hello my name is rachel white and i am
an ace intern here at hopewell culture
national historical park
for this episode of inside the
collection i'm actually coming to you
from
inside of our collections it is storage
units like this one
where we keep artifacts such as the one
i will be discussing with you today
goku 26 93 a copper cut out breastplate
compared to other breastplates in our
collection such as 2691 featured in an
earlier episode
this breastplate is in surprisingly good
condition
oku 2693 as pictured here was excavated
in the early 1920s at mound city by a
man named william c
mills at that time the park was not yet
designated as a national park
camp sherman a world war one training
camp had just been deconstructed and the
ohio archaeological and historical
society
came in to complete archaeological
excavations on the site
which included the reconstruction of
mound city
during this period is when our artifact
of interest
was discovered despite copper being a
common metal today that we don't see as
significant
based on what we can perceive from the
archaeological record
this metal was revered by the people of
the hopewell culture
copper is believed to have been seen as
a living metal
that was easily crafted into numerous
other objects
this breast plate would have been
fabricated nearly 2 000 years ago
sometime between 1 and 400 ce before
being entombed with the cremated remains
of an american indian person
in mound 7. the breastplate features a
total of four equal head motifs in
ripose
which is a type of metal working where a
craft person hammers the object from
behind
in order to create the image we see
depicted
on it here in this photograph
two of the four equal head motifs can be
seen here
in the positive and the other two in the
negative it is believed that the copper
for this object
would have come from an area in or
around lake superior
and would have required approximately
200 grams or a little over 7 ounces to
construct
that means hoku 2693 or at least the
copper to craft it traveled almost 650
miles as the crow flies to end up here
in mound city today
while much is still not understood about
the purpose of breastplates in hopewell
society
it is clear that they held significant
meaning to the people who are part of
this culture
as technology continues to develop and
archaeologists continue to understand
more about the hopewell phenomenon we
may still someday know the purpose
behind these beautifully crafted
copper breastplates if you'd like to
know more about hoku 2693
and other artifacts in our collection
remember to check out the corresponding
articles
that go into more in-depth information
about each artifact you see in these
videos