Butler County, Ohio - Chapter 55: Tablets, 1879

Written Language - Frauds - Grave Creek Stone - Opinions of Schoolcraft - of Levy Blng - of Schivah - of Opperf - Authenticity - Controversy - Ohjections - Letter from Colonel Wharton - Ohjections Considered - Story of Sir Walter Raleigh - Cincinnati Tablet - Description hy E. G. Squier - Authenticity - Doubted - Examined by Robert Clarhe - Mississipjn Tablet - Berlin 7 ablet - Other Tablets.

American archaeologists have been more or less interested in the question whether or not the Mound ]>uiklers had a written language. All the evidence is against the supposition. We have no evidence that they had attained to the same condition as that possessed by the semi-civilized nations of Europe, who themselves had not arrived at the construction of an alphabet. It must be borne in mind that the alphabet is a very high attainment, and belongs to the civilized and enlightened. Nations much in advance of the Mound Builders had not attained to this state, and hence it would be unwarrantable to assign to them such a superiority. It would be a reversal of the teachings of history, and an exception to the law of harmonious development. Notwithstanding this manifest fact, there is hardly a year ])asscsunsignalized by the announcement of the discovery of tablets of stone or metal, bearing some mystical inscription. Under scientific scrutiny, these alleged discoveries are proven to be frauds, or else resolve themselves into very natural productious. So long as there is an expectation that the mounds will yield some-

Grave Creek Tablet. - The Grave Creek mound has already been referred to; also the inscribed stone that was found there. At the time the mound was opened it belonged to Jesse Tomlinson. The work was under the direction of Abelard B. Tomlinson, and was performed at a cost of twenty-five hundred dollars. On the 19th of March, 1838, the work was commenced. An excavation was made towards the center at the north side of the mound, ten feet in height and one hundred and eleven feet long, along the original surface of the ground. At the end of this adit was a vault twelve feet long by eight wide and seven deep. Upright timbers had been placed along the sides of the vault wdnch supported other timbers thrown across which served for a roof. Over these timbers had been thrown loose stone, such as is found in the neighborhood. The timbers w^ere rotten and the stone had tumbled into the vault. In this vault were found two skeletons, one of which w^as surrounded by six hundred and fifty beads composed of sea-shells, and a bone ornament six inches long. From the top of the mound a shaft was sunk, and at the depth of thirtyfour feet from the l)ottom another vault was found, containing a skeleton surrounded by over two thousand discs cut from shells, two hundred and fifty pieces of mica, seventeen bone beads, and copper bracelets and rings weighing seventeen ounces. It was in this vault that the inscribed stone was found on the 16th of the following June. From a letter written to Mr. P. P. Cherry, March 7th, 1878, by Mr. Tomlinson, it would appear that the stone was found at the end of a second drift which was excavated from the side of the mound to the upper vault. After striking the second vault the men from the first vault drilled upward until the ..econd fell to the bottom.

The inscribed stone is an oval disc of white sandstone nearly circular in form, about three-fourths of an inch thick, and an inch and a half in diameter. On one of very carefully compared this cut with that given in Schoolcrait's ''Indian Tribes of the United States/' published by authority of Congress, and discover that it d lifers, perhn])s not materially. Our illustration purports to be a /ac by Schoolcraft. In the original the face-shaped character at the bottom on the right has a dot above the straight line as though an '^eye'^ was intended. The straight line just above this figure runs into the A-shaped letter and is not continued across the bottom of that letter. The first character on the left third line from the top is closed whore the parts come together. It is left open at the top in our engraving. The B-shaped letter, on the right, same line, is not an exact counterpart. There are two or three other defects that might be noticed.

