Cahokia

While in St. Louis on Sunday, Meg and I went to Cahokia Mounds.

 This is Monk's Mound...and it's impossible to capture the sense of scale in a photograph.  It is 100 feet high and there are tiny figures going up the left side (if you look close).

 It is almost exactly the same size, height and shape as the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico.

 Follow the line of the stairs, across the modern road and the grass-covered "courtyard" is a truncated pyramid that is very similar to the Pyramid of the Moon at the same Aztec site as the Pyramid of the Sun.  Coincidence?

 Then, looking a little east of The Pyramid of the Moon (or whatever they call it), is the Interpretive Center.  I wish that we had more time to see it, because we got there about closing time.  It is GREAT!!!   Unlike the Ft. Ancient museum in Ohio, which didn't have hardly any Ft. Ancient culture artifacts, this center focused on the importance of the Cahokia culture and the singular nature of the site.

To the west of Monk's mound, is a reconstruction of 1 of 5 woodhenges that they unearthed.  They also found a decorative pottery beaker (lower left in the photo) near the main siting post ...which is strange...because they discovered a decorative pottery beaker near a main siting post at Stonehenge in Great Britain.  Coincidence?

 From the top of the largest pyramidal mound, also toward the west, you can see downtown St. Louis.  There is no mistaking that skyline - the Arch is like nothing else in the world.  (all photos copyright Meg White 2013).