Marietta Temple Mounds
Location: Marietta, Ohio
Description: Marietta, Ohio contains ancient earthworks that have been attributed to the Adena or Hopewell cultures. (These two cultures having existed at the same time as the Book of Mormon people, and therefore, the same people group.) Included in these earthworks at Marietta, Ohio are raised platforms with entry and exit ramps that have been labeled as ‘temple mounds’. Surveyor E.G. Squire commented on these mounds in an article titled “ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES” found in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine from November, 1870. Squire’s comments are as follows:
“Within the ancient works at Marietta, in Ohio, there are a number of temple mounds of great regularity, of one of which Figure 12 is a plan. It is 188 feet long by 132 wide, and 10 feet high. Midway on each side are graded ascents, rendering easy the passage to the area at its summit. These grades are each 25 feet and 60 feet long.”
“So far as ascertained these mounds cover no remains, and they were obviously designed as the sites of temples or of other structures which have passed away, or as ‘high places’ for the performance of religous ceremonies.” [49]
The temple mound referred to here by Squire is located at what is now called Quadranou Park at Marietta, Ohio. Another mound that is part of the same earthwork has been labeled Capitolium Mound. The Washington County Library was built on top of Capitolium Mound.
More information regarding the mounds can be found here: http://www.jqjacobs.net/archaeo/marietta.html
2 Nephi 4:22-25 – “22 And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon, save it were not built of so many precious things: 23 For they were not to be found upon the land; 24 Wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. 25 But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceeding fine.”
Regarding the ramps that were used to access the platform:
Exodus 20:26 – “26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.”