Many efforts have been made to decipher these characters. Henry R. Schoolcraft, having examined the inscription in 1843, arrived at thefoHowing conclusions: ^'Having a copy of Mr. March's Grammar of the Icelandic, of 1838, the appendix to which contains the Runic alphabet, I observed some corresponding characters. By reference to au inscription from Dr. Ph)tt's History of Staffordshire, it was also seen that there were several of the characters quite identical with tiie ancient form of the Celtic al])habet, as employed in Britain in the so-called Stick-Book. A copy of the inscription

(Townsend's copy-'^) was transmitted to Professor Rafn, at Copenhagen, the distinguished Secretary of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries. Mr. Rafn does not find it to be llunic, but is disposed to consider the antiquarians were not able to read it, but acknowledged a large portion of its characters to be in the Spanish type of the Celtic. The "Stick-Book'' character of the ancient British Celtic lias a resemblance to it. This is perceived in seven of the characters "which are common to both inscriptions, namely, the Celtic and the Virgiuic. There Avjuld ap})ear to be some grounds here for the Welsh tradition of Madoc.'' f Colonel Whittlesey quotes Mr. Schoolcraft as having made the following analysis of the twenty-two separate characters of this stone : "Four Greek ; four Etruscan ; five North Runic ; six Ancient Gaelic; seven Old Erse; ten Phoenician; sixteen Old British."!

At the Congress of Nancy, Monsieur Levy Bing made a report upon this inscription from an imperfect engraving. He states that " after different combinations of the twenty-three letters I obtain the following result, that is, eight Canaanite words, having complete sense; forming a phrase which corresponds admirably with the symbol below the inscription. This symbol is a naked sword horizontally directed toward an arc, and supported upon the human head imperfectly designed, which reposes upon two long arms. This must represent the idea of Sovereignty and Conquest.'^ The translation of the twenty-three Canaanitish letters is as follows : "What thou sayest, thou dost impose it, thou shinest in thy impetuous clan (?) and rapid chamois.''

Monsieur Maurice Schwab, in 1857, gave the following rendering : "The Chief of Emigration Avho reached these places (or this island), has fixed these statutes forever." M. Oi)pert, who followed him, gave this translation: "The grave of one who was assassinated here. May

Upon the face of it all this is but idle speculation. This stone has been given more importance than it really merits. The inscription takes in too wide a range of alphabetical characters to represent one distinctive language. If it does represent a language, then inscriptions containing similar characters would have been found in different localities. If, in reality, it does represent a language, then the Mound Builders must be placed higher in the scale of civilization than any other nation has ever attained under similar conditions. That the stone or tablet was deemed of some importance by the owner is proven from the fact of its having been entombed with him. It may have possessed, to him, some mysterious importance in his journey to the future state of existence: and hence a charm to protect him from the evil influences that might beset him.

Authenticity. - No relic frojn the mounds has occupied so much attention or caused so much controversy as the Grave Creek Stone. No doubt was ever cast on the authenticity of this stone until nearly ten years after its discovery, unless the refusal of Dr. Morton to publish it in his Crania Americana be taken as an exception to this statement. Public attention was particularly called to its authenticity in tract number nine, entitled "Ar(;hcTological Frauds," by Colonel Charles Whittlesey, published February, 1872. During the month of November, 1876, he followed this up with another tract which discussed the question more fully. In both of these tracts Colonel Whittlesey claimed that the inscription was a fraud. These two pam])hlets ])robably led Mr. P. P. Cherry to investigate the subject, the residt of which was a mass of testimony which overthrew all that had been written against the inscribed stone. This evidence was published by that gentlemen during the year 1877. That gentleman must have been astonished- to find so much ^^iving evidence" forty years after the *"Arcbseologic'al Frauds," No. 33.

stone had been found. At tlie meeting of the Ohio State Archseologieal Society hekl at Wooster, September 25th^ 1878, Professor M. C. Read read a paper impeaching the genuineness of the tabk^t. Colonel Whittlesey published another pamphlet during the month of April, 1870, which indirectly reaffirms his former position, devoting a portion of it to what purported to be newly-discovered testimony.

I have carefully gone over the whole of this evidence, both pro and con and have no hesitancy in declaring that if the authenticity of the "Grave Creek Tablet^' has not been established, then no reliance can be placed upon human testimony. When I began this investigation I had no doubt but a fraud had been perpetrated. I am aware that a shrewd lawyer can pick flaws and badger witnesses, but our duty as observers and investigators is to proceed upon fair and candid testimony let the result be wdiat it may. From the character of some of the objections or arguments offered it is evident that there is a certain class fully determined that the genuineness of this inscription shall not be admitted. The objections which have been offered may be briefly summed up as follows:

This is a formidilble array of objections, and if they could be sustained would certainly establish the claim of fraud. However, they are neither objections nor arguments but simply, for the most part, unwarrantable assertions. Bold declarations will sometimes carry conviction, but such declarations, when not supported by evidence, in the end, only weaken a cause.

