#emerald mound

[vanlife007]

Van Life Vlog Big Change of Plans

[tlatollotl]

The Emerald Mound Site (22 AD 504), also known as the Sellerstown site, is a Plaquemine culture Mississippian period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi, United States. The site dates from the period between 1200 and 1730 CE. It is the type site for the Emerald Phase (1500 to 1680 CE) of the Natchez Bluffs Plaquemine culture chronology and was still in use by the later historic Natchez people for their main ceremonial center. The platform mound is the second-largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the country, after Monk's Mound at Cahokia, Illinois.

The mound covers eight acres, measuring 770 feet (230 m) by 435 feet (133 m) at the base and is 35 feet (11 m) in height. Emerald Mound has a flat top with two smaller secondary mounds at each end. It was constructed around a natural hill. Travelers in the early 19th century noted a number of adjoining mounds and an encircling ditch that are no longer present.This site once had six other secondary mounds which were lost due to the plowing of the surface of the mound. Emerald Mound was stabilized by the National Park Service in 1955. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989.

[iamamyjo]

Trip of a Life Time - Days 25 - 26

Leaving Livingston meant leaving behind Texas and the family side of the trip.

We’d had a great time time traveling through and seeing everyone, but it was time to head east…

We drove for 5 hours, exiting Texas, going through the middle of Louisiana, crossed over the mighty Mississippi River and into Natchez, Mississippi.

In contrast to the the dry west, the east looks green and lush. We finally managed to find the south end of the Natchez Trace Parkway and head north.

The Trace is an old trail used first by local tribes and later by settlers trading between what is now Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and further north. The 444 ml (714 km) scenic drive occasionally lines up with the old trail but connects a collection of historically and archeologically significant areas. We only drove the first 86 ml (140 km).

Our first stop was at the Emerald Mound, which covers eight acres. Although it didn’t look like it when we walked up, it is said to measure 770 ft (230 m) by 435 ft (133 m) at the base and is 35 ft (11 m) high. The flat top mound is thought to have been built between 1250-1600. Baskets of dirt were carried to an existing hill to create the mound. It was painstakingly built up until it was a solid. Mounds were used mostly for ceremonial purposes. It is an impressive sight to see still intact, especially when you consider it is a simple dirt structure that has managed to stand up to time and erosion over the past 400-750 years.

We also stopped at the Locust Inn, which was built in the late 1700 to accommodate travelers and traders using the Trace and boatman traveling the Mississippi River. Crops were farmed here in the 1800’s mostly by slaves, which numbered any where from 21 to 56 in census records.

We left the Inn and it’s history behind and traveled on up the Trace toward I20. The trace was a beautifully peaceful drive but our goal for the day was Meridian, AL. We arrived there finally at about 7:30 pm and were able to get a bite to eat but not a room could be found…

The a day that started in Livingston, Texas, by chance, ended in Livingston, Alabama at a rather dark and spooky Comfort Inn but the magic of a beautiful, sunny day proved that it really wasn’t as dramatic as certain members of our party thought it was the night before.

The goal for this new day was to drive - no scenic stops, no history lessons, just acquiring a destination. Somehow, sometime through the day, I took a well laid out plan, (to head to Townsend, Tennessee and then spend the next day wandering casually through The Great Smoky Mountain National Park on our way to a few nights in Cherokee, North Carolina) and turned it into a hellbent drive into the eastern mountains of Tennessee to get to Cherokee a night early.

We made it but there were a few drivers behind us that were none to pleased with my progress once we got further up into the mountains in the dark…

[emsapp]

Emerald

After two months filled with dirt, sweat, blood, callused skin, and one day of tears... Emerald Field School closed on an excellent note. I met some of the best people, and had one of the best experiences ever. I learned so much about people, life and myself. I wouldn't trade this Summer for anything in the world!

[thenightwood]

April 7, 2012

Photo: Eudora Welty, Windsor Ruins

The city of Natchez hasn't been altered much since I was a small child. Driving north on the Trace parkway, I turned off at Alcorn to visit the Windsor Ruins. I walked the perimeter, marked off by a fence--was startled by what sounded like a snake rattling in the overgrown grass. I read aloud from The Waves--after a car load of visitors left and I was finally alone. I went over the flimsy wire that blocked off the ruins.

Photo: Still from the film Raintree Country with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor at the Windsor Ruins near Natchez

My energy is waning, and I am now back in downtown Natchez having coffee--now I am too tired to embellish. There is a huge painting on the wall before me. It is a dark landscape, obscured and shadowed even more by the deep blue storm clouds that arrive from over the horizon. The land is laid waste; trees are bent at unnatural angles. The branches are split; the bark peels--like wounded skin, skin marked by lesions. There is also some figure I cannot make out: an approaching train, perhaps, or the last car holding up the rear and vanishing in to the frightful storm. 

Returning from the ruined mansion, I stopped off at Emerald Mound--a man-made, terraced, hill temple--build by the aboriginal people of Mississippi. It was quite magnificent--like how I would imagine Glastonbury Tor, only smaller.---a green, flat field elevated, and a higher green pyramid--that I climbed. I laid out in the purple flowers--the air smelled strongly of the surrounding clover--a perfume burning and smoldering on the hill under the sun--and the sound of bees. The sky was an blue infinity. I rested for awhile in the grass. The site plaque read that the highest tier held up the temple--a building that held hallow "images." I ran down to and across the full length of the middle tier--vast as a football field. It was a good, pure moment.

Returning into town, I stopped off briefly at my brother and grandmother's grave in the national cemetery. Now I am here, at the Natchez Coffee Co. The voice of the young man working the shop--an earthy, accented rumble--rolls over me. It's not like listening to a human--or a language, that is--but a pure, animal sound. Or either the a sound that the landscape would make. 

Natchez is utterly dried up, vacant and empty--smothered in a dry, hot silence. I like it here. Everything is old, unused. I realize there is nothing to do because there is nothing to buy or pay for. So what does that leave me with?