page_title: Wulfing cache
section_title: Individual plates
hierarchical_section_title: Wulfing cache / Individual plates
caption_attribution_description: English: A illustration of the "Emmons mask", a Mississippian culture carved cedarwood human face shaped object once covered in copper and painted with galena and used as part of a headdress. Found in a burial at the Emmons Cemetery Site in Fulton County, Illinois.[1]
context_page_description: The Wulfing cache, or Malden plates, are eight Mississippian copper plates crafted by peoples of the Mississippian culture. They were discovered in Dunklin County, Missouri in 1906 by Ray Grooms, a farmer, while plowing a field south of Malden. The repousséd copper plates were instrumental to archaeologists' developing the concept known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.
context_section_description: The eight plates are designated Plates A–H. Except for Plate B, which has two heads, all of the figures face to the right. All of the plates are missing the majority of their tail sections due to being struck by Groomes' plow. Some of the plates show more expertise in artistic design and some of the plates show more proficiency in the production of the basic copper plates. These qualities do not correlate, as some of the more artistically refined designs are on inferior copper plates and some of the better plates have less sophisticated designs. This suggests that the production of the plates and the embossing of the designs was divided between a trained coppersmith, who turned the raw nuggets of copper into plates, and an artistic specialist who did the repoussé work. This division of labor in craftwork is unusual in aboriginal peoples.
caption: Emmons Mask
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