Dear people who view this site that deserves World Heritage Status

The management of the Serpent Mound site has just been changed to a group of knowledgeable volunteers with experience. All these state sites are suffering due to lack of funds coming to them for such purposes from the federal government. Cutting taxes has its costs in services to the public.

Ohio has so many sites and the Serpent Mound is one of the most famous for many reasons, from being the largest Effigy Mound in the world, to a mound that some think, works as a solar observatory. The curves in the body line up with some important dates at Sunrise and Sunset over the course of a year.

This is truly amazing geometry at work that was put down for all times in the form of this giant mound. Some additional information is in the small museum but it also available on line.

I always do research before visiting such a site, but even if a traveller happened upon the site by accident, they would realize that this giant mound is a special place. The Peabody museum, more than a century ago did work to preserve it so that it did not suffer the fate of many other lost mounds.

Mounds at the largest city in America built before Columbus were leveled for fill dirt and road embankments, even though it was recognized by the early explorers of this continent, including Lewis and Clark in their survey done for Thomas Jefferson.

One site that could not be maintained by the Historic Society during the great depression, The Newark Earthworks, was turned into a golf course, "to protect it". Native Americans cannot go on the property except for a few days a year. Like Serpent Mound, there is a small tower visitors can view the site as people play golf on a spot that many still believe is sacred. Even it were not religious, it still deserves more respect, as a piece of history of the country and the world.

We are still learning things about these earthworks and they deserve to be protected for future generations.

Ted Sojka

Native Earthworks Preservation-Iowa