Travel – Serpent Mound, Ohio

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Let’s take a look at the Mysterious Serpent Mound and in this video, let’s stick with all the official information given out by archaeologists and historians, even though there are a lot of new evidences to debunk them. The Serpent mound is an effigy mound that looks like a snake when viewed from the air. It is the largest effigy mound in the world and is located in Bratton, Ohio.

It stretches over a quarter mile long and is also the first protected archaeological monument in the U.S. You can see how big it is by comparing it with the people walking nearby.

The site itself is actually very strange, because it was hit by a meteor 320 million years ago which created a huge crater in this region. It seems like a very unusual coincidence to choose to build the largest snake effigy that almost looks like it is slithering into the impact crater.
The shape of the serpent is very unique from head to tail. At the top, there is an oval shaped mound constructed, as though the serpent is trying to swallow an egg. And on the other side of the oval, there is an arch as though it is holding the egg.

The head of the serpent is constructed with open jaws, and the body has seven coils. You can see how the tail of the serpent is designed as a spiral with 3 coils, which is also very unique. In addition to this, there are also two small mounds coming out of the either side of its face, which is thought of as feathers or wings.

As you can see, from the ground it is almost impossible to identify this as a serpent; in fact you can’t see the whole structure from any one point in the ground. The mound’s height varies from 1 to 4 feet at different places, and the serpent has been carefully constructed using many different layers. First, the outline was created with stones, clay and ashes. After this, a solid rock foundation was constructed to stand the test of time, and then clay soil was brought in from nearby places to make the second layer. Clay soil retains water and withstands erosion, so the people who built it knew exactly what they were doing. The third layer was created with nutrient rich, black top soil to help grow plants on the mound. They finally sowed grass, clover and other plants so that they would grow on the mound and bind all these layers together. This is exactly why the Serpent mound is still standing for more than a thousand years, and this place was completely covered with plants and bushes before being discovered around 1848.

So when was it built? The official version is that the Serpent mound was built around 1070 A.D, but in a new book, the author Ross Hamilton says that new carbon dates have arrived which show that it was built between 300 and 400 B.C. This pushes the Serpent mound to a much older time, almost 2400 years ago and would make it the oldest mound in the U.S. It will take some time to find out if conventional archaeologists will accept these new dates.

Who built the Serpent Mound? Nobody exactly knows who built it, but archaeologists say that it was built by Fort Ancient Culture. Other authors say that it was built by the Adena Culture and there are wide spread stories that the mound builders were a completely different race who stood more than 7 feet tall. Many Native Americans believe that they did not create the Serpent mound, but it was already there when they reached this place. Was there anything found underneath? There was nothing found underneath the Serpent, which shows that it was not used for burials. Some burial mounds are situated nearby, but they don’t make a part of the serpent mound. So, what is meaning of the Serpent Mound? Nobody exactly knows what it means, but one thing is clear. Similar to Nazca lines of Peru, it was meant to be seen from the air, and not from the ground. There are no natural vantage points to see the whole design from the ground. We can see it today from an observation tower built nearby; even then the head of the snake is not visible. But on Google earth, you can see the entire structure. There are many interpretations including, the cosmic snake eating the egg; it is modeled after certain stars in the Sky and so on. You can connect this design with any religion in the world including Hindus of India, Mayas of Mexico and even Islam and Christianity.

Was the Serpent Mound used for practical purposes? The most convincing argument is that it was used to predict solar and lunar cycles. For example, the head of the serpent almost perfectly aligns with Summer Solstice Sunset. And the different coils align with many solar and lunar events, so it could have been used for planting crops, hunting and gathering. There are many other explanations including rituals, mysticism and even astronomy.