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People around the world have sought
high places for major religious and political sites. Living on
the vast prairies of the American Midwest, the Cahokians overcame
their flat topography by building enormous earth mounds. The Cahokians
(800–1400 AD), who lived in what is now southern Illinois,
used these architectural heights to create a complex city layout
based on cosmic order. In an excerpt from Cahokia: Mirror of
the Cosmos, published by the University of Chicago Press,
author Sally A. Kitt Chappell discusses how this cosmographic
layout played a vital role in expressing and preserving the spiritual,
social, and political order of the city.
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Excerpted from pages 51–65
of Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos by Sally A. Kitt Chappell,
published by the University of Chicago Press. Copyright 2002
The University of Chicago
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I O G R A P H Y |
| Sally
A. Kitt Chappell is professor emerita in the Department
of Art at DePaul University. She is also the author
of Barry Byrne: Architecture and Writings and Architecture
and Planning of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White,
1912–1936, the latter book also published by the
University of Chicago Press. She is a frequent contributor
to the Travel section of the New York Times. |
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