* _OPEN ALL YEAR_ *
[Illustration: Museum building]
_A blisful lyf, a paisible and a swete, Ledden the peples in the
former age_
--_Chaucer, Former Age, line 2_
The Black Warrior River winds slowly among the rolling southern
foothills. On the banks of this river many centuries ago there
flourished a great Indian metropolis. Here dwelt a pleasant and
contented people whose story is not of warring braves but of peaceful
artisans. Theirs were days not of strife and treachery, but of quiet
toil and worship. These people, given to pottery-making and the building
of fine temples, have vanished long ago. The eloquence of their
handiwork endures. Their pottery, lodged in the muddy earth, emerges as
fresh proof that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever". Their temples,
decayed these many years, are yet in evidence, for the pyramidal
substructures of these temples--earth mounds of imposing size and
number--remain.
The mounds and the story of the people who built them, a story recorded
in clay and stone and native metal, are preserved today at Mound State
Monument.