Missing slab could unlock mysteries of past
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Missing slab could unlock mysteries of past
Ancient artifact from east Nashville has unique etchings
By RALPH LOOS
Staff Writer
Missing: one incised slab.
Collector value: thousands of dollars.


Historical value: priceless.
For the past few years, archaeologist Tracy Brown has combed flea
markets and collector shows across Tennessee and the Southeast, hoping
to stumble upon the owner of a small stone slab first discovered in east
Nashville 40 years ago.
On the rock, a 14-by-13-inch slab that dates from the Mississippian
Period (1000-1450 A.D.), is an artistic image that the ancient
inhabitants of a mound site etched into its surface with primitive stone
tools.
But the artifact is coveted more for what is not etched onto its face
than what is.
"It's unique because it is the only slab of six found that does not have
clear Southeastern Ceremonial Complex symbols on it," Brown said.
He has quizzed collector groups, questioned fellow archaeologists and
talked to "just about anyone who might come into contact with this kind
of item."
"It's like fishing the ocean," Brown said.
So far he's had nary a nibble.
"There's an excellent chance this piece of history is sitting in
somebody's rock garden or on some kid's dresser as a trinket," said
Brown, who is based in Oak Ridge.
Brown said the slab isn't stolen property, and he is not interested in
purchasing it. Professional archaeologists do not collect, buy, sell or
appraise prehistoric artifacts, he said. He simply wants to examine it,
make some notes, measure it, photograph it and give it right back to the
person who owns it.
"What many people don't know about archaeology is that the item itself
isn't as important as how the item fits into the 'big picture' with
other items found at a site," he said. "It's like a giant puzzle where
you know you're never going to find all the pieces. So you try to find
as many as you can."
Unusual symbols on slab
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex symbols are found on Mississippian
Period artifacts from sites throughout the Southeast and as far west as
eastern Oklahoma. At one time, the somewhat bizarre symbols were
interpreted as important elements of a pan-Southeastern American Indian
religion with a strong emphasis on sun veneration and human death.
The slab in question does feature a snake, which is common as symbols
go. "But taken as a whole, the individual symbols and the picture on
this stone do not have an SCC flavor about them," Brown said. "This is
important and at least suggests that the iconography on the stone may be
more personal in nature and important to the life of one or more
individuals in an ancient society."
Although the ancient tales told by the missing slab take place more than
a thousand years ago, the story about the slab begins in the mid-1990s,
which is when it went missing.
The widow of a collector apparently gave it away.
"All together, she probably gave away $100,000 in artifacts for
nothing," Brown said. "The person who got them for free ended up selling
them to collectors. Some of the items were bigger-ticket items, but the
slab I'm looking for was probably among a large group of items that
might have went for 10, 15 or 20 bucks at a flea market."
Six slabs found in area
The missing slab ? one of six that have been discovered in Middle
Tennessee ? was found at a large Mississippian site in east Nashville
in the autumn of 1968. A now-deceased local artifact collector, Malcolm
Parker, former director of The Parthenon, found the incised slab in a
stone box at an original burial site.
The first of the six slabs was discovered on Rocky Creek in Trousdale
County
in 1874 and was named after Gates P. Thruston, a Nashville-area
antiquarian who authored Antiquities of Tennessee in 1890.
The slab, now known as the Thruston Tablet, was interpretated by
Thruston as a commemoration of an important political or social event in
the life of a local Mississippian Period community, Brown said.
The second stone was found at the Castalian Springs mound site, now
owned by the state, in Sumner County in 1892. Etchings on that stone
show the upper body of a human figure ceremonially dressed as a
raptorial bird.
"This representation and the sun symbol on his chest are typical of the
SCC, and the stone no doubt dates to the same time as the mounds," Brown
said. He added that Kevin Smith in the Department of Anthropology at
Middle Tennessee State University has conducted field school excavations
at the Castalian Springs site the past two summers.
A slab found at the Arnold site in Brentwood in the early-middle 1960s
was the third such stone found and the last before the subject of
Brown's search.
Two more were found later along the Cumberland River in east Nashville
in 1975.
To archaeologists and historians, the stones are valuable for "what they
can tell us about the technology, social organization and belief systems
of the original Middle Tennesseans who lived here before we
Euro-Americans and Afro-Americans arrived," Brown said.

A rendering of the early Mississippian period slab that Tracy Brown is
searching for. (COURTESY OF TRACY BROWN)

Contact Ralph Loos at 726-5931 or rloos@tennessean.com.