Artifact Pictures From My Local Museum

[The Grim Reaper]

I went down to our local museum today and took a bunch of pictures of a locally found collection that was donated about 10 years ago. I hadn't been down there in quite a while and they have added some new pieces to the collection that I had heard were recovered a just a few years back from a man that scammed the widow out of them in the mid 90's.

The story goes that she had dementia and he took advantage of her and stole well over half the collection and sold a bunch of it. He was finally caught and sent to prison and a lot of it was recovered but a lot was also never found. I saw this collection in the late 80's and there was so much Flint it was unreal. These pictures are just a mere shadow of the original collection.

This collection once contained around 50,000 pieces, all found locally by a father and son, Charles and Bill Wertz. The father, Charles, was one of the original house builders in Portsmouth back in the late 1800's and he and his crew leveled a lot of the mounds in Portsmouth to build houses. He would have his crews go in and level the mounds and they would take all the artifacts out and then build the house and move on. That is why you see so many Adena and Hopewell artifacts in this collection.

The only problem I have is how they displayed some of the pieces by piling them on top of each other. Especially the little acrylic boxes of Beads, Cannel Coal Pendants, Drilled Teeth, etc and all of the Bone Tools just piled on one shelf. It's still a very impressive display though. The Pipes are very impressive, especially the Wolf Head and the 2 Bird Heads. Also some awesome Gorgets, Pendants, Axes, and Pottery. The one Pottery Bowl filled with Triangles Points was found like that during an excavation.

There are way to many photos to post here so I'll just put the link up to the Photobucket album where they are listed. I hope you enjoy them.


http://photobucket.com/WertzCollection

[rob.s]

Incredible collection of artifacts and would love to see in person!!!!Glad they caught that pos that stole from her.

[arapahoscout]

Wow! Thanks for sharing your pictures. Glad the collection made it to a museum where people can learn from it. Absolutely amazing!

[WV sifter]

WOW now! thats a whole lotta flint/artifacts ,and some breathtaking peices especially those colorfull axes ,man that barbed one is killer! thanks for sharing ,lots,lots and lots of breathtaking artifacts!

[Bama Ron]

awesome collection. thanks for the pics.

[ohioaxeman]

Dang!!!!! No wonder I cant find anything anymore, this place has it all! That bar amulet looks gigantic, and the birdstones look very large too!

[creek astronaut]

The Grim Reaper!!??Havent been on here in maybe 2 months and now you are the Reaper.cool handle Steve!!That is one impressive collection.The amount of hardstone is insane.thx for sharing all the pics.

[Hutch in PA]

Maybe I missed it in the text...what is the name of the museum? Would like to stop by.

[The Grim Reaper]

Here's a link to the web site. Sorry I forgot to put that in the first post.


http://www.somacc.com/

[RGINN]

50,000 pieces originally. Oh man, too cool. Thanks for this post. It'll take me several days to look this over.