HOPEWELL PLATFORM EFFIGY PIPES
MIDDLE WOODLAND HOPEWELL PERIOD
200 B.C. TO A.D. 400

Hopewell bird effigy pipe from Madison Co., Illinois.

 

Frog effigy Hopewell pipe.
HOPEWELL FROG EFFIGY PIPE
FLOYD RITTER COLLECTION

   Looking a little worse for wear but still showing a lot of artistic strength. This Hopewell pipe is missing both sides of its platform and the pearl inlayed eyes that once made it sparkle. These rare Hopewell effigy pipes were made by skilled craftsmen around 2,000 years ago.

   The beads in the background are freshwater pearls from the Ogden- Fettie Hopewell site in north central Illinois.


Hopewell bird effigy pipe from Madison Co., Illinois.     Hopewell frog effigy pipe from Calhoun Co., Illinois.
TWO "CLASSIC" HOPEWELL PLATFORM PIPES FROM SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

   The bird effigy pipe on the left was found in the middle 1800's in Madison County, Illinois. The Frog effigy pipe on the right was found in Calhoun County, Illinois by Mrs. Wadlow in the 1950,s. Both of these Hopewell Platform Effigy Pipes represent a category of artifacts that have been highly prized by the academic community and collectors ever since the first examples were excavated from Hopewell burial mounds in the eastern United States. The Smithsonian Institution illustrated and described dozens of examples in their first publication over a 150 years ago. They were very impressed with them then just as people are today. As an example (fig.#164 pipe, page 259) "As a work of art it is incomparably superior to any remains of the existing tribes of Indians". Hopewell pipes are certainly some of the most impressive anciently carved and polished Stone Age artifacts ever found in North America.

Two Hopewell effigy pipes from southern Illinois.
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HOPEWELL PLATFORM ANIMAL EFFIGY PIPES
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

   Some of the finest carved and polished stone work done by native Americans before European contact in North America was achieved during the "Golden Age" of the Middle Woodland Period. These two pipes are "classic" examples from that time. They appear to be studying each other in this picture. Try to envision them with their original fresh water pearl inlayed eyes.
   The Middle Woodland period was named the Hopewell culture after excavations of burial mounds on the Hopewell family farm in 1893 in southern Ohio. This period in time has been carbon dated to between 2,200 and 1600 years ago (200 B.C. to A.D. 400).

 

TIME-LINE PERSPECTIVE
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   In the year A.D. 330, during the Hopewell Period in eastern North America, the Roman Emperor Constantine I "the Great" founded the new eastern capital of the Roman empire in Constantinople called New Rome and the Byzantine Empire began.

1903 picture of coastline view of Constantinople.
This picture was taken in 1903 of the city of Constantinople.
a caption reads "the sultans mosque on hill top"


Hopewell effigy pipe illustration from first Smithsonian book--1848.   Hopewell effigy pipe illustration from first Smithsonian book--1848.
HOPEWELL PLATFORM PIPES
OHIO
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION COLLECTION

   These two Hopewell platform pipes are illustrated in the first publication printed by the Smithsonian Institution over 150 years ago in 1848 called "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" by E.G. Squire and E.H. Davis. This early book illustrates at least 40 Hopewell culture pipes. Most of which are probably from Ohio. They write "the sculptures of birds are much more numerous than those of animals (mammals & reptiles), and comprise between 30 and 40 different kinds (of birds) and not far from one hundred specimens (pipes in the collection)".

Wood Duck effigy Hopewell platform pipe.
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WOOD DUCK EFFIGY PIPE
OHIO
JOHN BALDWIN COLLECTION

   This Ohio Hopewell bird effigy pipe is broken and the surface is pitted from weathering but it still retains much of its original majestic image.


   In 1846 Squire and Davis acquired a large group of pipes from a site in Ohio. They described the find as follows: "Intermixed with much ashes, were found  not far from 200 pipes, carved in stone, many pearl and shell beads, numerous discs, tubes, etc. of copper, and a large number of other ornaments of copper, covered with silver, etc. etc. The pipes were much broken up, some of them calcined by the heat, which had been sufficiently strong to melt copper, masses of which were found fused together in the center of the basin. A large number have nevertheless been restored, at the expense of much labor and no small amount of patience."

Hopewell platform pipe from Ohio.
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HOPEWELL PLATFORM PIPE
OHIO
JOHN BALDWIN COLLECTION

   This platform pipe is a good example of the plain style of Hopewell pipes. Most Middle Woodland pipes were not effigy pipes. The majority are round bowls on a drilled stem platform. This pipe is made of green Ohio pipestone.


   The pipes collected by Squire and Davis are now in the British Museum. They were weathered rather than burned as they first reported. Softer areas in the Ohio pipestone they were made from eroded away leaving a pitted surface. Plus they were "killed" or broken by the Hopewell people who placed them in the burial mounds from which they were dug. The copper they reported as melted was cemented together by oxidation rather than by heat.

CONTINUE ON TO PAGE TWO

"REFERENCES"


1848, "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," by
E.G. Squire and E.H. Davis, pp. 251-273.
1934, "Tobacco, Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians part I," by George A. West, pp. 166 & 167.
1937, "Rediscovering Illinois," by Fay-Cooper Cole and Thorne Deuel, pp. 173.

1996, "The Oxford Companion To Archaeology," by Brian M. Fagan, pp. 190.

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