Licking County celebrates international recognition with Hopewell World Heritage event
NEWARK/HEATH − The skies were cloudy and dreary at Sunday’s World Heritage commemoration open house at The Great Circle earthworks, but the mood was bright, cheerful, celebratory and thankful.
At long, last, the Newark Earthworks are a World Heritage site, part of an eight-site Ohio grouping called Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which received the coveted designation Sept. 19 at the United Nationals Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The quarter of a century effort to showcase the earthworks to the world had finally paid off.
Megan Wood, executive director and CEO of the Ohio History Connection, said the experience at the UNESCO meeting was "exhilarating" and "emotional."
“There we were standing in this big hall in Riyad, and on these giant screens they were showing maps of Licking County, Ross County and Warren County and talking about our earthworks right there on the world stage," Wood said.
“We had two minutes to speak. The U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia spoke and then handed the microphone off to Chief Glenna Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and she was able to speak on behalf of the tribal partners on the significance of this nomination, which was really a moving moment in the entire hall. Afterwards people came up and congratulated us from around the world.”
The Shawnee in Oklahoma came from Ohio. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 pressured the Shawnee of Ohio to relocate west of the Mississippi River.
UNESCO was formed in 1972 to list sites that were of cultural or natural significance for all of humanity, Wood said. The idea was there are places in the world everyone should want to save, no matter their nationality, she said.
"We’re citizens of the globe and these places should be important to all of us," Wood said.
The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks includes The Great Circle in Heath and Newark, the Octagon Earthworks in Newark, the Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve in Warren County and the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe.
The Newark Earthworks are the largest set of geometric earthen enclosures in the world. They were built by ancient American Indians identified today of the Hopewell Culture between A.D. 1 to A.D. 400
Wood said the nomination was approved as a World Heritage site because it met the World Heritage standards of "outstanding universal value," are considered a “a masterpiece of human creative genius," and provide "testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or has disappeared.”
Dr. John Low, a citizen of the Pokagon band of Potawatomi and director of the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State-Newark, said some of his students told him the earthworks would be more impressive if made of stone.
“This is just dirt and dirt has a negative connotation," Low said. "They were made of the most sacred material the ancestors could have come up with.
“It warms my heart to see all of you here today. We’re all connected. This is more than just an indigenous history, an indigenous celebration. It inspires me. We all come together.”
Licking County Commissioner Tim Bubb congratulated the Ohio History Connection and all who worked so hard to achieve the worldwide recognition.
“Anytime you’ve got an international body, especially in the Middle East, and don’t get criticized, that’s a big day," Bubb said. “Let’s start to think together how we can market this and educate the next generation to get ready to inherit what we have.”
The mayors of Newark and Heath also joined in the celebration.
Heath Mayor Mark Johns said a meeting with former Newark Earthworks Center Dick Shiels in 2010 inspired him to work toward World Heritage recognition.
“He explained to me the significance of the Great Circle and The Octagon and the effort that had been well underway to bring about World Heritage recognition to these sites.
"That got me personally behind trying to make this inscription happen. When I get behind something, I get passionate.”
Newark Mayor Jeff Hall added, “This is permanency. This is going to go on and on and on. We’ve got something special in Ohio. We’ll work hard with OHC to make these a real showcase in the state.”
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This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Ohio celebrates international World Heritage recognition
