Sandhill crane effigy pipe photograph

This pipe in effigy (a likeness or representation) of a sandhill crane was excavated from Tremper Mound, a Hopewell culture site located five miles north of Portsmouth in Scioto County. The crane stands on platform with head forward and down, bill touching the platform. Its eyes are drilled and inset with copper. Parts of the pipe, which measures approximately 1.66" x 1.33" x 3.75" (4 x 3.5 x 9.7 cm), have been restored. This pipe is part of a large collection of pipes found at Tremper Mound. The pipes were carved of Ohio pipestone, a silica-based material that can be easily carved when freshly quarried from the hills east of the Scioto River. The pipes represent a variety of animals significant to the Hopewell, including owls, wolves, deer and beaver. Skilled Hopewell craftsmen carved the pipes with flint knives and some are embellished with pearls or copper. In Ohio, the Hopewell Indians (100 B.C.-A.D. 500) built burial mounds and large earthen enclosures in geometric shapes (circles, squares, and octagons) to mark the places where the people gathered periodically to participate in many social and ceremonial events. Some of these sites were quite large--the Newark Earthworks complex extends over a 4-square-mile area. The Hopewell people also maintained a large trade network extending as far as the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, the Florida coast and Appalachians, and northern Lake Superior