HUMAN EFFIGY
PLATFORM PIPES

MOUND CITY SITE
ROSS COUNTY, OHIO
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COPYRIGHT DECEMBER 31, 2009 PETER A. BOSTROM

    Perhaps the most important pipes found at Mound City are the human effigy pipes. Although the Tremper collection didn't produce any, the Mound City group includes four intricately carved and detailed human heads. They are important because they record how the Hopewell were decorating their faces, styling their hair, ornamenting their ears and using different types of headdresses. Shetrone describes the pipe at right as being, "one of the finest bits of Mound-builder sculpture extant." He goes on to describe this pipe as, "Note the haughty dignity of the face and the bonnet-like headdress. A chaplet of pearls encircles the forehead, and incised lines probably represent facial painting or tattooing." Mills describes the same pipe as, "The features are boldly and strikingly executed, and the face is adorned with incised lines, probably intended to represent tattooing. A typical Hopewell headdress, with incipient antlers, covers the head, while encircling the forehead and face is a row of small freshwater pearls set into shallow cavities drilled into the pipestone from which the specimen is made."
   But it's interesting to note that Squire and Davis had a better appreciation for the pipe in the center and described it as, "the most beautiful head of the series." This is also the only human pipe that was fully restored (see below).

   
The carved human head on the left is the only example of the four that is not a pipe bowl. Squire and Davis describes it's attachment point located "at the lower back portion." The ears were also pierced and from the copper staining at that location it's surmised that it once wore copper ear rings.

Three human effigy platform pipes from Mound City, Ohio.

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