Hand Effigy Symbol: Bringing Cultures Together!
Adena/Jaredites
Hopewell/Nephites
Mississippian/Historical Native Americans
The Righteous Nephites and Lamanites are Spared Destruction
And it came to pass that in the ending of the thirty and fourth year,* behold, I [Mormon] will show unto you that the people of Nephi, who were spared, and also those who had been called Lamanites, who had been spared, did have great favors shown unto them, and great blessings poured out upon their heads, insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven He did truly manifest Himself unto them, showing His body unto them [Symbolic Hands] and ministering unto them; and an account of His ministry shall be given hereafter; therefore for this time I make an end of my sayings.” 3 Nephi 10:18
“The first month, Nisan, of the Hebrew Calendar is fixed so that the first full moon of the year will be after the spring equinox. When Mormon wrote that in the ending of the 34th year Christ came to America, he was using the language of Moses to describe that it is was at the time of the Feast of Ingathering or Tabernacles” – John C. Lefgren Ph.D.
“The world’s largest earthen temple complex is located in Newark, Ohio (see p. 250 below from the Annotated Book of Mormon). The central axis of the portion known as the Great Octagon (Fig. 6 on p. 250) is fixed at 58.1 degrees east of true north which is the azimuth for the maximum northern moonrise. This event occurs only once every 18.6 years. The moon rise for Saturday, October 3rd, A.D. 33 was in alignment with the central line of the earthwork. At this time the Calendar of Moses required the Children of Israel to gather at the temple. On the rising of the sun of the next morning, the Nephites gathered at the temple in Bountiful (3 Nephi 11:1, p. 399) to observe the 7th day of the Feasts of Tabernacles. This alignment points to Christ coming to the Nephites in His resurrected glory on this day.” – John C. Lefgren, Ph.D. page 408 Annotated Book of Mormon Digital image by CERHAS, University of Cincinnati Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Purchase John Lefgren’s 44-Page PDF titled “The Sign before the Birth of Christ- As Witnessed at the Newark Earthworks in Ohio” HERE
Hopewell/Nephites Important Similarities
The Hopewell Culture describes the common aspects of the Native American culture that began in the Florida panhandle in 600 – 500 BC that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and Midwestern United States from 300 BC to 400 AD, in the Middle Woodland period.
As you can see in the map below, and as you read history, the proven historical location and timelines of the Hopewell Culture are facts. Just think about it. If we found a people that had a history following this same beginning and ending pattern in North America and we called it the Book of Mormon, we would have validation that indeed the Hopewell people are the same as the Nephites. So as we surmise, Lehi landed in Florida, Nephi was chased by his brothers into Tennessee, then Mosiah left and went north on the Tennessee River (which by the way, flows north) to Missouri and Illinois where he met up with the Mulekites near the Mississippi River. Remember the Mulekites began their civilization at the same place they were found by Mosiah. (read here) “And they [Mulekites] journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth.” Omni 1:16
Because of being found where they landed, (See Omni 1:16), we show a great probability that the Mulekites followed the same path as Lehi to the Gulf of Mexico, with the Mulekites following the Mississippi River all the way up to Montrose Iowa, where the Des Moines river rapids halted their journey, as was restricted boat traffic until the Army Corps of Engineers opened that waterway in the 19th century.
The area of Ohio is known as the Cultural Center of both the Adena and the Hopewell People with the Great Hopewell road running from Chillicothe, OH to Newark OH, the place of the amazing Newark Earthworks.
In the Land Zarahemla (WI, IA, MO, IL), there were many battles as well as in the Land Bountiful, (IN, OH, PA, NY) from Illinois to Indiana to Ohio and finally at Cumorah. What happened near Cumorah historically? Historians have found a sudden end to Hopewell civilization and pottery in that area from about 400-500 AD. We Latter-day Saints know what happened in that time range as the Lamanites destroyed the Nephites.
For a Full Nephite Time-Line visit: https://bookofmormonevidence.org/nephite-timeline/
The 300-acre Hopewell Mound Group
The 300-acre Hopewell Mound Group is the type site for the Hopewell culture. Early archeologists named the site for its owner, Mordecai C. Hopewell. The artifacts in the picture below were found in Mound 25 called a double burial site in the Hopewell Mound Group in Ross County, OH. The significance of the better known mica hand placed between the skulls of the double burial and two mica eagle talons which were placed on each chest is not understood.
Hopewell Mica Cutouts
The native peoples of Ohio may have begun to use mica during the Early Woodland period, but its use in the crafting of ceremonial objects became especially important during the Middle Woodland period.
