Tombstones From My Home State? In Front of the Archives? Should I be Worried?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the National Anthropological Archives is located in the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland.  It is a haul for me to get there from where I live in the city, but I find it to be worth the wait, especially considering some of the factors highlighted in Phil's recent posts (going to bigger archives can be a pain).  

As far as I can tell, the Museum Support Center consists of two main buildings.  The one pictured above is the main facility housing much of the behind the scenes material for the museums on the Mall.  At the same site the National Museum of the American Indian has its new Cultural Resources Center (CRC).  I've never been in the CRC myself, but I've seen pictures and it look like a stunning new facility.  

Down the road, the museum has another support facility for the Air and Space Museum.  You can tell its not a regular office building because they have one of these sitting in the parking lot. Just chillin'.  

Upon walking onto the grounds of the Museum Support Center (after showing ID of course) you have a pleasant walk towards the main building, pictured above.  The Smithsonian has done a nice job adding outdoor sculptures to what would otherwise be a  normal looking government building.  Still pretty plain, right?  

Not so fast.  

I noticed one day when walking into the building that a number of tombstone-like objects adorned one side of the facility.  Upon closer inspection, the objects all bore the names of places and quarry companies, most of which were from my home state, Minnesota.  You can probably see why I walked past these things for a couple of weeks thinking that they were, in fact, tombstones.  When I looked more closely, however, it was clear that the inscriptions bore no names or dates, just the name of quarry companies and cities, including Minneapolis and St. Cloud.  

I finally asked around inside the Museum Support Center this week.  Most of the security guards I asked shrugged their shoulders.  They asked me to let them know when I finally figured out what the heck they were.  My archivist at the NAA told me that she wasn't quite sure what they were, but she promised to e-mail around.  She mentioned that they just kind of showed up one week awhile back -- as if the secret geology police had moved them there in the middle of the night.  A few hours later she was able to give me a tentative answer.  

Apparently, geological specimens, at one point, would be carved and adorned in order to show where they had originated from.  The collection comes from the Smithsonian's mineralogy collections and may have been on display at one point.  

Again, this is the tentative answer the staff was able to provide.  I've never seen any pictures of carved geological specimens on display, but it wouldn't surprise me.  Moreover, I study mainly art and anthropology so I could have easily missed displays of this kind.  It has long been commonplace for paleontology and geology exhibits to display polished petrified wood like this. Petrified wood, as it occurs in nature looks more . . . well . . . natural.  

The Smithsonian's online catalogue contains a number of beautiful images of geology exhibitions including this gem (pun intended) from 1903.

But the 1903 exhibit shot does not show any of the mysterious quarry stones.  Nor does this shot from 1919.  The 1919 picture, however, clearly contains a polished stone, center right.  The stone appears to be clean, however, and not adorned with its location like the stones outside of the Museum Support Center.  Later images of gem and mineral displays at the Smithsonian show mainly smaller specimens.  This image from 1930 provides an example.  

My hunch would be that the answer may not lie in the geology exhibitions, but rather in the collections and displays of the Arts and Industries Museum.  The main hall of the A&I Museum circa 1927 can be viewed here.  I think it would make sense to consider geological mining an "industry" to be displayed in exhibitions showing the various geological resources in North America.  

Apparently, my home state of Minnesota was reppin' it at some point in the nation's attic.  

I'll continue to poke around to see if I can find a more complete answer.