GEOGLYPHS – A SERPENT INTAGLIO IN KANSAS:

The Great Serpent Mound, Peebles, Ohio. Gettyimages.

Most people know of the Great Serpent Mound at Peebles, Ohio. Less well known is a smaller serpent intaglio in Rice County, near Lyons, Kansas. Like the Ohio serpent mound, the Kansas serpent is portrayed as swallowing an egg.

Rice County Serpent Intaglio. The Wichita Eagle, November 11, 2014.

“This manmade curiosity represents an enormous serpent in the act of swallowing an egg. It is one of the best-preserved Indian carvings still around. In Kansas, there are only two, said Janel Cook, the director of Lyons’ Coronado Quivira Museum. They call it the Serpent Intaglio.” (Bickel 2008) The Quivira people were believed to be the predecessors of the Wichita tribe.

“Ancestors of the Wichita tribe cut this 160-foot-long image of a serpent into the sod of Rice County roughly 600 years ago. This photo was taken in the 1980s when an archaeologist poured biodegradable lime into the cut to highlight the shape. In Gary Miller’s Rice County cow pasture, miles from anywhere, there’s a long depression in the prairie grass that zig-zags along the western slope of a ridge. It’s a faint image, only inches deep. But in springtime, wild onions grow in an egg-shaped circle at one end. And in 1983, a scientist named Clark Mallam poured lime into the zig-zag and had an airplane fly over to take a photo. The yellow lime contrasted with the pasture grass and revealed the image of a serpent, 160 feet long, jaws closing around an egg.” (Wenzl 2014) The fact that different vegetation grows there than in the untouched ground around it suggests that the soil is different, or has perhaps been treated some way to give it different properties. “Apparently a different kind of soil was put into the snake,' said Kermit Hayes, a neighboring farmer. 'Short buffalo grass is about all that will grow there. Grasses such as bluestem and western wheat grass cover the pasture around the trench.”(Blosser 1982) So the modified soil is affecting growing conditions and make the serpent detectable.

Close-up of the serpent intaglio and vegetation differences. Online image, public domain.

This geoglyph or intaglio has been visited by archaeologists, but apparently it has not yet been studies in detail. “Dr. Clark Mallam, a visiting archeologist, says the jaws of the serpent point northwest toward the remains of ancient Quivira Indian villages two miles away. 'Dr. Mallam isn't saying positively, but it looks like the Indian villages were all under the influence of the serpent,' Ernst said. 'Dr. Mallam says, 'Here is the serpent and here is the Garden of Eden,'' Ernst said, pointing to a map of the villages in a fertile valley of the Little Arkansas River. The consensus is the hilltop discovery, which local residents refer to as 'the snake' or by its technical name, 'the intaglio,' which means a design or figure carved or engraved into a hard material, is one more Quivira relic which has withstood the elements.” (Blosser 1982) Dr. Mallam was a professor of anthropology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who specialized in studying Native American mounds and geoglyphs.

The curator of the Lyons, Kansas museum, Clyde Ernst, has reported that the members of the Wichita tribe have not provided any insight into the meaning of the serpent in their beliefs (BLosser 1982). The image of a serpent swallowing an egg must have had spiritual significance to all these people, possibly portraying an eclipse.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Bickel, Amy, 2008, LYONS – On a hill amid the pasture, something mysterious emerges from mixed-grass prairie, 9 August 2008, The Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, Kansas. Accessed online 3 January 2025.

Blosser, J.B., 1982, Apparent ancient Indian symbol snakes across Kansas pasture, 17 September 1982, UPI Archives online. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/09/17/Apparent-ancient-Indian-symbol-snakes-across-Kansas-pasture/4598401083200/. Accessed online 3 January 2025.

Wenzl, Roy, 2014, Wichita State anthropologist hopes to unearth a Plains people’s lost story, 11 November 2014, The Wichita Eagle. Accessed online 3 January 2025.