Mica is a shiny mineral that occurs in layers, which can be split apart into thin, translucent sheets. Sometimes called isenglass, plates of mica have been used historically as windows for stoves.
Hopewell culture spiritual leaders used small slabs of mica for a kind of mirror, possibly used in divination ceremonies, and artisans cut sheets into a variety of delicate shapes that may have been sewn onto garments to serve as personal ornaments.
Mica does not occur naturally in Ohio. Its source is in the Appalachian Mountains of North and South Carolina. Ohio’s Hopewell people may have obtained the mica in trade with the Middle Woodland cultures in this region, or perhaps pilgrims brought offerings of mica and other rare and precious materials to the great earthwork centers of southern Ohio.
Mica continued to be used by some Late Woodland cultures in Ohio, but only in much smaller quantities and these later peoples did not cut it into the elegant effigies so characteristic of the Hopewell culture.
Human Hand Effigy, Hopewell Culture, Hopewell Mound Group
Human Hand Effigy, Hopewell Culture, Hopewell Mound Group,
Ross Co., A 283/000294
Hopewell Culture: Double Burial Mica Set artifacts
Time period: 100 BC-AD 400
Provenience: Hopewell site (Mound 25), Ross County, Ohio USA
Original artifact size: 8-31 cm (3-12 inches)
Original artifact material: Mica
Hopewell Double Burial Context and Interpretation:
“Mica cutouts were produced by the Hopewell culture (100 BC-AD 400) which thrived in the American Midwest and southern Ohio more than two thousand years ago. The artifacts that the replicas pictured above were based upon were excavated from a double burial in Mound 25 that was part of a complex of earthworks known as the Hopewell site. The site name honored Mordecai C. Hopewell who in the 1800s owned the farm which the 44.5 hectare (110 acre) mound complex was located. Since excavations on the Hopewell site produced artifacts that were previously unknown, the culture was also named after Hopewell. Complex geometric earthworks, some the largest in the world, were a trademark of the Hopewell culture. Usually Hopewell mound complexes comprise of very regular geometric shapes: a combination of circular, square and octagonal earthen walls that lined the site perimeter. The Hopewell site is unusual in that it has a mound geometry that is irregular in shape. The site has two orthogonal walls on the south and east sides with a j-shaped curve forming the remaining north and western walls. There is however a smaller square walled complex sharing the eastern wall of this larger complex that conforms to the classic Hopewell plan. A survey of the Hopewell site in 1847 described more than 20 smaller mounds within the enclosure of the perimeter walls. Many contained multiple burials with abnormally large amounts of burial objects.
In 1891, Warren K. Moorehead was employed by Harvard University to excavate the site. His methods have been described euphemistically as “cavalier” by modern standards. Mosaics of colored sand, one represented a panther, were uncovered and then destroyed as his investigation cut through stratigraphy of the mounds. Mound 2 had 8,000 palm-sized discs of flint, about 5.4 metric tons (6 tons) uncovered. He must have been overwhelmed by the shear number of artifacts for a famous picture taken at the time (right) showed these discs recklessly piled outside one of his field camp tents. Mound 17 had 3,000 sheets of mica excavated, “enough to fill two barrels”. The same mound had 5,000 copper objects, of which Moorehead thought 4,000 were copper ear spools, 100 were breast plates, and another 120 were “cut into numerous designs”. He also found in Mound 17 by his estimates over 100,000 fresh water pearls from the various species mussels and clams that inhabit Ohio streams (they were at the time worth one million dollars).
