Mysteries of the Hopewell: Astronomers, Geometers, and Magicians of the Eastern Woodlands

3. Measuring and Counting

Chapter 3 M E A S U R I N G A N D C O U N T I N G Man is the measure of all things, of being things that they exist, and of nonentities that they do not exist. —Protagoras (c. 481–411 b.c.) By translating the actual into the numerical we have found the secret to the structure and workings of the Universe. —John D. Barrow, Pi in the Sky It was the perfect day for a flight. The sun was bright, the air was crisp, and there was just the hint of a breeze out of the southwest. Poised at the end of the runway, the little airplane strained at its brakes. I made a last minute check of the instruments, set the flaps, and eased the throttle forward. Faster and faster the propeller whirled. Finally, when the engine reached twenty-two hundred revolutions per minute, I released the brakes. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, we started down the runway. Human flesh and metal machine balanced for a few precious moments between heaven and earth, balanced on the edge of flight. As we reached rotation speed, I increased back pressure on the control column, and ever so gently, we were airborne. Within seconds, 65 the houses and people became smaller and smaller as we climbed higher and higher into the cool currents of air. Soon we were winging our way up, over, and around the Newark Earthworks. Ever since I was a boy, I had dreams of flight. To be part of the sky. To see the world through the eyes of a bird as it circled overhead. In the same way, I wanted to see the earthworks from a different perspective. I wanted to see the earthworks not as a flatland drawing on a piece of paper, nor as an isolated embankment here and there covered by trees and houses, but as geometric forms with substance and in their entirety. I wanted to see the earthworks from the upperworld. Guided by these thoughts, my wife, Evie, and I were now circling the Newark Octagon at a thousand feet above the ground. With my left hand, I aimed a camera out of the open pilot’s side window and looked into the viewfinder. From this height, the octagon looked like a miniature model. On the ground, the earthwork seems enormous. And indeed it is. To walk across its width takes seven or eight minutes. But from the view we now had, the earthwork seemed small—like the figure that a child might make in the mud or sand. It was then I realized that to build the great earthworks, like Newark, or Marietta, or a dozen others, the Hopewell probably began with a small model or drawing or design plan for each enclosure. Using this small figure, the proportions of each earthwork component could be worked out well in advance of moving even a basketful of earth. Equally important, a scale model or design plan would have provided the earthwork designers with a clear and certain way of explaining to the laborers and actual builders of each earthwork what the desired shape, size, and orientation of each structure was to be. We have no surviving remnants of any such models or plans, but surely they existed, if only in the form of stick-drawn figures scratched on the ground. On the other hand, remnants of what may be prehistoric drafting templates and tools have been found. Consider, for example , Warren K. Moorehead’s description of a group of artifacts he discovered in one of the burial mounds at the Hopewell site: “one mass of ten little copper circles .l.l. forty pieces of copper, squares, circles .l.l. 66 p h y s i c a l pa r a m e t e r s eleven pieces showing semi-circles, straight edges, squares, etc., one small cross with two arms” (Moorehead 1922:110; emphasis added). Could it be that Moorehead discovered the Hopewell equivalent of an engineer’s drafting kit? Certainly there are other possible explanations for these objects. Still, it is intriguing to speculate that maybe these little copper figures were used to design some ancient earthwork. In any event, for the Hopewell to translate smaller models or figures into full-sized earthworks, three things would have been needed. First, a basic unit of measurement...