Before correcting these statements or assumptions I will introduce a letter from Colonel James E. Wharton, who was present when the stone was found, and who is a thoroughly competent witness. The letter was written Qt my request, and after he had seen the recent articles published U})on this subject. I have thought it best to publish the letter as written.

Dear Sir - In answer to j^ our polite request to state for your use what I know of the Grave Creek inscribed stone, I will be as brief as possible and state all the facts that are fully and clearly inij^ressed upon my memory bearing upon its being found and giving the reasons why I knoM' it to have been a work of great antiquity.

In 1835 I Avcnt to Wheeling, Virginia, on the Ohio Piver, purchased the Wheclmg Times and a year or two after converted it into a daily paper, which I published and edited until 1855, when the pro-slaver/ feeling becoming too hot for my pronounced anti-slavery views, I sold out and went North. Grave Creek is twelve miles below Wheeling on the river - a broad or rather semicircular flat embracing nearly a thousand acres, on which was a small village, the county-seat of the new county of Marshall. The village contained a small tavern, store or two, blacksmith shop, doctor, lawyer, minister, and altogether perhaps five hundred inhabitants - one of those dry old Virginia towns. On this plain and near the southwest corner is the large mound, seventy-five feet higli and about nine hundred f(H>t in circumference at the base. On the north line and partly in the village was an old fort, enclosing, I should judge, ten acres, a perfect octagon, having bastions and other points of strength. Eastward, nearly a mile, was a smaller mound, and several still smaller were scattered over the plain.

In 1837, or before, the old gentleman who owned the mound and other property died, leaving several children, nearly all grown. They determined to see what the mound contained, and early in 1838 they commenced a shaft from the top, and a drift in from the north side on a level with the ground - the drift about ten feet high and six wide, running to the center, I had been at the place two or three times, and had made a few acquaintances, but remember the names of none now except Dr. Ganz and a Mr. Curtis.

Dr. ISIorton, of Philadelphia, was jDreparing his Crania Americana, and invited Dr. Clemens, an old and highly respected physician of Wheeling, to go doAvn, report the result, and send him whatever was of interest for his work. Being an intimate friend, he invited me to go with him. On going to the end of the drift we found some debris, and a man or two at work arching, and another wheeling in brick and wheeling out the dirt that seemed to have fallen. We went out and lazily engaged in hauling over the dirt for curiosities, some few of which we found. We were joined by some of the village idlers and Dr. Ganz, at whose office, nearest the mound, the greatest portion of the curiosities was stored. During the search a man, w^hom I supposed to be a workman, but have since believed was Abelard Tomlinson, came up and handed Dr. Clemens the inscribed stone which has become so famed. I naturally supposed it had been then found from its appearance and the circumstances. There was some talk about it, but no doubt of its being a genuine find. I examined it closely. It was a hard, dark gray sandstone, the letters mostly Phoenician, and I believe I was the only one present who had ever seen that alphabet or the Celtic or Bardic, which were somewhat 'similar ; they were clear, deep and carefully cut, the stone oval, the edges neatly beveled all round on both sides. There Avere in the cut creases j)articles of sand that partially adhered to it, and on one side a blotch of sand of some size that adhered so as to require scraping to remove. The stone was of its natural color, not smooth or greasy feeling as it would have been if it had been handled ; the edges of the letters were rounded off, not shari3 as they would have been if recently cut. These facts forbid any doubt oi its being genuine. Subsequent reflection presented other proofs.

The letters were not all Phoenician, showing that the one who cut them had been long mingling with others, and his language had been corrupted, whereas a fraud would naturally have copied all the letters from the published alphabet ; the ornament on it is well proportioned, showing that the maker was accustomed to seeing what he copied. There was no motive for the fraud, no one anywhere in the region who could have made it if he would, and few frauds of the kind had then been heard of.

