The serpent has a coiled tail at the upper end and open maws at the lower end, as if about to swallow the oval mound.

The oval mound has variously been interpreted as a egg and the sun about to be swallowed by an eclipse. The mound points in the direction of summer solstice sunset.

There are several interpretation signs.

Click images for larger views.

Serpent Mound Placemark File.
Includes Squier and Davis survey map overlay image and GPS positions.

Ancient Monuments Placemarks
includes more Squier and Davis
Ancient Monuments survey map
overlays for Hopewell sites.

Archaeologists in 1991 opened a trench first cut by the Putnam excavaton in the late 1800s and recovered organic materials from the undisturbed edge of the trench. Radiocarbon dating placed construction at about 900 years ago, over a millenia later than once thought based on association with the nearby Adena burial mounds (image below).

Next below is the tail of the serpent with the GPS receiver along the west edge.

One of the burial mounds near Serpent Mound.

The Oval Mound at Serpent Mound is situated precisely one degree west of Newark Circle while the longitude difference with Newark Octagon equals circumference/365.

Map reoriented to accurate north. Click for larger map.

Sources and Bibliography

Squier, Ephriam G. and Edwin H. Davis 1847 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.

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