Ohio's East Fork or "Hanukkiah" Earthworks

http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/efw.html

J. Huston McCulloch

National Archives Photograph RG77 144.20

The ancient earthworks depicted above once lay along waters of the East Fork of the
Little Miami River in Ohio, about 20 miles above its mouth near Milford, and about 25-
30 miles east of Cincinnati. They have long since been plowed level, and their
orientation and exact location are unknown.

Ohio had dozens of such large-scale earthworks, attributed to the Hopewell Culture of
circa 100 BC to 500 AD. However, most of them incorporated relatively simple
geometrical structures, primarily circles, squares, octagons, and extended parallel walls.
The East Fork Works are unusual for their complexity.

The above map is a portion of one drawn in 1823 and attributed by Warden (1834) to
Maj. Isaac Roberdeau, head of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers, U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers. The complete original map, depicted below, is preserved in the
Cartographic and Architectural Branch of the Military Archives Division of the U.S.
National Archives in Alexandria, Va., Record Group 77 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Fortifications File), drawer 144, sheet no. 20. The 5" scale at the lower left represents
2000 feet. However, the map consists of two sheets of identical paper glued together,
so it is not entirely clear whether this scale pertains only to the Milford Works on the
left panel, or to the entire map, including the East Fork Works on the right panel. A less
detailed survey of the same works depicted on the Roberdeau map, made circa 1803 by
Gen. William Lytle of Cincinnati, had previously been published in Williamson's (1811)
Observations on the Climate in Different Parts of America.

National Archives Photograph RG77 144.20

 Blowup of legend.

In an important new book entitled Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the
First Americans, Anthony F.C. Wallace, University Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus,
at the University of Pennsylvania, notes that in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson was
impressed by William Lytle's early maps of the East Fork and Milford Works, and
requested more information about "Those works of Antiquity" (Wallace 1999, p. 139
and n. 18). Wallace includes the photograph of the more detailed 1823 Corps of
Engineers map presented above (pp. 140-1).

Jefferson's Presidential interest in these specific earthworks may explain why the Corps
of Engineers would have taken the trouble in 1823 to map structures that had no
conceivable contemporary military value. The fact that the 1823 map depicts precisely
those earthworks surveyed by Lytle c. 1803 strongly indicates that there was a more
than coincidental link between the two surveys.

Roberdeau's 1823 map is the ultimate source of Panel 2B of Plate 34 of Squier and
Davis's 1848 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. In 1894, Cyrus Thomas, who
was unaware of this primary source, dismissed the Squier and Davis diagram as "largely
imaginary." In 1902, Gerard Fowke likewise indicated that the "interior arrangement"
induced "some scepticism as to the accuracy of the drawings." Fowke rotated the
Squier and Davis illustration 90 degrees, and nicknamed the structure the "Gridiron".

Thomas and Fowke did not indicate

precisely what it was about the East
Fork Works that they found so
questionable. Subsequently, however,
David Berry of Columbus, Ohio has
noted that the structure inside the
walls looks remarkably like the nine-
branched lampstand or menorah used
to celebrate the Jewish festival of
Hanukkah (or Hanukah, or Channukah, etc). In Israel today, this Hanukkah menorah is
called a hanukkiah (or hanukiah, or channukiah, etc), to differentiate it from the seven-
branched temple menorah, a more ancient symbol of Judaism. Eight of the nine lamps
of the hanukkiah represent the eight days an oil lamp is supposed to have miraculously
burned, despite the fact that it was filled by a jar that had only enough oil for one day,
after an historical seige of Jerusalem was lifted in 165 B.C. by Judah Maccabbee. The
ninth lamp, the shammes or "servant," traditionally stands either higher than or aside
from the other eight, and is used to light the others on the eight days of Hanukkah. It
should be noted that the upper portion of the outer structure of the East Fork Works
bears a curious resemblance to an ancient oil lamp. The original oil lamps of the
hanukkiah are now commonly replaced by candles, as in the U.S. postage stamp to the
right.

