Copper Plate   Save
John Seip Collection
Description: This corroded, copper breast plate is roughly rectangular in shape with rounded corners and slightly inwardly-curving side edges. The top and bottom edges are fairly straight. There are two perforations 32 mm from top edge and centrally located, evenly spaced, 89 mm apart. Some textile fragments adhere to the reverse face and the corroded copper is dusky green in color. 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_002153
Subjects: Hopewell Culture (A.D. 1–400); Mound-builders; Indian copperwork
Places: John Seip Collection