas P. Steponaitis, Vernon James Knight, Jr., George E. Lankford, Robert V. Sharp, and David H. Dye)
Chapter 8. Woman in the Patterned Shawl: Female Effigy Vessels and Figurines from the Middle Cumberland River Basin (Robert V. Sharp, Vernon James Knight, Jr., and George E. Lankford)
Regional Studies: Moundville
Chapter 9. A Redefinition of the Hemphill Style in Mississippian Art (Vernon James Knight, Jr., and Vincas P. Steponaitis)
Chapter 10. The Raptor on the Path (George E. Lankford)
Chapter 11. The Swirl-Cross and the Center (George E. Lankford)
Regional Studies: Etowah and Upper Tennessee Valley
Chapter 12. Iconography of the Hightower Region of Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia (Adam King)
Chapter 13. Dancing in the Otherworld: The Human Figural Art of the Hightower Style Revisited (F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber)
Chapter 14. Raptor Imagery at Etowah: The Raptor Is the Path to Power (Adam King and F. Kent Reilly III)
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