Squier and Davis obtained their information from an intermediate, secondary source
published in French by the American geographer David Baillie Warden (1834). They
were unaware of Roberdeau's original map. This primary source demonstrates that,
despite the objections of Thomas and Fowke, Squier and Davis did faithfully depict the
earthworks themselves. However, it also shows that they and Warden added terrain
features to Roberdeau's original map that may in fact be imaginary. Traces of the
mound's outline might still be visible from the air, if a concerted search for it were
made. The "Gridiron" name for the structure indicates, if nothing else, that Fowke had
more interest in football than in ancient history.

The bottom and left sides of the East Fork Works were originally labeled "200 Feet", but
this is impossibly small given that the vertical "candle sticks" of the "menorah" are each
labeled as being "66 Ft" apart, for a total width of 528 feet between the centers of the
two outside "candle sticks." Someone later added an additional zero to each of the
200's, so that they now read 2000 Feet. This would correspond well to the scale at the
bottom of the left panel, but it is not clear that this was intended to apply to both
panels. Furthermore, it would mean that the "menorah" and the outer walls must have
been drawn on a very different scale, even though Lytle's map shows them in
essentially the same proportion. If the "menorah" is correctly labeled and the outer
walls are on the same scale, the base would be about 902 feet long, measured center
to center and including the small redoubt.

In 2006, Frank Otto resolved this discrepancy of scale by proposing that the map was
made by a draftsman back in Washington who was working from field notes that gave
the length of the left and bottom walls as 900 feet, but misread the 9s as 2s, as is
sometimes easy to do. The Milford works may then have simply been turned so as to fit
the largest sheet of paper that was available. The East Fork Works, drawn to a different
scale and oriented "upside up" with no necessary relation to north, but with a fancy
caption that applies to both works, were then attached to make a single map.

For further details, see McCulloch (1996) , now available online.

If you have a fast modem, click here for a blowup of the East Fork works (503 KB) . For
maximum field of view, enlarge your window to full screen. If you are using Netscape,
you might want to use the OPTIONS menu to deselect SHOW TOOLBAR, SHOW
DIRECTORY BUTTONS, and/or SHOW LOCATION. If you deselect the TOOLBAR, you
can still return to this screen by selecting GO/BACK.

The Milford Group

The left portion of the full map, displayed above, represents the Milford Group, also
depicted in Panels 1 and 2a of Plate 34 in Squier and Davis. Although north is not
indicated, it must be about 70 degrees counterclockwise from the top for this portion of
the map in order to place the East Milford Works (the smaller square and irregular
circle) in their known orientation. The principal river is identified as the Little Miami, and
the river joining it at the bottom is identified as its East Fork.

This primary source demonstrates that Squier and Davis drew the extension and "wing"
to the Milford Works on much too small a scale. The connecting circle must in fact have
been on top of the high knoll in the center of Milford, and the "wing" must have
extended into south Milford. They also detached the West Milford Works from the plan,
and somehow inverted the original diagram in mirror image. For further discussion, see
McCulloch (1996).

Click here for a blowup (486 kb) of the Milford Group .

References

McCulloch, J. Huston, "Ohio's 'Hanukkiah Mound'" , Ancient American, Vol. 3, # 14

[Sept/Oct 1996], pp. 28-37. Click on title for online PDF.

Squier, Ephraim G., and Edwin H. Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley:
Comprising the Results of Extensive original Surveys and Explorations. Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. 1. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1848.

Wallace, Anthony F.C., Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First
Americans, Harvard University Press, 1999.

Warden, David Baillie, "Recherches sur les antiquities de l'Amerique du nord," in Henri
Baradere, ed., Antiquites mexicaines: Relation des trois expeditions du capitaine
DuPaix, Jules Didot, Paris, 1834. (3 vols.: text in Vol. 2, plates in Vol. 3.)

Williamson, Hugh, Observations on the Climate in Different Parts of America, 1811.

Maintained and written by J. Huston McCulloch

Send comments to: mcculloch.2@osu.edu
Last revised 8/19/06