Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World

Chapter Twelve. Iconography of the Hightower Region of Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia by Adam King

iconography of the hightower region 279 chapter 12 Iconography of the Hightower Region of Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia Adam King The overarching goal of this volume is to begin to understand the regional variation in Mississippian iconography. In this chapter I hope to contribute to that effort by discussing the unique elements of iconographic expression found in eastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia and then placing the history of representational art creation in the region within a broader social and political context. The decision to treat eastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia as a single unit for analysis is not an arbitrary one. Years of archaeological research have shown that sites between the Etowah River Valley in Georgia and the Tennessee River in eastern Tennessee share a great many elements of material culture ranging from architectural styles to burial practices (Hally and Langford 1988; Hally and Rudolph 1986; King 2003). Most importantly for this chapter, particular artistic styles and iconographic themes are unique to the representational art of this region (Muller 1989). Although archaeologists have recognized the existence of this region for a long time, there is no name that is universally used to refer to it. Here I propose the term “Hightower” to designate this region. This is the name that Muller (1989) chose to designate a particularly well-defined artistic style recognized as having its home in eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia. “Hightower” is likely an anglicized version of a Cherokee word used to designate an important trail that ran through northwestern Georgia and also a name applied to the Etowah site. Representational Art of the Hightower Region Representational art is found almost exclusively in two media in the Hightower region: engraved shell and embossed copper. In this section I will discuss the themes represented in the region’s art and, where defined, the etowah and upper tennessee valley 280 decorative styles that have been recognized. Within each medium, style and theme will be discussed chronologically. engraved shell Engraving shell, particularly for gorgets made of marine shell, has a long tradition in the Hightower region. It appears to begin in the Early Mississippian period and continues into the early Protohistoric period. Unfortunately, outside of Muller’s (1966a) pioneering work and more recent analyses by Johann Sawyer (2009), the kinds of detailed structural analyses needed for a concrete definition of the decorative styles in the Hightower region have not been completed. As a result, not all shell gorget themes can be assigned to defined styles. Centering Themes. The earliest engraved shell in the Hightower region appears in the form of gorgets exhibiting various versions of the cross-in-circle theme (Fig. 12.1). This theme is fairly widespread across the Mississippian area and appears prominently in the Hightower region during the Early and Middle Mississippian periods. Lankford (2004) has suggested that the crossin -circle motif may represent the earth or This World in the Eastern cosmology , with the cross defining the center as well as an axis mundi connecting This World to the Above and Beneath Worlds. Howard (1968) has also linked this motif to the sacred fire of the Green Corn ceremony. In the Hightower region the cross-in-circle is sometimes expressed as a simple engraved or excised cross enclosed within one or two concentric circles , while in still other cases the cross-in-circle is represented as an excised filfot cross enclosed within one or more concentric circles. Although gorgets with each of the variants are found in eastern Tennessee (see Brain and Phillips 1996:30, 33), to date no formally defined local styles have been recognized . Therefore it is unclear if a local gorget engraving tradition existed at this time. The Bennett Style. In the Hightower region, the cross-in-circle appears most commonly enclosed by a square, referred to as the crib (Brain and Phillips 1996:21–24) or the square cross design (Kneberg 1959:5). Sawyer (2009) has recognized the earliest version of this theme in his Bennett style, which dates from ad 1150 to 1250 and has its presumed center of production at the Hixon site (Fig. 12.1a). The Hightower Style. By ad 1200 there is another recognizable shell engraving tradition in the Hightower region producing shell gorgets decorated in iconography of the hightower region 281 what Muller (1989) has defined as the Hightower style (Fig. 12.2). At this point, Hightower-style gorgets exhibit two recognizable themes. The most...