Wulfing cache

They were discovered in Dunklin County, Missouri in 1906 by Ray Grooms, a farmer, while plowing a field south of Malden.

[1] The repousséd copper plates were instrumental to archaeologists' developing the concept known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.

The eight plates are made in the Late Braden style associated with the Cahokia site in western Illinois, the major center of Mississippian culture.

[4] The plates were found buried in a field with no known local platform mounds or village sites.

Groomes sold the plates and within a year they had been acquired by John Max Wulfing, for whom they are now named.

All of the plates are missing the majority of their tail sections due to being struck by Groomes' plow.

[2] It also has an elaborate headdress with what may be feathers and a smaller agnathous human face with a forked eye surround motif, ear spools, and a distinctive crenelated crown-like device.

This face is similar to an artifact found in a burial in Fulton County, Illinois known as the Emmons mask, a copper covered cedar head with galena painted forked eye motifs and the distinctive crenelated device.

[7][2] Plate B is the only two-headed avian of the group, with the heads joined at the neck and looking in opposite directions, one to the right and the other to the left.

It has two punched holes located vertically on the left side of the plate, possibly used for attaching it to another surface or a headdress.