Chruch History and Book of Mormon Tour: Flint Ridge, Museum, Ancient Ohio Sites

Our first stop this morning was Flint Ridge. Ancient Nephites and possibly Jaredites would come from miles around to mine flint from this area. We walked a path through pockets of deep holes where the flint had been mined from. The holes were originally 30 to 40 feet deep, but as other holes were dug and in just a process of time they would partially be filled. So currently they are large 10-15 deep holes almost always filled to some depth with water. This area of Ohio gets about 30 inches of rain per year.

Our next stop was another museum; rather than post a bunch more photos that are similar to yesterday, I will pick and choose a few that will be different from yesterday. These artifacts verify what the Book of Mormon teaches concerning the types of animals, plants, clothing, armor and other such things that the Nephites had a available to them.

Mammoth (possibly a curelom or a cumom?)

Tusks, Bones, Teeth

Precious Stones

Textiles; some so sheer it was like see through; the textiles were preserved when located with copper

Pearls

Typical Village

Artwork

We visited Mound City, the famous Effigy Mound: The Serpent Mound; we visited Seip Mound, and Fort Hill. Mound City is a very interesting place. In a large area the Mound Builders constructed mounds that were exact duplicates of the mountains way in the back ground. During the summer the trees now block the mountains, but when you move out and away from the trees you can see the mountains. So when you look at the mounds it is as if you were looking at the mountains. The mountains are depicted on the Ohio State Seal.

The camera does not quite do justice to the mounds and how they are arranged to look like the mountain range behind them as depicted on the seal above. Next up is Seip Mound. This is a very typical mound complex containing a large round circle with walls surrounding it, a square and a smaller circle. All the walls have been destroyed, but two mounds remain within the circles; the circles and square have been outlined by mowing the grass down. The great Seip mound was built in three sections; there is a sign depicting it.

This is a sketch of the earthwork made in the 1840s by a team sent out from the Smithsonian. We are walking toward the mound depicted in the middle of the Great Circle.

In this view we would be able to see the square if it still had its walls around it. It can be seen in the lighter grass in the distance.

This is looking toward where the smaller circle; it would be in the shadowy area.

This is looking back toward the way we walked in from. The only remaining wall is down inbetween the far two trees. You can tell how huge these earthworks are.

A smaller mound in the shadowy area.

If you can read this it will tell you more about the large mound in the large circle.

Our next visit was the Serpent Mound. It is a long winding mound whose bends point to the Solar events. The Summer and Winter Sunset and Sunrise; fall and spring and so forth. Why this mound points to the solar evens is unknown.