Powder Horn by Tim Crosby

Photographed at the 2019 Tennessee Kentucky Rifle Show by Jan Riser.

Ocmulgee Indian Mounds: Part III

Paleoindian Period

15,000 to 9,600BC

oldest piece from this site

Archaic Period

9,600 to 1000BC

Woodland Period

1000BC to 900AD

Mississippian Period

900 to 1540AD

Photos by Jan Riser.

2019 CLA Live Auction: 1760’s Great Lakes Knife and Sheath Set by Ben Hoffman

For this year’s CLF fundraising auction, Ohio artisan Ben Hoffman chose to reproduce an original piece made in the Great Lakes region that dates from the 1760’s. True to artist’s exacting standards, both the knife and sheath was entirely hand-crafted.

Hoffman salvaged the steel for the knife blade from an antique buggy spring, which was then hand-forged using a vintage hand-crank-powered coal forge. The basic shape of the blade was crafted using a hammer, tongs and anvil. Most of the final shaping was done by hand filing. 

The handle was entirely hand-carved in maple and given a rich finish of period-correct milk paint and linseed oil-based varnish. The sheath, which was made from oak-tanned cow hide and treated with a period correct black leather dye, was hand cut and sewn using linen thread. All the tooling was done by hand.

The sheath is adorned with white trade beads and tin cones, which were present on the original, and the decorative deer hair tassles were dyed with madder root, an authentic 18th century material. This stunning knife and sheath set would be a great display piece for the 18th century collector, but would also serve well in the field. “As with all the knives I make,” says Hoffman, “it has been triple tempered and sharpened to a razor edge. It was made to use.” 

For more information, contact the artist directly at: hoffmanreproductions@yahoo.com

Ocmulgee Indian Mounds: Part II

Great Temple Mound and Lesser Temple Mound

as seen from the Earthwork Lodge grounds

Funeral Mound

Village leaders were buried in this mound.  More than 100 burials have been uncovered, many with shell and copper ornaments.  Like the temple mounds, this mound was built in successive stages.  This structure that stood on top at each stage may have been used in preparing the dead for burial.  The present height corresponds to the third stage.  Much of the mound was destroyed by a railroad cut in the 1870’s.

The funeral mound once stood almost 25 feet high with deep pits extending more than eight feet below ground level.  The mound was built in at least seven stages.  About seven feet of material was removed from the top including portions of stages 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Lesser Temple Mound and Great Temple Mound 

as seen from the Funeral Mound which shows the road that destroyed part of the Lesser Mound

Great Temple Mound

view as you climb the walkway to the top

above the tree tops

view of the city of Macon, GA from the top of the mound

Funeral Mound in the distance

Earth Lodge in the distance with part of the trading post to the left of the path

outline of the trading post

English traders from Charleston, S.C., eager to do business with the Creek Indians, built the first trading post on this site about 1690.  They traded firearms, cloth and trinkets for deerskins and furs.  Excavations have turned up many good, including, axes, clay pipes, beads, knives, swords, flints, pistols and muskets.

Lesser Temple Mound

Archeologist estimate about three-fourths of this mound was removed by railroad construction.  It is a truncated (flat-topped) pyramid originally about 120 feet in diameter at it widest point and almost 12 feet high.  A soil profile taken on the northern face suggest the mound was constructed in four distinct phases.

Photos by Jan Riser.