Diamond Jubilee: Serpent Mound, Ohio

not my photo

June 2021

Serpent Mound, in Adams County, is the largest documented surviving example of a prehistoric effigy mound in the world. It is a sinuous earthen embankment 411 meters long, including an oval embankment at one end, which has been interpreted variously as the serpent's eye, part of its head, or a secondary object, such as an egg, grasped in the serpent's open jaws. The effigy ranges from 1.2 to 1.5 meters in height and from 6 to 7.6 meters in width. Radiocarbon dates obtained from samples from the effigy, combined with stylistic analyses of the iconography, indicate Serpent Mound was built by the Fort Ancient Culture about the year 1120 CE. This state memorial also preserves three Native American burial mounds as well as evidence of contemporary habitation sites.

https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5248/

Researching "things to see between Columbus and Cincinnati" I noted the Great Serpent Mound (still privately owned). It didn't require much of a detour and AQ was onboard with the stop.

We arrived to the site which had a surprising number of visitors. The place also has a small museum and a tower from which one can get a better sense of it (although from a plane - or drone - is best). We were both impressed mainly by its age and execution in pre-Columbian America. I felt shocked that an ancient site of this importance was not even mentioned in US history classes.

Although it origin is hotly debated amongst scholars there were some key takeaways:

-- the mound is likely only 1,000 years old (still OLD!) rather than BCE as claimed by the site owners themselves. Human remains from thousands of years before exist there - but the mound itself was not constructed by the earliest residents.

-- it was built on the rim of an impact crater (tens of thousands of years earlier)

-- one of the "bends" of the serpent had been removed in the past. No one understands why.

Such debate brings in all matter of strange speculation, but the fact that an important religious site was built on the rim of an ancient crater was very "inexplicable". How could they have known? Any why would they "remove" a section of it?

AQ and I wandered the site and saw it from its rickety old tower (they really should construct a higher one inside the forest nearby (which would mostly hide it). It proved to be a worthwhile stop and one of the most surprising finds of the trip. A was impressed with its age and surprised that Americans didn't know more about it. To be quite frank, I felt the same.

World's biggest effigy mound - check. I never even knew it existed until the day before.