Fig. 245.
FLAT RING OF THIN COPPER.
Hopewell Mound,
Ross County, Ohio.
⅕ natural size.
Fig. 246.
STENCIL ORNAMENT OF THIN COPPER.
Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.
⅛ natural size.
The following list of objects is given, to the end that the reader may see what was associated with these newly found copper Swastikas: Five Swastika crosses ([fig. 244]); a long mass of copper covered with wood on one side and with squares and five similar designs traceable on the reverse; smaller mass of copper; eighteen single copper rings; a number of double copper rings, one set of three and one set of two; five pan lids or hat-shaped rings; ten circular disks with holes in center, represented in [fig. 245], originally placed in a pile and now oxidized together; also large circular, stencil-like ornaments, one ([fig. 246]) 7½ inches in diameter; another ([fig. 247]) somewhat in the shape of a St. Andrew’s cross, the extreme length over the arms being 8¾ inches.
About five feet below the deposit of sheet copper and 10 or 12 feet to the west, two skeletons lay together. They were covered with copper plates and fragments, copper hatchets, and pearl beads, shown in the list below, laid in rectangular form about seven feet in length and five feet in width, and so close as to frequently overlap.
There were also found sixty-six copper hatchets, ranging from 1½ to 22½ inches in length; twenty-three copper plates and fragments; one copper eagle; eleven semicircles, bars, etc.; two spool-shaped objects; four comb-shaped effigies; one wheel with peculiar circles and bars of copper; three long plates of copper; pearl and shell beads and teeth; a lot of extra fine pearls; a lot of wood, beads, and an unknown metal; a lot of bones; a human jaw, very large; a fragmentary fish resembling a sucker ([fig. 248]); one stool of copper with two legs; broken copper plates; one broken shell; bear and panther tusks; mica plates; forty fragmentary and entire copper stencils of squares, circles, diamonds, hearts, etc.; copper objects, saw-shaped; twenty ceremonial objects, rusted or oxidized copper; two diamond-shaped stencils, copper ([fig. 249]); four peculiar spool-shaped copper ornaments, perforated, showing repoussé work ([fig. 250]).
I made sketches of two or three of the bone carvings, for the purpose of showing the art of the people who constructed this monument, so that by comparison with that of other known peoples some knowledge may be obtained, or theory advanced, concerning the race or tribe to which they belonged and the epoch in which they lived. [Fig. 251] shows an exquisite bone carving of a paroquet which belongs much farther south and not found in that locality in modern times. The design shown in [fig. 252] suggests a Mississippi Kite, but the zoologists of the Museum, while unable to determine with exactitude its intended representation, chiefly from the mutilated condition of the fragment, report it more likely to be the head of the “leather-back” turtle. [Fig. 253] probably represents an otter with a fish in his mouth.