great circle

we are glad that squier and davis recorded this and gazillion other places along the ohio before farmers and city builders obliterated them --- newark grew up around the licking county courthouse, built in 1808 where the current courthouse sits today, and destroyed many of the 2000-year-old earthworks in the process, but not before squier and davis managed to record some of it --- today only the great circle at lower center in the drawing and the octagon at upper left and bits and pieces of the rest survive --- the octagon is now occupied by a country club for rich white people and mostly inaccessible except for two or three days a year --- the great circle was used as a city park for many years, which in spite of the horse racing around the interior, helped ensure its preservation --- nearly a quarter mile in diameter, it is an impressive piece of work

the entrance to the circle, with the ditches that were dug out and heaped up as a wall --- they may have been filled with water at one time

from just inside the entrance, the scale of the thing is enormous --- the slight rise at center is a group of low mounds, sometimes interpreted as an eagle effigy --- the walls on the opposite side of the enclosure are just visible at left and right amongst the trees

nice golf course, dude, in the middle of prehistoric earthworks --- on the other hand the course has been there for a hundred years and helped ensure the site's continued preservation in that a bunch of streets and houses haven't been built all over it