Dr. Clemens, I think, took the stone to Wheeling, as it was there sometime afterward. A plaster cast was taken of it, from which the imperfect engraving was made that Avas published in the Chillicothe Pioneer, and afterward in the Cincinnati Chronicle. No one in Wheeling or Grave Creek ever doubted that it was the work of the ancients. Had it been a fraud, more than one must have known when and how it was made, and a hint of it at least must have escaped, yet no such thing occurred.

Dr. Clemens prepared a long and elaborate report, including ^ description of the stone as of primary importance, which T heard read and approved. This Dr. Morton saw fit to reject, and published but a brief description of the opening of the mound and of the skull sent him. t)r. Clemens resented this as is shown by letters published by Hon. Sherrard Clemens, and Dr. Morton partially apologized for the liberty he had taken. The stone was afterwards placed in Dr. Ganz's office at Grave Creek, and was for a time in a show case in the drift with the hatchets, beads, arrowheads, etc:, that were found in the mound.

The first one who wrote of this stone as a fraud, and the only one until a few years since, was E. G. Squier. and it is due to the trutli of history that I should state what he knew of it. I forget the year, but it was somewhere between 1838 and 1843 that he came from Connecticut with a letter to me. He was in my office some hours and seemed a smart young man enough, but I observed from his crude inquiries about a little collection I had that he knew nothing of archa3ology. He went to Chillicothe where he edited a paper, got hold of Dr. Davis' collection and notes, skimmed over the state some, collecting what notes he could, and in 1847 went East to publish "Monuments of the Mississippi Valley." He then told me he had never seen the stone, and asked me to take him to Grave Creek to see it^ which I did ; but we found it had been taken from Dr. Ganz's office and could not be found. It was not recovered for some weeks after. Squier went East the same day, regretting he had not seen it; yet, having only seen the imperfect co]\y publislied in the Pioneer, and Icnowing notliing of the circumstances of the finding, he, as I am told, published, the same year, an article in the

Ethnological Journal denouncing it as a fraud. In 1850, as I learn, Dr. Wills De Ilass deposited this stone in the Smithsonian Institute The only true and correct copy I have ever seen of it is in Schoolcraft's work, vol. 1, plate 3, page 123. Yours truly,

The probability is that the authenticity of this inscription would never have been called in question had not Dr. Samuel George Morton refused to make mention of it in his Crcniia Ameincana. Soon after he was followed by Mr. Squier, who claimed that there were ^'insuperable objections to its reception.'^ These objections consist of the statements that no intelligent observers writing on the spot at the time of the excavation made any mention of it; that no notice of its existence was made public until after the mound was opened for public exhibition, and that the character of the inscription is antagonistic to all the ancient remains of the continent, so far as known.*

1. E. G. Squier condemned this stone before he ever saw it, and hence did not give it a critical examination. Dr. Wills De Hass, in a letter to Mr. P. P. Cherry, under date of August 7th, 1877, says: ^'E. G. Squier never took the trouble to inquire whether the tablet was genuine or not, beyond some doubt, and attempted to discredit the discovery in a fit of pique against Mr. Schoolcraft, towards whom he cherished personal animosity The Grave Creek inscription was carefully described in a paper which I read before the American Ethnological Society, New York, February, 1858, at which meeting Mr. Squier was present and took back all his objections, moving in conclusion a vote of thanks for the value of the contribution. His few followers have not been candid enough to do the same.^' This testimony certainly settles the authority of E. G. Squier on this subject. It is more than probable that Dr. Davis, as many others have been, was influenced by the objections Squier had raised. Monuments," p. 274.

2. The claim that the stone is ^^universally regarded by archseologists as a fraud" does injustice to the candor and acute judgment of Colonel Whittlesey. I think he would not make that statement at the present time. Dr. De Hass, in the letter above quoted^ declares '^that no investigator, whose opinions are worth noticing, doubts the genuineness of the inscription. Colonel Whittlesey does not exactly repudiate, but inclines to doubt. I am sorry for this, as I regard him as an earnest, cautious investigator."

