Yesterday we added Indiana, Illinois and Iowa to our states. We found out Ashland Ohio is Amish territory when we started our drive for the day we passed a family in their horse and buggy all dressed very nice in their tradition Amish clothing. They were on the way to bank. We were on our way to Fort Ancient. This is the largest mound enclosure in the US. The Mounds builders built all over Ohio and the US for that matter from Illinois to Mississsippi to Michigan and there are lots of sites in Ohio. The mound enclosure is 3 and 1/2 miles around and there are small mounds inside. The mound is over 2000 years old built before Christ and the people who lived there disappeared around 400AD. Starting to sound familiar? A growing group of Book of Mormon scholars think these mounds belonged to the Nephite nation. Archeologists today are puzzled by it all. In the museum we saw an atla atla which was used to "cast" their arrows, pottery, arrow heads, tools and metal plates and tools of copper and stone and other 'stuff'. They also had on display a tablet with writing on it that they admit looks like ancient middle eastern writing but they dismiss that as impossible. (sometimes we refuse to believe what we see, don't we?) Anyway the erosion of the mounds is a lot since they are over 2000 years old so when you look at the pictures think how how they must have been and put a wall of timber on top to boot! Captain Moroni was one cool guy.
Here are the girls standing on a road cut right through one of the sections of mound wall
Here I am standing in what was a passage into the enclosure between two mound walls
This is the road cut through the mound wall
There are several of these small mounds inside the enclosure. They know some of them line up with the summer and winter solistice so they were some form of calendar markers
Hopefully you can see the small mounds on either side of the road there going into the enclosure. They have no idea what they were for. Where is Captain Moroni when you need to ask him something? They think that this was originally two villages that were joined together at some point. Melissa found in Alma 50 where they talk about two cities that were joined into one fortification and called Nephihah. Hummm maybe? Any way it was really interesting. A lot of history has gone on in this land.
The rest of the day we drove. We crossed out of Ohio into Indiana, on to Illinois and ended up in Keokuk Iowa last night after driving through one of those great plains thunderstorms with incredible lighting. Today we will go to church in Nauvoo and walk around and tomorrow we will go back to see what we can see before we begin the great trek across the plains to Utah.
7 comments:
Cool stuff. It looks like Claire is in pain or has to go to the bathroom again in the first picture : )
How interesting. Matt's dad was just talking about this last week when we visited. He had just read a book that talked about a lot of archaeological evidence that supports the nephites and others presence in North America, not Central America as most believe. Hmmm. Interesting, very interesting! Have fun in Nauvoo!
Great pictures. Keep posting.
That is sooo cool! I can't wait to hear more. Have fun in Nauvoo!
Awesome!
Three major points. First, the location makes a lot of sense. (Most South-Central American theorists, say there are "two" Hill Cumorahs to reconcile the differences.); second, Joseph Smith's quotes only make sense if it is in the north-central continental U.S, (and some of Nephi's) and third, the "new" theory also is called (i forget the exact term) limited geographic theory. I also think it is a limited population theory. There may have been a lot of people but they did not go from sea to sea. Just MHO.
Dad
I hope I can post on here too. :) That's so awesome! I love the history and the possibilities that you're writing about! So fun1 Hope to hear more about the trip1 Cute pictures of the girls! Give them a love!
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