Map of the Mounds and Earthworks in Moundsville, West Virginia

Map of the Mounds and Earthworks in Moundsville, West Virginia

Map of the Grave Creek site in Moundsville, West Virginia.  Note the perfect geometry that creates a triangle from the  large mound to the two "lookouts."

1910 photograph of the Adena burial mound at Moundsville, West Virginia, (Grave Creek) The burial mound is the largest in the Ohio River Valley

Larger Horseshoe Shaped Earthwork Diagramed at Portsmouth, Ohio "The Door of Life"

Larger Horseshoe Shaped Earthwork Diagramed at Portsmouth, Ohio  "The Door of Life"

   The horseshoe symbol was used as an ancient religious symbol in Assyrian and Egyptian hieroglyphs meant to signify the enigmatic “door of life”. 

Late 1800s Scioto County, map depicts a third horseshoe-shaped earthwork to the south as large as the two above it to the north.  

Map drawn by Squire and Davis in  1846 for "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" shows the earthwork's opening facing the northwest and much smaller.