In the state of Ohio, known for being the epicenter of so much wonderful American music, a little-known collection of earthen mounds has made national headlines for its historical testimony to the depth of its creator.
Hopewell’s ceremonial earthworks have recently become the 25th U. S. asset. A variety of buildings, places, cities and landscapes that tell a component of human history are the U. S. to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Built between 2,000 and 1,600 years ago, they are described as “intricate masterpieces of landscape architecture and are among ancient monuments around the world for their enormous scale, geometric precision and astronomical alignments. “
“The huge squares, circles and octagons, which are geometrically precise and align perfectly with the cycles of the sun and moon, were built through scattered communities of American Indians who periodically accumulated in those special places to worship and stay in touch with one another. . read an explanation about the official of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks.
It took a decade of advocacy by teams like Ohio History Connection and the Department of the Interior to secure a nomination on UNESCO’s pending list in 2022.
One of the Museum’s most attractive features is its collection of Native American artifacts from across the North American continent, including shells from the Gulf of Mexico, mid-Atlantic shark teeth, obsidian from the Pacific Northwest, and silver and copper. Canada today.
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The mounds would have been places of rituals and gatherings, but the other people who lived there were very different from the North American mound builders of Cahokia, who had a stratified hierarchical society with a ruler and a caste of nobles.
At Hopewell, even those who were buried with apparent honorific burial rights were required to wear the same clothes, eat the same food, and paint as many times as everyone else. Their ceremonies on the mounds, perfectly aligned with the movements of the sun and the even more complex lunar movements continued for many years until about 400 AD, when the mounds remained, but the ceremonies were suspended.
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Over the next two hundred years, trees began to grow on most mounds, and increased subsistence meant that by 650 CE, other people began to build in or on top of them, and their meaning and perhaps their secrets were lost.
Now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, it brings together ancient houses such as Stonehenge, the cave paintings of Lascaux and the Olmec sites that have the most about our oldest organized societies.
WATCH an explanatory and celebratory video below. . .
SHARE this heritage site on social media to amaze your friends. . .
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