Art-Worlds Hopewell Octagon - Light and Shadow Animation
This is my artistic exploration of how shadows and energy could travel through a Hopewell culture octagon. The Newark Octagon in Heath, Ohio, is my model. I was intrigued by the site when I visited it this summer. Here, the outline of the earthwork is presented as a mandala. Mandalas can symbolize wholeness. The energy flows through the top of the octagon and ignites a response in the circle below.
At one time, there were two sites with this design: the Newark Octagon and the High Bank Earthworks. A sixty-mile ceremonial walkway was thought to have connected them. One site might have been an observatory during the spring and summer, the other during the autumn and winter.
The Hopewell culture thrived from 200 BCE to 500 CE, leaving no written history but many earthworks and artifacts. My blog on visiting the Newark Earthworks has links to information about Ray Hively and Bob Horn's research into lunar alignments to the Hopewell Octagon and Archaeoastronomy.