First thing I did today was eat pancakes! It's always nice to have a real breakfast. I stayed with some friends outside of St Louis last night. It was really nice. Anywhere that isn't the back seat of your car is always very welcome and appreciated!
After parting ways I made my way toward the Cahokia Mounds. I've been wanting to visit these mounds for awhile and I wasn't disappointed. There are hundreds if not thousands of mounds of varying sizes and dimensions scattered across the North American continent. These specific mounds are of particular interest to me since they have been called the most significant Native American structures north of Mexico, and the Monks Mound is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork on the American continent. It's base is about the same size as the Great Pyramid of Giza, however it only rises up about 100 feet whereas the Great Giza pyramid is nearly 500 feet high. And obviously, it's not made of stone but rather varying types of layered clay and other soil.
The Cahokia, or rather Mississippian culture as it is referred to since we don't know the name of the real people who lived there, started building the mounds between 900 and 1000 AD according to archeologists. But sometime around 1400 the culture appears to vanish from history.
An artifact of interest that was found near the mound is an exceptionally well preserved small tablet with the appearance of a bird-man etched on the front. The back is a diamond hatched crisscrossed section like a checkerboard and some say that it resembles scales of a snake. Yeah, a snake. Now, I know what you're thinking. It's Quetzalcoatl! The feathered serpent! The Mesoamerican Deity that some within the LDS faith speculate is Christ.
Now, I'm not going to get into that but I was slightly taken aback when I couldn't easily find through a Google search a correlation between the Mississippian cultures' serpent bird-man tablet and the Mesoamerican feathered serpent Deity Quetzalcoatl. I suppose there wouldn't be because the dates don't match up and there is too large of a land gap between cultures and it is, for all I can tell an isolated tablet without many others like it. But the fact remains. There is a tablet with a scaled bird-man on it that was discovered just outside of St Louis and it happens to be nearly the same in appearance and significance, as the Mesoamerican Deity Quetzalcoatl. That is in my uneducated opinion quite significant and should be made known to more people. I suppose it isn't lauded because it is in many regards similar to the Saqqara Bird or alleged flying machine of ancient Egypt. Basically it is very interesting, but too little evidence has been brought to light as of yet that no one wishes to jump to any conclusion or draw comparisons to such an extent that it is hardly ever even talked about. Reputations in science are sacred. It only takes one irrationally drawn conclusion and you end up like Percival Lowell spending the rest of your career trying to live down your one blunder.
Anyway, the mounds were the highlights today. I tried to make it to Mammoth Caves but they closed before I could get there. They will be first thing in the morning! Right now I am sleeping in another bed in good old Knob Lick, Kentucky!
Goodnight.