Mound 25, the largest in the Hopewell site enclosure, was composed of the Central Mound and two side mounds that over time, due to additional burials, merged to become one conjoined mound 9 m (30 ft) high and 152 m (500 ft) long. There were a total of 69 copper and (meteoritic) iron celts and 92 copper breastplates found in all the features of this mound. The significance of the better known mica hand placed between the skulls of the double burial and two mica eagle talons which were placed on each chest is not understood. Evidence of incising has been found on one of the mica talons. No pigment is observed on the surface of these artifacts as has been found on painted mica artifacts. The burial also had smaller two mica circular discs, a pierced claw and two other mica geometric forms placed at their waist. The photograph (above right) has the mica replicas positioned as they were found in the Hopewell grave (relative distances between replicas not accurate). The geographical origins of grave goods from this and other excavations indicated the Hopewell culture had trade sophisticated trade networks extending to the Gulf of Mexico (marine shells), Rocky Mountains (obsidian), and Michigan (native copper). North Carolina is one source of mica where one pre-Columbian mine was reported to have blunt excavation makings on its wall characteristic of stone tools. Cause for the Hopewell culture decline about AD 400 is not known.” Jack Corbo Cleveland Ohio
The subject of the disappearance of the Hopewell in 400 AD is well understood by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe the Hopewell are the same Nephites of the Book of Mormon who where destroyed about 400 AD. Some coincidences are just to wonderful, as we understand the lands of the Book of Mormon. According to some historians, “little is known about why Hopewell mound-building ended, either about AD 200 in the lower Illinois Valley and about AD 350-400 in the Scioto river valley. There is no evidence of failure, no evidence of widespread diseases or heightened death rates: basically, the smaller Hopewell sites simply aggregated into larger communities, located away from the Hopewell heartland, and the valleys were largely abandoned.” Why Did the Hopewell People Build Enormous Mounds? John Weinstein © The Field Museum by K. Kris Hirst Updated March 08, 2017
“On the title page I read that it is “written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile.” In the introduction to the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, it says that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians.” As I read the Book of Mormon, it seemed to me that it was about my American Indian ancestors. It tells the story of a people, a part of which were later described as “Lamanites,” who migrated from Jerusalem to a “land of promise” (1 Nephi 2:20) about 600 B.C.” “Come unto Me, O Ye House of Israel” By Elder Larry Echo Hawk of the Seventy Ensign Oct 2012
Hand Effigy Symbol: Bringing Cultures Together!
Adena/Jaredites
Hopewell/Nephites
Mississippian/Historical Native Americans
See my blog here for more details.
First Americans Museum Brings Dignity to Indigenous Art and History
After many years of sitting partially finished, the grand opening is Sept 18-19By Devraat Awasthi -September 5, 2021 Share11 minute read
OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — Crowning the southern skyline of Oklahoma City with an epic half-dome, the First Americans Museum will open its doors to the public this month in a much-anticipated grand opening.
The millennia-long history of America’s Indigenous people will be jointly told in a place built by them and for them – making the museum a unique historical moment in itself.
The museum leaves no stone unturned in its effort to elucidate the stories of First Americans. Artifacts from ancient sources stand only feet away from art made by contemporary creators, and the stories of the Modoc Nation from the Pacific Northwest are told right next to the Great Plains tribes of the Comanche and Kiowa.
Together, the thirty-nine tribes that form the core of the First American Museum have created a place of dignified reflection that promises a thorough and respectful survey of the history of the First Americans…
…“Thank goodness for a subsidiary of the Chickasaw Nation!” said Wasserman. After the various failings of federal, state, and local governments, the Chickasaw Nation agreed to fulfill the operating deficit of the museum and received the right to purchase and develop the surrounding property. Wasserman credits Governor Bill Anoatubby of the Chickasaw Nation, who is also the chair of the NACEA with saving the project, saying he “has been steadfast all these many years in making sure that this is a world-class institution, that it never lost its original mission or intent, and what it set out to do. We’re eternally grateful.”
Wasserman also expressed the museum’s excitement for the planned development in the area, and although exact details were withheld, she described future plans in which the museum would be an anchor for a nationally oriented destination. First Americans Museum 8-31-21 (BRETT DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)
Arrival
Today, the joint venture of the Oklahoma City government and the Chickasaw Nation stands proudly along the southern bank of the Oklahoma River. The glittering glass and steel that now adorns the southside, however, took more than a decade to complete. The land on which the museum sits has a story as well. “This was oil field number one!” explains Executive Director James Pepper Henry (Kaw/Muscogee). Thirty percent of the world’s oil supply and 60% of the nation’s oil came from the Oklahoma City Oil Field.
This history entailed ecological and ethical difficulties that the First Americans Museum undertook. “By building this center, we’ve healed the land. We mitigated all those issues, cleaned up this site, and so in a way, it’s kind of beautiful that it took Native people to come in here, to heal this place, and get it back into balance,” said Henry. According to Wasserman, “We had to cap oil wells to current standards, we had to locate oil wells . . . it took a full year to do the site remediation. We removed over 7,000 tires, box springs, all kinds of things. It became a dumping ground for a period of time.”
Part of the process of reclaiming the land was a ground blessing ceremony in 2005, where 39 tribes brought ashes from the ceremonial fires of their original homelands as a new fire was lit, the ashes of which now sit in the OKLA HOMMA exhibition.
