Newark
Ohio is the site of the largest ancient geometric earthworks in the
world. The most common geometric shapes used to build these
complexes were usually circular, square, or
linear in shape, but Newark has an octagon as well. It is thought
that these geometric-shaped mounds that are found in sites like the
Newark were created for ceremonial & calendar-like observatory
purposes.
Please take a moment and go through the
images in the gallery provided here. This site is so beautiful, and
also sadly, not totally preserved, as you will see...
I was lucky enough to have Patricia
Mason, who is a good friend and extraordinary researcher and
specialist on the Newark site actually take me on a tour through
this site which covers several miles.
Pat explains the Newark site in the
following quote:
"The Newark Earthworks is the largest
group of geometric earthen enclosures in the world, once covering
over four square miles in what are now the cities of Newark and
Heath in Licking County, Ohio. A road, enclosed by earthen walls,
ran a straight track from the Octagon Mound in Newark to a similar
circle-octagon earthwork in Chillicothe, nearly sixty miles distant.
The ancient builders of these monuments were experts at metrology,
geometry and astronomy. It is thought that they used a standard unit
of measurement. The two octagon-circle enclosures were aligned at
right angles to each other in the landscape. The Newark Octagon
aligns to the lunar cycle, the Chillicothe Octagon aligned to the
sun. The circles of both earthworks were the same size and each so
large that they could enclose the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Their octagons differed slightly in order to accommodate the lunar
and solar alignments. (Unfortunately the octagon mound at
Chillicothe has not been preserved.)"- Pat Mason 2006
How to use the gallery below:
1.)Click arrows to
see next set of images
2.) Click on any
image to enlarge.
The areas of the Newark site that I visited in September 2006 are
highlighted below:
The Observatory Circle and the Octagon are a couple of miles away
from the Great Circle and have actually become the ownership of a
private golf club. Since they do not normally allow public access while
the golf course if open - I was only able to view the embankments as the
golfers played golf and drove their carts on and around them. I couldn't
help but think that this was all strange to watch the golfers pretending
that it was just another round of golf as they whacked their balls
around the "Mound Builder Golf Course." They seemed to be watching us on
our "public observatory path" on the outskirts of the greens as if we
were strange in some way to look at the same terrain with such awe.
Click here
to read an excerpt from the the "Ancient Monuments of the
Mississippi Valley" by E. G. Squier A.M. and E. H. Davis, MD, accepted
for publication by the Smithsonian Institution, June 1847 concerning the
Newark Earthworks.
Types of Man-Made Mounds
Man-made mounds are mounds that were made from the ground up and fall into four basic shapes or categories. Conical mounds, Effigy mounds, Temple Mounds and Geometric (usually linear) mounds.
Conical Mounds- look like pyramids except that they are rounded. They, just as the great pyramids, were built in honor of some special shaman or king, and are in fact burial sites for them as well.
Effigy Mounds - are shaped like animals and or spirits, and were believed to have ceremonial, navigational and calendar-like purposes. It is known that many of these align with the stars and could have been used to predict solstices, and even eclipses.
Temple Mounds - were mounds that either were man-made or "truncated" natural hills. Structures (many times temples) were placed upon the flattened top and were considered to be "living spaces" for shamans or their leaders and their families.
Geometric-Shaped Mounds - were usually circular, square, or linear in shape, and were thought to have alot of the same uses as the effigy mounds, but sometimes (like the Newark site above) were believed to be created together to build ceremonial & observatory inside large complexes.
To learn more about the people who built the mounds, use the following links:
