The Serpent Mound |
There are thousands of earthen mounds in the USA, created by native Americans. Some are thousands of years old. But the strangest of all has to be the Serpent Mound, located in Adams County, Ohio. Indeed it is the largest known existing effigy mound in the whole world. The snake, with its mouth wide open as if to swallow an egg, is 1330 feet (400 metres) long. It was assumed for a long time that the mound was created by either the Adena or the Hopewell cultures (700 BC to AD 400). However, recent research suggest it was created in the 11th century AD. |
Archaeologists are baffled by this effigy, however, as it was in many early cultures, the snake was either worshipped as a god or reviled as some great evil. It should be noted that there are hundreds of other mounds in the United States, many of them in the shape of other animals such as the bear. However, like the Nazca lines in South America and the geoglyphs of the Lower Colorodo River, this creation can only be seen from the air, leading some to speculate that the inhabitants could either levitate, or were trying to catch the attention of others that could fly. |
The most puzzling aspect of the Serpent Mound is its location on a crypto - volcanic geological feature. The only area in the North America where the faults are so highly concentrated.Theory suggests that there were 2 huge gigantic undergound explosions caused by either a meteor impact or a volcanoe. Whatever the mounds meaning, its placement directly on top of a unique geological formation is no accident. What is it that caused so many ancient cultures to worship the snake? Was it just a fascination with this sleek looking predator, or something else completely different? Also, near the Serpent Mound are conical mounds used for burials built between AD 100 and AD 800. |