Architectural symbolism
The history of the First Americans Museum enhances the physical beauty of its building. “A lot of symbolism has gone into the design of this building,” said Henry. The building was co-designed by Johnson Fain of Los Angeles and Hornbeek Blatt of Edmond, Oklahoma.
The gigantic mound feature recalls the ancient cities of the Caddo people in eastern Oklahoma, most prominently featured in the Spiro Mounds site. “Spiro was bigger than London at the time of the arrival of the Europeans!” said Pepper Henry. The mound was built with over 500,000 cubic yards of earth capped at an apex that gives visitors a unique view of downtown Oklahoma City. The mound, planted with indigenous grasses like buffalo grass and bluestem in terraced baskets, is mirrored by the glass and steel building in an effort to merge the past and present. Executive Director James Pepper Henry (Kaw/Muscogee) explains the symbolism of the circular layout of the entire grounds. First Americans Museum 8-31-21 (BRETT DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)
The most remarkable aspect of the museum’s design, however, is the “cosmological clock.” According to Pepper Henry, on the winter solstice every year, the setting sun will shine perfectly through a tunnel cutting under the mound. On the summer solstice, the sun will set at the peak of the mound. On the equinoxes, the sun will shine through a hand symbol marking the entrance and center of the museum. “The amazing thing about it is the architects and the engineers were trying to figure all this out, and even with all the computers they had, it was still very difficult to figure this out, and they were amazed at how the ancients could figure this out, without sophisticated computers.”
The entrance to the museum is marked by the Remembrance Walls, which “acknowledges that there were always original Native inhabitants here, living in this place, there were several tribes that have always been here,” said Wasserman. “It also acknowledges those that were on the Removal – many different removal paths here – and did not survive, and it celebrates those of us that are the descendants of those who made that courageous journey and are here today.”
Past the Remembrance Walls and inside the museum is the signature half-dome of the museum, known as the Hall of the People. Modeled after the grass lodges of the Caddo people, the Hall stands 90 feet tall and is shielded with 800 panes of inch-thick glass. “In theory, it’s weather-proof,” according to Henry. The half-dome entry hall, First Americans Museum 8-31-21 (BRETT DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)
Groundbreaking curation methods
The beauty and history of the museum, however, are overshadowed by the groundbreaking curation methods that the museum has developed. As Wasserman points out, the museum prioritizes a “first-person” perspective to curation and emphasizes storytelling from primary sources.
Like clockwork: First Americans Museum’s design tells more than time
Brandy McDonnell Oklahoman
The First Americans Museum’s time has finally come.
And the long-awaited landmark boasts a built-in mechanism for keeping that time.
“This whole complex is a giant cosmological clock — and it’s really ingenious,” said James Pepper Henry, the museum’s director and CEO and a member of the Kaw Nation. “I love to talk a little bit about the symbolism.”
Conceived in the 1990s as the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum, the $175 million, 175,000-square-foot First Americans Museum, or FAM, celebrated its grand opening Sept. 18-19 with two days of celebrity speakers, Native dancers and musicians, cultural demonstrations and more.
The museum is expected to be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. It will be closed on Tuesdays.
‘Momentous occasion’: People from all 39 Oklahoma tribes celebrate OKC’s new First Americans Museum
“We want local Oklahomans to shop with us and to come and eat with us and to come to our demonstrations,” said Ginny Underwood, the museum’s marketing and communications manager, who is Comanche. “So, you don’t have to have a ticket to enter … through the Xchange gate.”
That entrance leads into the 75-seat Xchange Theater, so named because it’s envisioned as a space where an exchange of cultures will take place.
“We can get schoolkids in here and do storytelling. We can have dance demonstrations in here. We have cameras up here, and if somebody is doing a basket-weaving demonstration, we can zoom in on their hands and put it up onscreen so people can see the detail,” Pepper Henry said. “At night, we’ve got this incredible lighting system in here. … We can turn it into a dance floor; we can put a small band in here. It’s a really great, flexible space for us. But the idea is for this place to come alive with programming — and this is all free in this part.”
Story continues below.
What is the symbolism of the museum’s design?
The original design of the First Americans Museum was conceived in the late 1990s. In the Community Gallery, an exhibition and model show the symbolism that was planned into the design for the building and grounds.
“We broke ground in 2006 … and you can see, there’s basically two circles that intersect with each other,” Pepper Henry explained during a recent preview tour. “The first circle is made of earth, and that is our mound.”
Accessible from the museum’s second floor, the mound is made of 500,000 cubic yards of earth.
