Description: This large, copper breast plate is heavily corroded. It is brilliant green, moderate green, and moderate blue green in color. There are light olive brown encrustations, possibly adhered bark, on the reverse face of the plate. One corner of the reverse face is dark red. On the obverse face are two concentric circles; the diameter of the inner circle is 45 mm and the diameter of the outer circle is 118.4 mm. Below the circles is a set of concentric half circles; the diameter of the inner half circle is 45 mm and the diameter of the outer half circle is 114.8 mm. Above the outer half circle are two parallel lines that come together in an arc; the distance between the lines is 47.8 mm. There is a shorter set of parallel lines that form an arc, measuring 47.3 mm apart at the widest part. There are two holes drilled in the center that measure 9 mm in diameter. One of the holes is drilled in the larger of the two concentric circles; the other hole is drilled 70.1 mm away from the first hole and inside the shorter set of parallel lines, near the arc at the base. Both the base and top edge of the plate are flat. The corners are rounded and one corner has broken away. The side edges are straight and flare slightly, about three quarters of the way down, to form rounded edges at the bottom. This piece comes from Hopewell Culture. In Ohio, the Hopewell Indians (100 B.C.-A.D. 500) built burial mounds and large earthen enclosures in geometric shapes (circles, squares, and octagons) to mark the places where the people gathered periodically to participate in many social and ceremonial events. Some of these sites were quite large - the Newark Earthworks complex extends over a 4-square-mile area. The Hopewell people also maintained a large trade network extending as far as the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, the Florida coast and Appalachians, and northern Lake Superior. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: A0957_002152_1
Subjects: Hopewell Culture (A.D. 1–400); Mound-builders; Indian copperwork
Places: John Seip Collection