Local News

Earthworks exhibit opening Sunday at Campus Martius

A new exhibit to educate and raise awareness of prehistoric earthworks in the region opens Sunday at Campus Martius Museum.

Mounds, Moon and Stars: The Legacy of Ohio's Magnificent Earthworks was created by Marcus Burroughs, creative director of the Great Circle Alliance. The exhibit was developed in a partnership between the alliance and the Newark Earthworks.

The traveling exhibit coincided with the recent announcement by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization that the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio, including at Newark, were designated a World Heritage Site.

"We didn't time it like this, but it turned out to be timely," Burroughs said.

The exhibit will be on display through Dec. 31 at Campus Martius, then goes to Portsmouth and other cities in Ohio, Belinda Gore, president of the board of the Great Circle Alliance, said.

The alliance was created in 2021 in Newark to raise public awareness and education and appreciation of the ancient earthworks created by the Hopewell more than 2,000 years ago, she said.

The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks includes the Mound City Group, Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, High Bank Earthworks and Hopeton Earthworks, Ohio History Connection's Octagon Earthworks, Great Circle Earthworks in Newark and Fort Ancient Earthworks in Oregonia.

Stonehenge can fit in one circle in the 4 square mile Great Circle Earthworks, Burroughs said.

The Hopewell were a highly sophisticated culture proficient in geometry, astronomy and engineering, Gore said.

"Our exhibit is to help people learn more about the Hopewell Earthworks and the people who built them," Gore said.

Marietta also is the site of numerous earthworks, the largest being the Conus Mound in the middle of Mound Cemetery.

The museum at Campus Martius primarily shows people what life was like in the 1700s, Erin Augenstein, executive director of the museum, said. The Marietta earthworks, while not on the UNESCO list, are no less significant, she said.

The exhibit opens things from another period and hopes to create new conversations in the community about the civilizations that once lived here long before it was the Northwest Territory, she said.

"That's what a museum is all about," Augenstein said.

The UNESCO designation had yet to be announced when the Great Circle Alliance contacted Augenstein, who was aware the announcement was forthcoming, about hosting the exhibit.

"I said 'Yeah, let's do that,'" she said.

The exhibit includes art by Native Americans from the Southwest, Southeast including North Carolina, British Columbia and Alaska, Burrough said. Replicas and genuine artifacts are included, he said.

Campus Museum, 601 Second St., is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Admission to the mound exhibit is included in the general admission, $10 for adults and $5 for veterans and youth. Admission is free for children under 5 and members of the Friends of the Museum and Ohio History Connection.