JJ's Rocks

Here is a group shot. We are actually standing in front of one of the displays with some of JJ's stuff in it. You can just see some of them behind his head.


Here is JJ in front of another display.


Here are the Sims Men standing in front of the museum sign. Can you tell they are related??


Here's Dr. Chapman showing JJ how they are storing the artifacts that have been the subject of a paper. Each artifact is documented, photographed, and placed in a separate bag.


Here's Dr. Chapman presented the award to JJ.


On Saturday Shane and I went to Knoxville, TN with my dad, uncle, and grandfather. JJ used to take his kids (dad and Uncle Fred) "rock hunting' when they were little. At the time, TVA was just starting and they would go hunting where the river was being redirected (or something like that). Apparently, it unearthed a ton of Indian artifacts. JJ took the time to catalogue where they found each item. He would make a mark on the "rock" that corresponded to the same mark on a map of the area. Over the years they literally found thousands of "rocks." I grew up playing with the broken "rocks" that JJ has in buckets lying in the old barn. There are thousands of them!! Well, turns out, they are quite valuable. At least the ones that are still in tact are quite valuable. There have been a few papers written about his collection and more than a few interested parties wanting access to it. Earlier this year a few graduate students came and photographed some of the more valuable pieces so that another paper could be written about it. So, after lots of talk and consideration the family decided to put the collection on loan to the Frank H. McClung museum at the University of Tennessee. We've been told that his collection is the largest amateur collection of that era that has been so precisely documented. So UT was pretty excited to be getting it.

So, back to Saturday. We met Dr. Jefferson Chapman, the Director of the Museum, about 3 pm. He gave us a personal tour of the facilities. We not only got to see the exhibits on view at the moment but we got a "behind the scenes" tour of the areas that are off limits to the public. He also showed us how the "Sims Collection" (as it is now known to the museum) pieces that are not currently on display are categorized and kept for study. Dr. Chapman was more than complimentary of the quality of JJ's collection. He commented that some of JJ's artifacts were far superior than some of their current cherished items and was impressed that his collection dated back to 10,000 BC. Pretty cool.

I have more pics but I'm going to have to put them in a new post because I've reached capacity on this one.