Alligator pipe photograph   Save
Ohio History Connection Archaeology Photograph Collection
Description: Photograph showing the alligator effigy pipe recovered at Esch Mound in 1930. The Esch Mounds were a pair of conical mounds located along the Huron River in Erie County, Ohio. Emerson Greenman of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Ohio History Connection) investigated these mounds in 1930 and unearthed a variety of objects including several platform pipes and a number of Flint Ridge Flint bladelets or flake knives. These are all diagnostic of the Hopewell culture (100 B.C. - A.D. 400) although a subsequent radiocarbon date of A.D. 590 points to a rather late timeframe for such a classical Hopewell site. Perhaps the most remarkable object recovered in Greenman’s excavations is the large stone smoking pipe seen here, made from Ohio pipestone and fashioned to represent the head of an alligator or perhaps some mythical deity in the Hopewell belief system. This extraordinary object is now on display at the Ohio History Center in Columbus. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AV17_B01F05_E2_02
Subjects: American Indian history; Ohio History--Natural and Native Ohio; Archaeological excavations; Effigy pipes; Hopewell Culture (A.D. 1–400); Esch Mound
Places: Erie County (Ohio)