3. Dr. James W. Clemens, in communicating to Dr. Morton all the details of the exploration of the mound, did most specifically refer to and describe this tablet. Colonel Wharton, in his letter already given, shows that Dr. Clemens did give a description to Dr. Morton, and that Morton partially apologized for refusing to publish it. Hon. Sherrard Clemens, of St. Louis, a son of Dr. Clemens, in a letter to Mr. Cherry, of May 4th, 1876, says : "My father complained very bitterly of the discredit Dr. Morton threw on the sculptured or inscribed stone found by him in the mound at Grave Creek, and ignored by the doctor in his ^Americana. ^ He demanded the return of his manuscript, and my impression is that he received it."

4. Against the declaration, that none of the "gentlemen profess to have seen the stone imbedded in the undisturbed earth of the mound," may be placed the solemn declaration of Mr. Abelard B. Tomlinson : "I will, in the presence of God, before whom I must expect shortly to appear, being now sixty-eight years old, give the event of my finding it, according to my recollection, which is clear and distinct, although thirty-eight years

5. The evidence that the stone came from the mound is of the clearest and most conclusive character. It is testified to by Colonel Wharton, Dr. Clemens, Mr.

6. It must be admitted that there are discrepancies between the witnesses now living/'^ but however great they may vary, they are a unit in the declaration that the stone came from the mound. The only real contradiction is that between Messrs. A. B. Tomlinson and P. B. Catlett.

-'-Illustrative of the fact that men do not see alike is the following curious story : "Sir Walter Raleigh, in his prison, was composing the second volume of his history of the world. Leaning on the sill of his window, he meditated on the duties of the historian to mankind, when suddenly his attention was attracte^l hy a disturbance in the court-yard before his cell. He saw one man strike another, whom he supposed by his dress to be an officer ; the latter at once drew his sword and ran the former through the body. The wounded man felled his adversary witJi a stick and then sank upon the pavement. At this juncture the guard came up and carried off the otlicer insensilde, and then the corpse of the man who had been run through. Next day Raleigh was visited by an intimate friend, to whom he related the circumstances of the quarrel and its issue. To his astonishment his friend unhesitatingly declared that the prisoner had mistaken the whole series of incidents which had passed before his eyes. The supposed officer was not an officer at all, but a servant of a foreign ambassador ; it was he who had dealt the first blow ; he had not drawn his sword, but the other had snatched it from his side, and had run him through the body before anyone could interfere ; . whereupon a stranger from among the crowd knocked the murderer down with his stick, and some of the foreigners belonging to the ambassador's retinue carried off the corpse. The friend of Raleigh added that the government ordered the arrest and immediate trial of the murderer, as the man assassinated was one of the principal servants of the Spanish Ambassador.

*' 'Excuse me,' said Raleigh, 'but I cannot have been deceived, as you supposed, for I was eye-witness to the events which took place under my own window and the man fell there on that spot where you see a paving-stone standing up above the rest.' 'My dear Raleigh,' replied his friend, 'I was sitting on that stone when the affray took place, and I received this slight scratch on my cheek in snatching the sword from the murderer, and upon my word of honor, you have been deceived upon every particular.'

"Sir Walter, when alone, took up the second volume of his history, which was in MS., and contemplating it, thought - " If I cannot believe my own eyes, Mow can 1 be assured of the truth of a tithe of the events which happened ages before I was born ?' and he flung the manuscript into the fire." - S. Baring-Gould's " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," pp. 114-116.

In all investigations where human testimony is given the character of the witnesses is to be taken into consider^ ation. What stronger indorsement would a person desire than that which comes from an opposer? Professor Read, having championed the cause of those w^ho discredit the authenticity of the tablet, in the paper referred to,* gives the folloAving indorsement of the witnesses : " Colonel Wharton is evidently a conscientious observer, and I wdll not question his knowledge as to the difference between an ancient and modern inscription. . . . Mr. Catlett evidently is a frank, candid witness.^^ Speaking of Colonel Wharton and Mr. Tomlinson, Colonel Whittlesey says, (Tract 33) : ^^ No one questions the sincerity of their belief that it is of the age of the mound itself."

We here have credible men, even according to those who oppose their evidence, then, w hy should we seek to invalidate the proof and impeach the testimony ? Is it at all probable, that three respectable men, two of them having no interest whatever in the matter, w^ould conspire to perpetrate and maintain a fraud without any prospect or hope of reward for a period of forty or more years ? Besides this others must have been a party to it who have long since departed this life.

