The Mound City site encompasses approximately 13 acres in size. A low earthen wall about 3 to 4 feet high (1 to 1.3 meters) lies around the perimeter; it’s shape is that of a square with rounded corners. Perhaps the builders of the Mound City thought of the wall as a sacred enclosure separating the land of the departed from the land of the living. Note that archaeologists have determined that Mound City was never a city.
This early Hopewell Culture ceremonial center consists of twenty-three mounds that each cover the remains of a ceremonial building. A low earthen embankment encloses the dense concentration of mounds. Eight borrow pits used to create the earthworks are along the outer embankment. The text on the sign reads:
"Earth embankments surround a holy place of an ancient people - a city of graves. Here the Hopewell Indians cremated their illustious dead. With the ashes they depoited prized possessions, then covered them with mounds of earth."
"Plan of Mound City from an 1846 map."
