Monks Mound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas and the largest pyramid north of Mesoamerica. The beginning of its construction dates from 900 to 955 CE. Located at the Cahokia Mounds UNESCO World Heritage Site near Collinsville, Illinois, the mound size was calculated in 1988 as about 100 feet (30 m) high, 955 feet (291 m) long including the access ramp at the southern end, and 775 feet (236 m) wide.[1] This makes Monks Mound roughly the same size at its base as the Great Pyramid of Giza (13.1 acres / 5.3 hectares). The perimeter of its base is larger than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. As a platform mound, the earthwork supported a wooden structure on the summit.
Unlike Egyptian pyramids which were built of stone, the platform mound was constructed almost entirely of layers of basket-transported soil and clay. Because of this construction and its flattened top, over the years, it has retained rainwater within the structure. This has caused slumping, the avalanche-like sliding of large sections of the sides at the highest part of the mound. Its designed dimensions would have been significantly smaller than its present extent, but recent excavations have revealed that slumping was a problem even while the mound was being made.[2]
^Skele, Mike "The Great Knob", Studies in Illinois Archaeology, no. 4], Springfield, IL, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (1988) ISBN 0942579038, pp. 1–3, via archive.org
^Iseminger, Bill et al. "Monks Mound (Mound 38) Projects 1997 – 2007 Archived 2005-01-08 at archive.today, from The Cahokian (various issues 1998–2007)- at cahokiamounds.com
MonksMound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas and the largest pyramid north of Mesoamerica. The beginning of its construction dates...
or MonksMound, which has four separate levels and stands close to 100 feet (30 m) in height. MonksMound had at least ten separate periods of mound construction...
structure is MonksMound at Cahokia, near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. This community was the center of the Mississippian culture. This mound appears...
North America is MonksMound, located in present-day Cahokia, Illinois. With the base of the structure exceeding 16 acres MonksMound is also one of the...
Mound 72 is a small ridgetop mound located roughly 850 meters (2,790 ft) to the south of MonksMound at Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. Early...
pyramidal earth structures known as platform mounds. Among the largest and best-known of these structures is MonksMound at the site of Cahokia in what became...
timber circles located roughly 850 metres (2,790 ft) to the west of MonksMound at the Mississippian culture Cahokia archaeological site near Collinsville...
by black Africans. The Mound Builders were members of various indigenous North American cultures who constructed earthwork mounds from roughly 3500 BCE...
the largest, was based in present-day Illinois. The construction of MonksMound at Cahokia was begun in 900–950. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the Bantu expansion...
between 1200 and 1730. The platform mound is the second-largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the country, after MonksMound at Cahokia. Grand Village of the...
This is a list of notable burial mounds in the United States built by Native Americans. Burial mounds were built by many different cultural groups over...
Mound 34 is a small platform mound located roughly 400 metres (1,300 ft) to the east of MonksMound at Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. Excavations...
Peak, California (34 m (112 ft)) Mount Manisty, England (30 m (100 ft)) MonksMound, Illinois (30 m (98 ft)) Mount Gushmore, Florida (27 m (89 ft)) Cerro...
sacred cedar, all in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. MonksMound, the center of the site, is the largest Pre-Columbian structure north...
across. At the time of its discovery, the mound was the second-largest known in Illinois after MonksMound at Cahokia. The site was added to the National...
The platform mound is the second-largest Mississippian period earthwork in the country, after Monk'sMound at Cahokia, Illinois. The mound covers eight...
structure is MonksMound, rising ten stories high at the center of the complex and fronting on a 40-acre (160,000 m2) Grand Plaza. MonksMound is the largest...
sandstone tablet with a birdman excavated from MonksMound and an elaborate elite personage burial in Mound 72 with thousands of shell beads arranged in...
In 2003, archaeologist Brad Lepper suggested that the Alligator Effigy Mound in Granville, Ohio, represents the underwater panther. Lepper posits that...
by the major mounds, one of which is almost 500 feet (150 m) long. Although none of Kincaid's earthworks rivals the size of MonksMound at Cahokia, the...
tributary of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. The ten-story MonksMound at Cahokia has a larger perimeter than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan...
with a platform mound and plaza. Upon entering the village, de Soto was taken to meet the chief under a portico on top of the mound. Chapter VII-In which...
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