It is not incredible that there should be discrepancies in the testimony. Forty years must evidently blot some things out of the memory, while other things would be dim and confused. Ujion this point Colonel Whittlesey observes : " They do not precisely agree in the details, but are as nearly in accord as is usual in such cases."t One thing, however, would cling to the memory, and that is a stone was found, and that stone came from the mound. But suppose, after a lajisc of forty years, these w^itnesses should testify alike on all the details, we would find that the same persons, who urge the discrepancies now^, would then declare that there must be collusion Tor the testimony does not vary enough.

7. It is unquestionably true that the stone was not critically examined at the time of its discovery in order to determine its authenticity. Why should it have been ? In all that occurred during the opening of the mound nothing transpired which would create suspicion. Is it at all likely, that even now, should anyone, engaged in opening a large mound which had never been opened before, and at the center or at any distance within should discover an implement or other work of art, would at once give it a critical examination in order to determine its authenticity ? Would such a person leave the implement in situ and immediately send for an individual of ''critical culture'' to determine whether or not it was really there ? Still the fact remains that there were present, at the time of the discovery, certain men who were fully competent to pass judgment upon it. Dr. Clemens could not have been deceived, and he never doubted it. The testimony of Colonel Wharton has already been given. John W^. Erwin* informs me that on June 20, 21, 1838, (four days after the discovery of the tablet) in company with James McBride and George W. Jones, (the latter of Camden, Ohio,) he visited the Grave Creek Mound. They saw and carefully examined the Grave Creek Stone, and it bore all the marks of age as described by Colonel Wharton. Mr. Erwin firmly believes in its genuineness, and states that James McBride never doubted its authenticity. It must be borne in mind that both James McBride and John W. Erwin Avere practical archaeologists, and at the time of the opening of the Grave Creek Mound were as thoroughly competent to pass judgment on anything that pertained to the Mound Builders as any one on this continent. Henry R. Schoolcraft, the eminent antiquarian, examined the stone in August, 1843, and in his ''Indian Tribes " gave an illustration of it, believing it to be ancient, and consequently genuine.

8. Suppose it should be admitted by all that any laborer of ordinary intelligence could have formed the characters on the stone, would that prove the stone to be a fraud ? Are we to suppose that the Mound Builders had arrived at such a degree of culture that the laboring man of to-day cannot equal their devices or sculptures? If we are to submit to such a method as this where shall we end ? Not a single thing has been brought forth from the mounds but almost any mechanic, with his improved implements, can surpass it. Does the objector intend to have us infer that some laboring man of ordinary intelligence maniifactured and put it in the vault? Why, then, not be liberal about it, and make the same claim for all the relics found in the mound, or, indeed, in any other mound ? But consider this simple fact: If this tablet is a fraud, and placed in the mound during the excavation, would not the fine grains of sand formed by the cutting instrument, or the sharp edges of the characters, have exposed the imposition? A ^'laborer of ordinary intelligence ^^ would not have taken every precaution against exposure. Again, it would naturally appear that if the perpetration of a fraud had been intended it would have taken an entirely different turn : a larger stone and a more pretending inscription would have been given.

9. From 1847 to 1878 it was busily promulgated that the stone was a fraud, and yet the perpetrator remained unknown. It was even intimated that Mr. Tomlinson was the guilty party. In February, 1878, Colonel Whittlesey obtained the track of the so-called miscreant. The man who possessed the information was Mr. Boreman, postmaster at Parkersburg, West Virginia. Professor I. W. Andrews was informed as to the new discovery and had an interview with Mr. Boreman, but "his report of tiie interview is that it was not very explicit.'^ "Mr. Boreman is confident that some one told him tliat David Gatewood admitted that he had cut the characters on the stone and threw it into the excavation while the men were away, but cannot recall the person who informed him.''

