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Brush Creek tablet illustration Save

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)

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