You’ve heard about Mount Rushmore – but what about Stone Mountain?
Most Americans will have heard of Stone Mountain, but most non-Americans will not. I confess that I’d never heard of the location until watching the ninth and final part of the impressive BBC2 series “Civilisations” when the presenter Simon Schama highlighted its controversial role in the American psyche.
Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite dome monadnock and the site of Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, the United States. It is well known for not only its geology, but also the enormous rock relief on its north face, the largest bas-relief in the world.
This carving depicts three Confederate figures: President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and ‘Stonewall’ Jackson. The Mountain was the site of the founding of the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915.
You can learn more about the memorial and the controversy around it here.