Marietta Earthworks map   Save
Ohio History Connection Archives & Library
Description: Map of the "Marietta Works" by surveyor Charles Whittlesey, 1837. The Marietta Earthworks site is a large Hopewell culture ceremonial center located at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers in Washington County. Originally, it included a large square enclosure surrounding four flat-topped pyramidal mounds, another smaller square, and a circular enclosure with a large burial mound at its center. In 1788, the directors of the Ohio Company of Associates, the founders of Marietta, agreed to preserve important parts of the earthworks as parks. Three segments of the Marietta Earthworks are maintained as public parks today. The large burial mound surrounded by a circular enclosure is called Conus, the largest of the flat-topped earthen pyramids is called Quadranaou, and the next largest pyramidal mound is called Capitolium. The Washington County Public Library was built atop Capitolium Mound. The Marietta Earthworks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Archaeologists E.G. Squier and E.H. Davis, with the help of surveyor and geologist Charles Whittlesey, systematically documented the Indian works and compiled them into an 1847 book called "Ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley: Comprising the results of extensive original surveys and explorations." View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SquierDavisPlateXXVI
Subjects: Mounds--Ohio River Valley; American Indians--Archaeology; Ohio River Valley--Antiquities; Earthworks (Archaeology); Hopewell Culture (A.D. 1–400)
Places: Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio)