Unique Chance To View A Stunning Lunar Alignment With Ancient Newark Earthworks

MessageToEagle.com – Built about 2,000 years ago by people of the Hopewell culture, the Newark Earthworks served as been some kind of astronomical observatory designed to align with certain points in the lunar cycle.

It is the largest known complex of geometric earthworks on the planet, according to archaeologists. Tonight and on Saturday evening, you have a unique chance to observe a northern minimum moonrise, the least-northern moonrise in the moon’s cycle. This particular alignment won’t occur again for another 18.6 years!

Experts aren’t sure why these lunar events were so important to the builders, but the earthworks seemed to attract a large number of people at the time, said Dr. Richard Shiels, emeritus director of the Newark Earthworks Center.

The Newark Earthworks feature an octagon that encloses about 50 acres. Each of the eight sides is made of earthen mounds about 6 feet tall and 550 feet long. The octagon joins with a circle encompassing an additional 20 acres.

The octagon marks certain points in the moon’s 18.6-year cycle. Throughout the cycle are eight “ standstill points” where, as the moon rises or sets, it appears to stop going in one direction and begins going in another. There are eight different alignments with the earthworks throughout the lunar cycle. After this weekend, there won’t be any more lunar alignments for another nine years.

The viewing events are hosted by the Ohio State University’s Newark Earthworks Center and the Ohio History Connection. Because the Moundbuilders Country Club and golf course currently owns and occupies the land where the earthworks were built, the public can only access the earthen structure on a few days each year. About 100 people visited the earthworks in October to view a southern minimum moonset, Shiels said

The rare lunar-alignment viewing events highlight how advanced the Hopewell people were when they built the earthworks, said Emmy Beach, spokeswoman for the Ohio History Connection.

“It really allows you to see just how perfectly they built these earthworks to line up with specific moon cycles,” she said. “You can kind of imagine yourself in the shoes of these ancient Ohioans and see what they would have seen 2,000 years ago.”

These lunar alignments were very significant events for the creators of the earthworks, Shiels said.

See also:

• Mystery Of The Moon And Newark Mounds: Octagon Earthworks’ Alignment With Moon – No Accident
• Mystery Of The Shaman of Newark – A Remarkable Ancient Artifact Of An Unknown Creature
• Cahuachi Sanctuary – A Major Ceremonial Center Of The Nazca Culture

“This was a site that people came to periodically,” he said. “It must have been important to be here when the moon was in a certain place.”

Yet experts still can only speculate what took place there. The earthworks might have been used for major ceremonies or even as a ball field for large games, Shiels said.

The Newark Earthworks site is a national historic landmark and was named in 2006 as the official prehistoric monument of the state. A statewide committee also is working to get the Newark site and other Hopewell earthworks in Ohio listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

“There’s absolutely no question that the sites are worthy,” Shiels said.

MessageToEagle.com

Reference:

The Columbus Dispatch