Mound 25

Mound 25. . , The Hopewells are the Egyptians of the United States, packing their earthen "pyramids" with a dazzling array. Mound 25, in front of you, was originally three separate mounds, first recorded with maximum dimensions of 13 feet high, 18 feet wide, and 500 feet long. Some 2,000 years ago the Hopewell people built a series of wooden ceremonial buildings on the site. Here ceremonial leaders buried their dead, some in log tombs. With great care and ritual, exotic ornaments and objects were laid with many of the deceased. Over 100 burials were interred within and around these buildings. As was common practice, each building was ceremoniously mounded over. After archeologist Warren Moorehead excavated the mounds in 1891, he had them backfilled, forming one mound that is visible today., Photo Captions , This photo shows Mound 25 (above) before archeologist Warren Morehead excavated it with horse-drawn scrapers. Over a period weeks his team removed thousands of ancient objects for display at the 1893 Work's Columbian Exposition in Chicago., The immense quantity and quality of objects uncovered from Mound 25 are astonishing. Burials were adorned with copper objects circles, effigies, axes, and breastplates mica icons, bear and panther teeth, carved bones, pipestone effigies, shells, pearl, crystals, fine knives, and much more., This recent drawing of Mound 25 (above) shows its original configuration there conjoined mounds mall adjacent mounds, and a surrounding D- shaped enclosure This 1848 Squier and Dav etch (below) recorded a similar arrangement.