Two Books on Ohio Earthworks
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A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Cisero
Years ago, I was talking to a German friend about why we liked books. Not just the content, but the physicality of books: the heft, the turning of pages, the page smell when first opening a new book, books on a bookshelf, the way books age. He mentioned that there was a German word for this, not fully translatable to English, that roughly means thingism. I have forgotten the exact word, so I looked it up. I found several words, many of them philosophical. Heidegger used the word dingheit, or thingness. Things are more than just objects; they take on the nature of thingness by the way humans interact with them. [Pagan 2015] Content created in a book has a different thingness than an audiobook, a Kindle, a website, or reading an article on a phone. Another word that fits is dinglichkeit, which means roughly materiality. I found an example translation that I think works:
The abstraction of photography merges with the immediate materiality of objects to form a picture.
[Reverso 2026]
To paraphrase:
The content of a written work merges with the immediate materiality of bound paper to form a book.
John Hancock is the author and lead author, respectively. For 40 years, he taught architectural history at the University of Cincinnati. He has planned and led many cultural heritage tours (both actual and virtual) in Ohio and across Europe. He created public education media projects about Ohio’s Indigenous earthworks, including The Ancient Ohio Trail website (2014). Recently, he served as the principal author and photographer for the successful Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks UNESCO World Heritage nomination (2023), in collaboration with the Ohio History Connection and the National Park Service.
Traveler's Guide to Ancient Ohio
by John E. Hancock
Published by Ohio University Press
When I was a kid, I got to sit up front with my father, mainly because I got car sick in the back. I became the navigator, flipping the AAA Triptik, a linear journey through the world; each page I would read to my parents the wondrous stops along the way. At gas stations, I would collect maps; I still have a bin full of old maps. Traveler's Guide to Ancient Ohio started as a website called Ancient Ohio Trail. While planning a trip to Ohio four years ago, I downloaded and printed out routes and information. That trip was what got me started writing about Ohio archaeology.
In the US Southwest and in Mesoamerica, there is this indigenous concept called Flower Worlds. [Mathiowetz 2021] The idea is that mythic and spiritual realms are always close by. Time is a circle; Flower Worlds forever connect present and past. This book is a Flower World connecting the small-town downtowns, the old inns, and interesting architecture with the ancient mounds and earthworks and tales from Ohio's indigenous past and present. The book is divided up into nine routes-adventures, really- each a journey through a landscape of simultaneously past and present.
The book is small; it easily fits in your hand. If your car still has one, it will fit comfortably in the driver's-side map pocket on the car door. It is packed with pictures, new and old maps, drawings, suggestions, tales, and sidebars by various experts. It is amazing how much information is packed into 204 pages. I have often had trouble following the narrative of a work with many captions and sidebars, but not here. Nicely designed, the book flows like a travel guide should.
The book has a foreword by Chief Glenna J. Wallace, leader of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, one of the many Indigenous peoples reconnecting today with these sacred sites of their ancestral homeland.
If you happen to be visiting southern Ohio, take a route or part of one. If you have passengers, have them take turns reading aloud about the journey. Traveling can be a communal or individual experience, and a travel guide is an integral part of it. If you are an armchair traveler, read it too, and take the journey through your imagination.
Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks Landscape Monuments of the Ancient Ohio Valley
by John E. Hancock
with Marti L. Chaatsmith, Bradley T. Lepper, and Bret J. Ruby
Published by Smithsonian Books
Marti L. Chaatsmith is Associate Director of the Newark Earthworks Center at The Ohio State University at Newark.
Bradley T. Lepper is the Senior Archaeologist for the Ohio History Connection's World Heritage Program.
Bret J. Ruby is a professional archaeologist. He is recently retired from the National Park Service and Hopewell Culture National Historic Park.
This is a large-format book. It covers the eight 'Hopewell' earthwork sites added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023. [John's role] Unlike Traveler's Guide, this book does not include route maps; each site is a place to visit and experience. Because it is a large-format book, it is filled with equally large photographs and images. This culture created beautiful artwork. These objects were mostly found in large mounds: originally large wooden charnel houses for processing the dead. At some point, the structure was burnt and then covered with earth to form an irregular mound. Funeral objects were buried with the intent of not being seen again. Out of respect for current Indigenous ancestors, the book does not show photographs of these objects. Still, they are of great beauty; works of art. The book compromises by showing drawings and digital reconstructions of these objects using native artists. This not only shows respect but also makes these people part of the story; it becomes their story.
The book directly reflects the care given to the UNESCO nomination process. In 2009, Hancock was invited to join a committee to study possible nomination of the earthworks. In 2015, he retired from the University of Cincinnati and gradually became lead author for the project. He brought in his team of multimedia experts from U of C, whom he had been working with for over a decade. The project was completed in December of 2021, and the result was a book, a nomination book. This nomination book became the template for the current Smithsonian book.
One of UNESCO's criteria is that these places be works of genius. Hancock's photographs have a sense of peace, yet because they can only capture bits and pieces, they also convey something of the emensity of the place, although this is best experienced. The culture had no written words, no towns or villages, only scattered settlements around the ceremonial earthworks. The culture was egalitarian; no evidence suggests anyone was coerced into building these structures. They practiced the beginnings of agriculture, though not the corn, bean, and squash, Three Sisters agriculture that later dominated native North America. Add to this an acute geometric perception and a knowledge of the movement of the sun throughout the year and the more complex movement of the moon over an 18.5-year cycle. This geometric and astronomical knowledge they embedded into their earthworks—circles, squares, and octagons geometrically related to each other and aligned to the motions of the sun or the moon. The book captures this genius; it itself is a work of geniuses, the many who rediscovered and helped preserve these wonders.
The book can't capture the experience of being at the site, but reading this in advance of a visit will enrich and extend one's prior knowledge; despite being written for a general audience, it is rich in detail. Like the travel guide, past and present are woven into one. And like the travel guide, the flow of the design does not get in the way of the reading.
Put this book out for visitors and friends. Chances are they have never heard of this culture. Perhaps they will become interested, even obsessed. Much has been lost, and to prevent further loss it is important to have an informed public. This book is a beautiful step.
Mathiowetz, Michael D. 2021. Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. University of Arizona Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1khdqp3.
Pagan, Nicholas O. 2015. “Thing Theory and the Appeal of Literature.” Dacoromania Litteraria II.
Reverso. 2026. “Dinglichkeit.” https://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/Dinglichkeit.
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