#hopewell

[unteriors]

Central Avenue, Hopewell, Virginia.

[zanmor]

This was a very cool talk. Looking forward to seeing what they're working on. Also even more excited for the northern most moonrise event this month. If you're near Newark, Ohio you should look into coming.

[ladylilith333]

Sacred Native American Earthwork Reopens to Public in Ohio

Sacred Native American Earthwork Reopens to Public in Ohio

A sacred earthwork in Ohio depicts Native Americans’ advanced engineering and architectural skills — and now, it’s reopened to the public.

[bronzeageecho]

bear effigy pipe | c. 100 BCE - 400 CE | middle woodland culture, probably from the kansas city hopewell complex (modern-day missouri)

in the nelson-atkins museum of art collection

[not-available-for-comment]

Y’all I am So Excited about this. The Serpent Mound and the other Hopewell mounds are one of the few genuinely cool things about Ohio

Ohio's Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks are about to be a UNESCO World Heritage site

UNESCO World Heritage Sites are considered "outstanding works of human genius." There are just 24 in the U.S., including the Statue of Liber

Excerpts:

"In the past we might sometimes say 'Hopewell culture' or 'Hopewell people,' but what we really understand 'Hopewell' to be now is not a new peoples," explains Bill Kennedy, site manager and site archeologist at Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve. "It's a new religious movement of people. It's happening all throughout eastern North America. It reaches a fluorescence, though, in southern Ohio that it doesn't reach anywhere else."

…Chief Ben Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe, who was involved in the earthworks nomination, also sees its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a step toward combating racist and ignorant stereotypes about his people and his ancestors.

"They're great civil engineers. They're artists, they're astronomers, mathematicians, and for my people, that's not the way that Shawnee people, or any Indigenous peoples in this country, are typically portrayed in media," he says.

In addition, the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks address gaps in the World Heritage List identified by the World Heritage Committee. Specifically, a lack of sites representing pre-contact Indigenous American sacred architecture and sites that represent early understandings of science, culture and astronomy.

…Today no federally recognized tribes remain in Ohio. They were all forcibly removed in the 17 and 1800s. Yet it was their ancestors who created these massive feats of design and engineering.

Glenna Wallace is chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and has been active in the World Heritage process. She says inscription on the World Heritage List is part of her mission to teach people about the earthworks that her ancestors built.

She says their inclusion would not be an ending, but another beginning.

"Our people may have been forced away from that place, and they may have disappeared, but what they built, what they constructed, what their values were, that's still there and that should be protected," she states.

"That's the reason for World Heritage."

In becoming a UNESCO World Heritage site, Wallace says she hopes the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks will finally attain the reverence and respect they deserve.

See the linked article for more details!

[throughthemeadowflowers]

Hopewell Furnace, November 2023

[libraryofva]

Recent Acquisition - Ephemera Collection

Hopewell High School. Pupil's Report, 1938

[aviationgeek71]

Closing my eyes, I listen... hoping to hear echoes of the past. Yet after my climb, only my breath joins the chorus of wind in its journey through the trees, now clinging to the sides of ancient earthworks in Newark, Ohio.

Resembling a defensive structure, it was once called the Old Fort. Surrounded by a deep trench, early residents thought it was used as a moat; however, with the trench within the interior of the structure, Archaeologists raised doubts regarding this theory, and now refer to the ancient mound as the Great Circle earthworks.

Constructed by the Hopewell culture between 100 BCE and 400 CE, it's one of the largest earthen enclosures in the world. While there are many theories for its construction, not much is known about the Hopewell or the use of their Great Circle.

On this evening, the sun continued her decent, embracing the ancient structure. Its mysteries slowly engulfed in shadows of twilight. Its stories concluding in silence... an ending only known by its builders.