In August, 1878, Colonel Whittlesey visited Moundville, and, after interviewing several parties, among whom were two of Mr. Gatewood's daughters, arrived at the following conclusion : " It must be admitted that the proof is not conclusive against Gatewood, and amounts to little more than suspicion/''^ Mr. Gatewood died about fifteen years ago^ and, of course, cannot speak for himself

In this controversy there is an important fact that has been entirely overlooked. Schoolcraft tells us that in one of the minor mounds at Grave Creek there was found a curious device; also, ^^a circular stone without inscription, but identical in material with the inscription stone. '^ (Illustrations of both are given.) The *^ curious device '^ has characters on it composed of or made up by straight lines. f These facts must lend weight to the testimony of the witnesses.

It should be fully considered in forming an opinion on this question that not a single individual who examined this stone, for a great many years after its discovery, ever doubted its genuineness ; w'hile out of the whole phalanx of doubters, probably, not one ever saw it, but if so, not prior to 1850.

Cincinnati Tablet. - At the corner of Fifth and Mound streets, Cincinnati, once stood a mound about twenty-five feet high with a base of seventy feet diameter. During the month of November, 1841, it was removed in order to grade one of the streets and an alley. In the center of the mound and slightly below the surrounding surface, a skeleton, greatly decomposed, and other relics were found. The "Cincinnati Tablet^' was taken from under the skull of the decayed skeleton. A view of this tablet is given in Figures 22 and 23.

The representations here given are of the actual dimensions of the original stone. The artist who made the engraving had the tablet before his eye and his w^ork is a correct copy. Out of all the engravings which have been made Robert Clarke pronounces this to be the best. So far then as general purposes are concerned the reader can be as well benefited by our engravings as he would be though he held in his hand the original. «Tract 44. t" Indian Tribes," Vol. 1. p. 122-123.

These cuts are correct representations of the original. No better idea of the tablet can be conveyed than in the following description and comments :

" The material is a fine-grained, compact sandstone, of a light brown color. It measures five inches in length, three in breadth at the ends, two and six-tenths at the middle, and is about half an inch in thickness. The sculptured face varies very slightlj^ from a perfect plane. The figures are cut in low relief (the lines l:)eing not more than one-twentieth of an inch in depth), and occupy a rectangular space four inches and two-tenths long, by two and one-tenth wide. The sides of the stone, it will be observed, are slightly concave. Right lines are drawn across the face, near the ends, at right angles and exterior to these are notches, twenty-five at one end, and twentyfour at the other. Extending diagonally inward are fifteen longer lines, eight at one end and seven at the other. The back of the stone has three deep, longitudinal grooves, and several depressions, evidently caused by rubbing - probaljly produced in shari^oning the instrument used in the sculpture.

''Without discussing the 'singular resemblance which the relic bears to the Egyptian cartouch,^ it will be sufficient to direct attention to the reduj^lication of the figures, those upon one side corresponding with those upon the other, and the two central ones being also alike. It will be observed that there are but three scrolls or figures - four of one description and two of each of the others. Probably no serious discussion of the question, whether or not these figures are hieroglyi^hical, is needed. They more resemble the stalk and flowers of a plant than any thing else in nature. What significance, if any, may attach to the i)eculiar markings or graduations at the ends, it is not undertaken to say. The sum of the products of the longer and shorter lines(24X7 + 25X8) is 308, three more than the number of days in the year ; from which circumstance the suggestion has been advanced that the tablet had an astronomical origin, and constituted some sort of a calendar.

"We may perhaps find the key to its purj^oses in a very humble, but not, therefore, less interesting class of Southern remains. Both in Mexico and in the mounds of Mississij)pi have been iowud stamps of burned clay, the faces of which are covered with figures, fanciful or imitative, all in low relief, like the face of a stereotype plate. These were used in imi^ressing ornaments upon the clothes or prepared skhis of the people possessing them. They cxhil)it the concavity of the sides to be observed in the relic in question - intended, doubtless, for greater convenience in holding and using it - as also a similar reduplication of the ornamental figures, all betraying a conmion purpose. This explanation is oflfered hypothetically as being entirely consistent with the general character of the moundrcniains; Avhieb, t;ikon togethe?, do not warrant us in looking for ail ytliing that might not well pertain to a very simple, not to say rudo, people."*

Various other views have been given, some having tlioiight it to be a record pertaining to the standard of measurement, because of the seemingly systematic variation of curve and scale in the sides, and others think they can trace the figure of an idol.