“It’s an homage to our ancestors that were here before us. One of the great civilizations of North America was right here in Oklahoma before the Europeans arrived, and that was the Spiro Mounds,” Pepper Henry said. “Spiro Mounds was bigger than London before the arrival of Europeans. And we wanted to honor our ancestors and remind people that there have been great cities — and this land has been occupied — for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.”
by archaeologists conducting the early scientific research at the site
The second circle is formed by the steel-and-glass building itself.
“So, we’ve got the ancient world and the modern world intersecting with each other. And that intersection point is the Hall of the People, this glass structure,” Pepper Henry said. “The Hall of the People is a modern version … of a Wichita grass lodge. And the reason why we picked that particular structure is because the Wichitas, along with the Caddo and a few other tribes are indigenous to Oklahoma. … And we wanted to honor the original peoples of this land.”
MORE:First Americans Museum spent years learning from Oklahoma tribes before opening
How do the FAM grounds function like a clock?
Photographs displayed in the Community Gallery — including some taken by Pepper Henry — foreshadow how the design of the FAM complex allows for people to track the seasons. For instance, a winter solstice tunnel, which is large enough to accommodate a semi-trailer truck, has been built through the mound.
“On Dec. 21 of every year, which is the shortest day of the year, the sun will set perfectly in that tunnel, and it’ll shine a light through. So, that’s the winter solstice,” Pepper Henry said. “In the wintertime, the sun tracks to the south and then it starts to move to the north. So, on the summer solstice, on June 21, the sun will reach its apex … and set perfectly on the point of the mound on the longest day of the year.”
The fall and spring equinoxes will silhouette Cherokee artists Demos Glass and Bill Glass Jr.’s outdoor artwork “Touch to Above” a towering metal arch topped by an open hand.
“So, we have this seasonal clock that tells us when the equinoxes are and then when the solstices are. It’s really amazing engineering when you think about it. The architects were trying to figure this out, and engineers were like, ‘How do we make this happen? How did the ancients figure this out without all the computers and everything?'” Pepper Henry said.
“They were able to figure it out. But they had much more respect for our ancestors after going through this process and understanding the complexities of trying to make something like this work.”
MORE: 10 highlights of Oklahoma City’s new First Americans Museum
Hopewell Mica Hand Context and Interpretation:
Mica cutouts, specifically this hand-shaped cutout is iconic of all the artifacts produced by the Hopewell culture (100 BC-AD 400) that thrived in southern Ohio more than two thousand years ago. The original artifact the replica pictured above is based was excavated from a double burial in Mound 25 that was part of a complex of earthworks known as the Hopewell site.
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HOPEWELL EFFIGY OF A HUMAN HAND
“The scriptures show the convincing power of nail prints in the hands of Christ. It is important to develop the Fibonacci Series and the Golden Spiral so as to show how the Hopewell used this framework to cut the mica sheet with precision and exactness.” John C. Lefgren.
(See 3 Nephi 11: 13-17, Zechariah 13:6, John 20:24-29, and D&C 45:52). In July of 2018 Dr. John C. Lefgren of Bethlehem, PA was the person who first made the association of the Fibonacci Series to this Hopewell artifact which shows the nail print in the hands of Christ. Of course this is a plausible possibility and I urge all to read, study and pray about this information. To me it makes sense and that is why I share it.
“In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence, called the Fibonacci sequence, and characterized by the fact that every number after the first two is the sum of the two preceding ones: 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144… Fibonacci numbers appear to have first arisen in perhaps 200 BC in work by Pingala on enumerating possible patterns of poetry formed from syllables of two lengths.” Wikipedia (To understand the Fibonacci, see videos at the end of this blog)
“Effigy of a human hand cut from sheet mica, Ohio Hopewell culture, 100 BC-500 AD. Excavated from Hopewell Mound Group, Ross County, Ohio ca.1922-1925. The Hopewell obtained mica from western North Carolina. This object is 11” x 7” and is held in the Ohio History Connection Archaeology Collection. Hopewell culture spiritual leaders used small slabs of mica for a kind of mirror, possibly used in divination ceremonies, and artisans cut sheets into a variety of delicate shapes that may have been sewn onto garments to serve as personal ornaments. Around 400 A.D Hopewell culture began to decline for an unknown reason according to archaeologists.” Ohio History Connection Archaeology.
In addition to the Human Hand Effigy, there have been thousands of artifacts found from mounds all over the United States including pearls, breastplates, pottery, etc. From page 429 of the Annotated Book of Mormon you will read the following information;
