> At 03:43 PM 4/1/98 -0500, Anna Agbe-Davies wrote: > >Fellow listmemembers (apologies for cross-postings) > > > >I'm looking for a picture I've seen numerous times in talks. It is a > >color painting of the excavation of a Native American (?) burial mound, > >which looks to date to the 1st half of the 19th century. The mound is > >shown in section with strata, skeletons and pots visible. In the > >foreground there are a number of men, some are dressed in laborers' > >clothing, are black and have shovels, others are dressed in suits and > >are white. Many thanks for all who replied! Here's the scoop, for those who were curious: The painting which I sought is by John Egan, 1850, showing the Louisiana excavations of one Montroville "Munro" Dickeson from the late 1830s. Among the titles I have seen are "Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley" and "View of the Mississippi Valley." It is owned by the St. Louis Art Museum. Dickeson used the picture (which is quite long) as a scrolling backdrop for his lectures. If you're interested in finding out more about Dickeson or seeing a copy of the picture, see Richard Veit's article in _Archaeology of Eastern North America_, vol 25 (1997). Copies of the picture can also be found in Paul Bahn's _The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology_ and I believe in Colin Renfrew and Bahn's _Archaeology: Theory, Method and Practice_ The most interesting thing I found was the common association in people's minds between the picture I described and Thomas Jefferson's excavation of an Indian burial mound in 1784. Bahn notes that Egan's picture is often associated with that project. If there is, in fact, another picture illustrating Mr. Jefferson's excavation, I'd be delighted to know it's source, but this particular picture depicts another project. Again, thanks for all the comments, references and encouragement! Anna -- Anna Agbe-Davies [log in to unmask]