Panther Intaglio: Wisconsin’s Indigenous Mound

It became part of a pile and intaglio complex around the community, and among lots of throughout the state recorded by the Wisconsin engineer and conservationist Increase Lapham in 1850. Much of the mounds, and all of the intaglios but this have been shed, however Lapham’s job resulted in the conservation of this one.

History and Conservation Efforts

While it is known as the Panther Intaglio, numerous, including Lapham himself, have actually called it a lizard or a water spirit, as a result of its proximity to the Rock River, and since water spirits are associated with the lower world rather than the animal/spirit forms of the mounds in the upper globe. Regardless, its exact significance was unknown even by regional people throughout Lapham’s research and stays so today.

Along the Rock River in the village of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, is a depression in the ground before a bait store that you could conveniently miss. This clinical depression, however, is an old artefact dug by Indigenous Americans between 700 and 1200, known as the Panther Intaglio.

Preservation and Recognition

Many thanks to the Children of the American Transformation and city authorities, the Panther Intaglio was preserved in 1910 to stop its destruction. In 1970, it was included in the National Register of Historic Places.