Authenticity. - The genuineness of this relic was called in question by Colonel Whittlesey, in ^'Archaiological Tract Number Nine.'^ In looking over Wilson's ^'Pre- Historic Man'' he saw a written leaf pasted in the book, upon which were comments by Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, bearing date of December, 1871. In this statement Dr. Kirtland declares that in the s])ring of 1841 it was presented to himself and Professor John Locke for sale. Locke examined the engraving through a magnifier, and remarked sarcastically, '^I would advise you before you attempt to palm this ofp as a piece of antiquity, to carefully brush from the excavations in the stone the fine grains of sand formed by the cutting instrument." Dr. Kirtland then examined the stone in a like manner, and plainly detected the imposition. The Doctor further states that he afterwards learned that this stone was cut and engraved in a marble shop in Cincinnati.

In the fall of 1876 Robert Clarke published a pamphlet of thirty-four pages, in which was a vindication of the Cincinnati Tablet. This treatment of the genuineness of the tablet is exhaustive and removes all doubt as to its authenticity. Mr. Clarke thinks it must have been another tablet referred to by Dr. Kirtland, for this one was not found till the following November, and on December 7, 1841, was examined by a society of scientific gentlemen. Professor John Locke ^Svas a man of rigid truthfulness, and had an impatient contempt and hatred of imposture or fraud," and he took a special interest in this tablet ; had a mold made of it and distributed quite a number of casts among his friends, and never was heard to doubt or dispute its genuineness, but believed it to be a true relic of the Mound Builders. Mr. Clarke, however, flills into an error in stating that "no doubt is cast upon it for thirty years.'' In the first edition of Dr. Daniel AVilson's "Pre-Historic Man/' (p. 417), Mr. Gest is quoted as saying : "So difficult is it to imitate, with our cultivated hands and eyes, the peculiar imperfection of this cutting, that some excellent judges who at first doubted the genuineness of the relic have changed their opinion upon trying to imitate it."

3Iississippi Tablet. - In 1870 there was found a tablet in a mound near Lafayette bayou in Issaquena County, Mississippi, which has the same reduplication of figures in the carved work as exists in the Cincinnati tablet. It is composed of a fine-grained sandstone, circular in form, about an inch thick, with a smooth, slightly convex surface. Upon it, in low relief, is a representation of two bird-headed, short, thick rattle-snakes, each swallow^- ing a long, slim sort of snake, which coils around the body of its devourer. One of the serpents has four rattles, and the other three. On the reverse side is a circle, and exterior to it the circumference is divided by fifteen arcs, and from their intersections are notches, whicli divide the stone into fifteen sections. In the center occurs a mortise hole. It is said that this stone has a slight resembhuice to the famous Solstitial tablet found in the city of Mexico.

Berlin Ta^/e^ - This tablet was found June 14, 1876, by Dr. J. E. Sylvester and Linzey Cremeans, near Berlin, Jackson County, Ohio. It was found in a small mound situated on the second bottom of a small tributary of Dixon's Ivun. The stone, which is six inches long, three and five-eights wide, and half an inch thick, composed of a fine-grained sandstone of a grayish, brown color, occurred on a level with the original surface, placed on its edge with the ends ])<)inting east and w(>st. Both sides are engraved, the style being of that kind known as line-engraving. One side is a reduplication of the other. By the aid of the imagination several figures can be traced, such as a human figure, a double-bladed oar,

AVe give wood cuts of both sides of this tablet, size of nature. The front view shows the stroke made by the mattock. The lines are evenly cut, and of the same depth throughout, showing that the workman was well skilled in his art. The reverse side is poorly executed. The lines are often mere scratches, and sometimes doubled as if the artist had made a mis-stroke. Three indentations will be noticed, through two of which the lines have been carried, while one, which is the deepest, and running across the end, either cuts away a part of the work, or else the design was not carried over it.

Upon first inspection it would appear that the front view was first executed, and upon the back the workman sharpened his implements. Afterwards a beginner attempted to copy this, with what success the ^^icture fully illustrates.

Other Tablets. - Various other tablets might be commented on which represent curious scenes, and, instead of throwing light upon the condition of the Mound Builders, rather cast more darkness upon the subject. Some of these will be referred to in the following chapter.