A Sacred Purpose

A Sacred Purpose. . , Some 2,000 years ago the Mound City Group contained the highest density of mounds of any of the Hopewell earthworks, 24 in a 13-acre area. Today 22 can be counted. One of the missing mounds (Mound 15) is present in outline only, marked by the postholes of a ceremonial building that predates the mound. The other mound was excavated over a century ago and its precise location is unknown., We don't know what the Hopewell called the site, only that they used it in a purposeful manner-for social, religious, and burial purposes. Before they built each mound a ceremonial building was erected on the site. Ceremonial leaders performed complex rituals inside these buildings, including cremating the bodies of their deceased., Perhaps a sacred burial process might have unfolded like this… , In a wood building covered with bark, smoke rises from the roof as a ceremonial leader, bent in ritual, cremates the remains of a respected society member. Copper ornaments and pearl and shell beads are placed with the remains. The ceremonial leader then covers the remains with a small mound of clay. In time, the building is dismantled., Men, women, and children are organized to build an earthen mound atop the building remains. With sharpened sticks, antler picks, stone tools, and shell hoes they dig the earth needed to build the mound. Basket by basket they haul the material to the site and carefully, layer by layer, form the mound, covering it with a final layer of gravel. ,