Spiro - Art from a forgotten culture
Plaquemine Mississippi - Raptor with human head effigy pipe - Gilcrease Museum
From 13 March to 7 August 2022, the Dallas Museum of Art presents "Spirit Lodge: Mississippian Art from Spiro", an exhibition featuring some 200 ancient and contemporary works created by the Mississippian peoples and their descendants.
Image: Raptor with human head effigy pipe, Plaquemine, Issaquena County, Mississippi, Esperanza Place, 1200-1400 A.D. Stone. Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Spiro, in present-day Oklahoma, was one of the most important cultural centres of what is known as the Mississippian Culture, which flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries AD. Despite this, it remains relatively unknown to the general public today, especially beyond the United States. "Spirit Lodge: Mississippian Art from Spiro" is a large-scale exhibition, "the first and possibly last time these works of art and cultural significance will be reunited from various collections across the country", as the Dallas Museum of Art explains.
Situated on the banks of the Arkansas River, Spiro was already abandoned when the first European settlers arrived in the area. In the early 1930s it was subjected to several looting operations, which did not cease until, as the Museum explains in a press release, the Kansas City Star published an article referring to Spiro as "King Tut’s Tomb in the Arkansas Valley", awakening public interest and accelerating archaeological excavations in the area. The exhibition includes objects from both looting and legal archaeological excavations, as well as a group of works by contemporary artists who present a new vision of the artistic practices of their ancestors.
The exhibition "highlights the complex history of North America and North Texas by exploring the experiences of ancestral inhabitants as they struggled to survive during a time of adverse climate change," explained Dr. Michelle Rich, curator of the Museum. Dr. Agustín Arteaga, director of the Museum, said that "Spirit Lodge" "not only honor the history of this country’s Native peoples but also recognize and celebrate their living descendants—resilient artists who carry on a cultural legacy”.

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