Dancing with the Spirit Realm: An Iconographic Analysis of Renewal Imagery on the Engraved Shells from Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma

Abstract

The goal of this project was to determine whether or not a set of reproducible criteria could be developed and employed to identify depictions of dance in Spiroan iconography. Combining the previously identified depictions of dance with the ones gleaned from the reproducible criteria allowed for additional questions to be asked. These included whether or not certain thematic groupings are more pertinent to dance, whether or not the use of the multiple-horizons technique could be used to identify dance circles, and if there were any differences in the depiction of dance based on style. Additionally, this project helped contextualize the significance of dance as a means of enacting history for the Spiroans and the descendant Caddo community. There have been calls for projects like this (Reilly 2020), and elsewhere successful attempts at dance iconography have been made, such as Looper’s (2009) Maya work. This project took inspiration from these calls and sought to deepen the understanding of dance iconography at the Spiro Mounds site.