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This excerpt from "The New Albin Tablet" published in the 2020 Central States Archaeological
Societies 2020 October Journal
Read the complete column in the Central States
Archaeological Societies 2020
October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2021
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Figure 1. Obverse view of the New Albin Tablet.
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The following information was taken from an article written by Ellison Orr
and published in volume 29 of the 1922 Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science.
During the summer of 1915, workmen, in excavating for a cellar under the
residence of Mr. August Welper, of New Albin, Iowa, discovered a catlinite
(pipe stone) tablet with pictographs inscribed on both obverse and reverse
sides.
While the digging for the Welper cellar was being done, one side caved in,
and when the earth and sand was cleared away this tablet was found in it.
It was impossible to tell at just what depth it originally lay, but from
where it was found in the cavein, with reference to the surface soil, the
workmen concluded it originally lay about three feet below the surface.
No bones, charcoal, pottery or other relics of any kind were found with
it, which would lead to the conclusion that it might have been cached there
for safe keeping and that its owner had died or possibly been killed or driven
away in war and all knowledge of its location lost.
The tablet is approximately pentagonal in shape. The shortest side is the
base for the pictographs. The two lateral sides, the longest, are of nearly
equal length. The two top sides are of unequal lengths and both are shorter
than the laterals, one being a curve. The greatest length is 9 7/8 inches,
the greatest width is 7 ¾ inches.
The obverse face has been countersunk, leaving a rim from ¼ to ½ an
inch wide at the bottom and on the lateral sides, and about 1/8 inch in height.
On the shorter of the top sides nine tally notches have been cut, apparently
by flint; on the longer curving side, thirteen. And on the base, ten. Five
have been cut into the top of the rim on the left side near the center, with
one by itself nearer the top.
The pictograph on the obverse side probably ...
Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2020
October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2021
