The Piasa Bird, a giant bird-like monster painted on limestone cliffs on the Illinois side of the Mississippi near St. Louis, was recorded by explorers in the 1600s. Then limestone miners cut back the cliffs during the Civil War era until the painted surface was gone. Such a loss — rock art is fragile evidence and a lot of it is simply erased 🐦⛏️
Piasa Bird petroglyph on Mississippi cliffs partly destroyed by limestone mining
USAArt
Key facts
- A giant bird-like monster image, the 'Piasa Bird', was painted on limestone cliffs on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River near St. Louis and was seen by explorers in the 1600s
- During the Civil War era, limestone miners cut back the cliffs until the painted surface was destroyed
- Nearby caves in the region are off-limits and are used by local youth
- Cody described 19th-century scientific reports from the early days of American archaeology of enormous elongated skulls found in caves along the Mississippi, illustrated in drawings, and said those specimens are now missing into the antiquities market
- Monumental stone statuary was recorded along the Mississippi in the late 1700s and early 1800s and was destroyed or gone by after the Civil War
- Cody compared two maps of reported elongated skull finds, noting a 1930s map extends north to the Mississippi while a 2016 map does not
Sources
8. THE PIASA BIRDmuseum.state.il.us
The Piasa Bird, Russell wrote, was a huge flying monster which lived on the cliffs, destroyed Indian villages, consumed its captives, and resisted efforts ...
The 'Piasa Bird' still sits on Mississippi bluffs after centuriesfox2now.com
Many people have passed by the modern-day painting of the Piasa Bird displayed in Alton, Illinois at the edge of the Mississippi River, but not ...
Piasa Bird – Hikes & How to Get Therekomoot.com
The Piasa Bird is painted on a dramatic limestone cliff face, which is a prominent geological feature of the area. These bluffs are part of ...
Piasaen.wikipedia.org
Modern reproduction of the "Piasa Bird" completed 1998/1999 on the bluffs of the Mississippi River in Alton. Piasa. Questioned drawing purported to have been ...
Legend of the Piasa Bird in Alton, Illinoissillyamerica.com
A mythical beast lives on, painted on a limestone cliff, in Alton, Illinois. This is the Legend of the Piasa Bird, who, according to myth, ...
Was this story useful?
Keep exploring
Every site on this page sits on the globe, and the people who research them are on the Discord.
3D Globe · Sites by country · Story Archive · Research Library · Weekly Journal · Search
AI-generated text · images from the original sources · always verify with the sources.