Tennessee.
In Plate LVI, Fig. 4, I present a small specimen, which has the appearance of being unfinished. The zones are all defined, but, with the exception of the outer, which has thirteen bosses, are quite plain. The lines are deeply but rudely cut. It was obtained from a stone grave at Oldtown, Tenn., and is now in the Peabody Museum.
Besides the type specimen already presented, there may be seen in the National Museum two very good examples, from a mound near Franklin, Tenn. The smaller is about three inches in diameter and is nearly circular; it has suffered much from decay, but nearly all the design can be made out. The lines of the involute penetrate the disk producing short crescent-shaped perforations; the circles in the dotted zone are seven in number and inclose the usual circlets and conical pits; the dots in the intervening spaces are too obscure to be counted. The specimen has sixteen marginal scallops. The larger specimen is somewhat fragmentary, portions being broken away from opposite sides. It is nearly four and a half inches in diameter, and the design has been drawn and engraved with more than ordinary precision. The central circle incloses a perforated circlet, and the involute lines are long and shallow. The dotted zone has seven circles with inclosed circlets and pits. The outer zone contains fifteen oval figures.
Another example of these shell disks is illustrated by Professor Putnam, in the eleventh annual report of the Peabody Museum, page 310. It is said to have been found near Nashville, Tenn., although its pedigree is not well established. According to Professor Putnam, it is made from the shell of a Busycon, and is apparently in a very good state of preservation. It is about four inches in diameter and is inscribed with the usual design, a central circle and dot surrounded by a triple involute and three concentric zones. The narrow inner zone is plain, as usual; the middle dotted zone has six circles with central dots, the spaces between being closely dotted, and the outer zone contains thirteen of the oval figures, the outer edges of which form the scalloped margin of the disk. The perforations for suspension are placed as usual near the inner margin of the outer zone in the spaces between the oval figures.
A fine example of engraved disks has been figured by Dr. Joseph Jones, from whose work the illustrations given in Figs. 1 and 2, Plate LVI, have been taken. As his description is one of the first given and quite graphic, I make the following quotation: "In a carefully constructed stone sarcophagus, in which the face of the skeleton was looking toward the setting sun, a beautiful shell ornament was found resting upon the breast-bone of the skeleton. This shell ornament is 4.4 inches in diameter, and it is ornamented on its concave surface, with a small circle in the center, and four concentric bands, differently figured, in relief. The first band is filled by a triple volute; the second is plain, while the third is dotted, and has nine small round bosses carved at unequal distances upon it. The outer band is made up of fourteen small elliptical bosses, the outer edges of which give to the object a scalloped rim. This ornament on its concave figured surface had been covered with red paint, much of which was still visible. The convex smooth surface is highly polished and plain, with the exception of three concentric marks. The material out of which it is formed was evidently derived from a large flat sea-shell. * * * The form of the circles or 'suns' carved upon the concave surface is similar to that of the paintings on the high rocky cliffs on the banks of the Cumberland and Harpeth. * * * This ornament, when found, lay upon the breast-bone, with the concave surface uppermost, as if it had been worn in this position suspended around the neck, as the two holes for the thong or string were in that portion of the border which pointed directly to the chin or central portion of the lower jaw of the skeleton. The marks of the thong by which it was suspended are manifest upon both the anterior and posterior surfaces, and in addition to this the paint is worn off from the circular space bounded below by the two holes."[136]
Fig. 2 represents the back or convex side of the disk, the long curved lines indicate the laminations of the shell, and the three narrow crescent-shaped figures near the center are perforations resulting from the deep engraving of the three lines of the volute on the concave side. The stone grave in which this ornament was found occupied the summit of a mound on the banks of the Cumberland River opposite Nashville, Tennessee. Professor Jones, also represents in the same work, page 109, a large fragment of a similar ornament which has apparently had seven circlets in the dotted zone and thirteen marginal bosses. This specimen, which is three and one-half inches in diameter, was exhumed by Dr. Grant, from "a small rock mound" near Pulaski, Giles County, Tennessee.
PL. LVI—SCALLOPED SHELL DISKS.
1. Nashville, Tenn.
2. Nashville, Tenn. (reverse).
3. Nashville, Tenn.
4. Oldtown, Tenn.
5. Nashville, Tenn.
6. Pulaski, Tenn.
Prof. C. C. Jones describes a number of stone disks containing designs which evidently belong to the class under consideration. He inclines to the opinion that they were designed for some sacred office, and suggests that they were used as plates to offer food to the sun god. The specimen of which I present an outline in Fig. 3, Plate LVII, is figured by Mr. Jones, and his description is as follows: It is "circular in form, eleven inches and a half in diameter, an inch and a quarter in thickness, and weighing nearly seven pounds. It is made of a close-grained, sea-green slate, and bears upon its surface the stains of centuries. Between the rim, which is scalloped, and the central portion, are two circular depressed rings, running parallel with the circumference and incised to the depth of a tenth of an inch. This circular basin, nearly eight inches in diameter, is surrounded by a margin or rim a little less than two inches in width, traversed by the incised rings and beveled from the center toward the edge. The lower surface or bottom of the plate is flat, beveled upward, however, as it approaches the scalloped edge, which is not more than a quarter of an inch in thickness. * * * The use of these plates from the Etowah Valley may, we think, be conjectured with at least some degree of probability. It is not likely that they were employed for domestic or culinary purposes. Their weight, variety, the care evidenced in their construction, and the amount of time and labor necessarily expended in their manufacture, forbid the belief that they were intended as ordinary dishes from which the daily meal was to be eaten, and suggest the impression that they were designed to fulfill a more unusual and important office. The common vessels from which the natives of this region ate their prepared food were bowls and pans fashioned of wood and baked clay, calabashes, pieces of bark, and large shells. Flat platters, made of an admixture of clay and pounded shells, well kneaded and burnt, were ordinarily employed for baking corn-cakes and frying meat; but it does not anywhere appear that ornamental stone plates were in general use."[137]