Engraved Shell Gorget

An engraved shell gorget is a flat, slightly dished disk cut from the body whorl of a large whelk and ground to an even thickness, with two small holes near one edge for a cord, so that it hung at the throat or chest. Most are round. An engraved design, sometimes with parts cut right through (fenestrated), fills the center (Holmes 1883; Trubitt 2019; Bell 1980).

The maker cut a disk from the broadest part of the shell, ground it smooth and thin, drilled the suspension holes and engraved the design with a sharp point; engraved lines are usually under 1.5 mm wide (Holmes 1883). Holmes found most designs on the concave inner face, but Four-Crested-Bird (Cox Mound style) gorgets are carved on the convex face. Fenestrated designs are a hallmark of Middle Cumberland, Tennessee, workshops (Smith 2019).

Holmes (1883) sorted the designs by motif: cross, scalloped disk, bird, spider, rattlesnake, human face and human figure, and read them as badges, amulets or symbols. Later researchers grouped them into named regional styles that can be dated (Kneberg 1959; Brain and Phillips 1996; Smith 2019). The key trait is a whelk-shell disk with two holes near one edge and an engraved design on its face.

Diameter 25–152 mm; thickness 3–6 mm (rattlesnake gorgets, about 30–40 examined, Holmes 1883, converted from inches). A cross gorget from Union County, Illinois, is about 76 mm across and 2 mm thick (Holmes 1883); a Shepherd site, Arkansas, gorget measures 112 × 117 mm (Trubitt 2019). Bell (1980) reports engraved Oklahoma examples over 150 mm across.

Core area: Tennessee, northern Alabama, northern Georgia, the western Carolinas, Kentucky and southwestern Virginia (Holmes 1883; Smith 2019; UNC RLA). Edges: the Caddo area of Arkansas and northeast Texas, and Spiro, Oklahoma (Trubitt 2019; Texas Beyond History; Bell 1980).

Look for two small holes close together near one edge and a slight dish that follows the shell's curve. Plain shell disks lack the engraving; stone gorgets are ground stone plates; shell disk beads are small and drilled through the center; mask-style gorgets are cut to a face outline rather than a disk. Holmes (1883) set up motif groups; Madeline Kneberg (1959) built a style sequence from Tennessee sites; and Brain and Phillips (1996) named regional styles, mostly after find places. Bird styles include Cox Mound, Hixon, Jackson, Pearce and Pickett. The Cox Mound style was made first in Sumner County, Tennessee, about A.D. 1250–1350, then on the Tennessee River in northern Alabama about 1325–1425; Brain and Phillips counted 23 Cox Mound gorgets, and the Middle Tennessee State University project raised the count to 52 (Smith 2019).