Governor DeWine to speak at Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks’ World Heritage inscription celebration

Governor Mike DeWine will join Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma Chief Glenna Wallace and National Park Service Director Chuck Sams to commemorate the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks being inscribed as Ohio's first UNESCO World Heritage Site last month in Saudi Arabia. 

The celebration will be held Saturday, Oct. 14 at 1 p.m. at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Mound City Group Visitor Center, 16062 state Route 104, Chillicothe.

There are only 25 World Heritage listings in the United States.   

Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks is the collective name of eight Earthwork sites in Ohio. Three are managed by the Ohio History Connection: Great Circle Earthworks in Heath, Octagon Earthworks in Newark, as well as Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve in Oregonia. Five are managed by the National Park Service: Mound City Group, Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, High Bank Works, and Hopeton Earthworks at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe. 

These masterpieces of landscape architecture — built by Native Americans between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago — are exceptional and have earned World Heritage status due to their enormous scale, geometric precision and astronomical alignments.