Description: Photograph showing the alligator effigy pipe recovered at Esch Mound in 1930. The Esch Mounds were a pair of conical mounds located along the Huron River in Erie County, Ohio. Emerson Greenman of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Ohio History Connection) investigated these mounds in 1930 and unearthed a variety of objects including several platform pipes and a number of Flint Ridge Flint bladelets or flake knives. These are all diagnostic of the Hopewell culture (100 B.C. - A.D. 400) although a subsequent radiocarbon date of A.D. 590 points to a rather late timeframe for such a classical Hopewell site. Perhaps the most remarkable object recovered in Greenman’s excavations is the large stone smoking pipe seen here, made from Ohio pipestone and fashioned to represent the head of an alligator or perhaps some mythical deity in the Hopewell belief system. This extraordinary object is now on display at the Ohio History Center in Columbus. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL00263
Subjects: American Indian history; Ohio History--Natural and Native Ohio; Archaeological excavations; Effigy pipes; Hopewell Culture (A.D. 1-400) (A.D. 1–400); Esch Mound
Places: Erie County (Ohio)
 

Description: This illustration of the Brush Creek tablet comes from "History of Muskingum County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Pioneers" by J. F. Everhart, 1882. The Brush Creek Tablet is a flat, sandstone slab measuring 14 inches long by 12 inches wide and four inches thick. It was discovered during the excavation of the Brush Creek Mound (south of Zanesville) between 1879 and 1880 by John F. Everhart and the Brush Creek Historical Association. When first discovered, it appeared to be a stone with several circular depressions. Such artifacts are called cupstones, or pitted stones, and the depressions appear to have been used for cracking nuts or grinding paint pigments. Two months after the artifact was discovered, Everhart announced that the stone was inscribed with “hieroglyphics” - “chiefly Greek, commingled with Phoenician and Etruscan.” He reported that the tablet was buried alongside an eight-foot-tall female skeleton and claimed that this proved “there were giants in those days.” The Brush Creek Tablet was shown to be a fraud when J. P. Egan brought a lawsuit against Everhart for failing to pay him the money he was promised for helping to excavate the mound and for making a map for the "History of Muskingum County." During the court proceedings, Marshall Cooper, another member of the excavation team, testified that he had been promised $15.00 to carve the inscription on the tablet and to give it “the appearance of ancient work.” The Brush Creek Tablet is an example of the many such frauds created during the 1800s, such as the Newark Holy Stones, when the question of who built the ancient mounds of the Ohio Valley had not yet been answered. Many people at that time believed that the American Indians were not capable of building the mounds and therefore they must have been built by a lost race. By the end of the 1800s, however, archaeologists had proven that the ancestors of American Indians had, indeed, built the mounds. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: 977_191Ev27_BrushCreek
Subjects: Excavations (Archaeology)--Ohio; Archaeological fraud; Forgeries; Ohio History--Natural and Native Ohio;
Places: Muskingum County (Ohio)