They may be 2,000 years old, but the treasures that have recently been added to the display at the Great Circle Museum shed new light on the people who once called Ohio home. In January, The Ohio Historical Society unveiled six artifacts at the Newark educational facility: five of them — a crescent ornament and beaver effigy made of copper, a flint spear tip, a shovel-shaped slate pendant and a slab of mica — were unearthed in 1928 by OHS archaeologist Emerson Greenman at the Newark Earthworks. The sixth, a copper ax, or celt, was discovered in 1985 by a visitor to the site.
The largest set of geometric earthen enclosures in the world, the Newark Earthworks were built by the prehistoric Hopewell culture between 100 B.C. and A.D. 500. The architectural wonder — constructed to align with the rising and setting of the moon — served as part cathedral, part cemetery and part astronomical observatory.
Ohio Historical Society archaeologist Brad Lepper, who served as curator of the Great Circle Museum from 1988 to 1994, is pleased that the museum’s recent renovation has made it possible for the artifacts to return home to Newark after being in storage.
“It’s thrilling to finally have the objects that were actually used and buried in a mound just 700 feet away from the museum,” Lepper says. “That connection brings a special relevance to them.”
The relics, adds Lepper, also offer clues about the importance of the area to neighboring tribes.
“Several of the items unearthed are made of copper, which comes from the upper Great Lakes region,” he says. “And that slab of mica was carried here by somebody from the southeast portion of the country, either as part of a trade network or as an offering for a religious ceremony.
“It is,” Lepper adds, “evidence of the cosmopolitan nature of Newark, Ohio, centuries ago.”
For more information about the Newark Earthworks, call 740/344-1919 or visit www.ohiohistory.org