STONE DISC PALETTE
CAHOKIA MOUNDS SITE
MADISON / ST. CLAIR COUNTIES,
ILLINOIS
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COPYRIGHT
OCTOBER 31, 2011 PETER A. BOSTROM
This large stone
disc palette was excavated by Bill Fecht somewhere on the Cahokia
Mounds
site in 1960. He notes that he discovered it with a burial but gave
no more specific information than that. This palette may be unique
as being one of the only complete examples found at Cahokia. Unlike
the discoveries of large stone disc palettes on Mississippian sites
farther to the south and east they are almost unknown as far
north as The Cahokia Mounds site.
This stone disc is made of fine grain sandstone. There seems
to be no doubt that it was used as a palette to grind and process
mineral pigments. The upper surface indicates heavy use wear from
grinding and it is deeply stained from a mineral pigment. It was
apparently being used to process red ochre from hematite iron ore.
This palette is generally round in shape but it's not
symmetrical. The longer side measures 9 3/8 inches (23.8 cm) long
and the narrower side 8 5/8 inches (21.9 cm) wide. Both sides have
concave surfaces. What appears to have been the bottom side is very
smooth across the entire surface. The red stained
side exhibits uneven wear that indicates it was used for the
heaviest grinding processes. The cavity depth of the underside
measures 5/32 inch (4 mm) deep and the cavity depth of the top side
measures 3/8 inch (1 cm) deep. The edge thickness varies from 15/16
inch (2.5 cm) thick to about 5/8 inch (1.6 cm) thick. The two cuts
on the edge of the upper side of this palette were done in recent
times by Bill Fecht's excavating tools in 1960.
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