FORTIFIED HILL
Fortified Hill is a 2,000-year-old Indigenous ceremonial earthworks site that sits adjacent to Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park's grounds. Pyramid Hill has been working hard to prepare this site for visitors through respectful restoration, and continued learning and training of guides.
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Pyramid Hill is proud to announce the return of public tours of Fortified Hill for the 2025 season! Tours begin on Friday, June 6, and will run the first weekend of each month through the fall, with an additional tour on Indigenous Peoples' Day, Monday, October 13.​
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Friday tours will be at 6PM, and Saturday tours at 11AM and 2PM.
2025 tour opportunities include:
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Friday, June 6 and Saturday, June 7
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Friday, July 4 and Saturday, July 5
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Friday, August 1 and Saturday, August 2
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Friday, September 5 and Saturday, September 6
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Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4, and Monday, October 13 (Indigenous Peoples' Day)
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Friday, November 7 and Saturday, November 8 (weather dependent)
Thanks to the generosity of the Ross Community Foundation, Ross Township residents will receive complimentary tours on a first come, first serve basis. If you are a Ross Township resident and want to book a tour at no cost, please contact Stephen Smith, Associate Director of Education & Programming, at ssmith@pyramidhill.org or 513-217-9205.
Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park is located within the Traditional Homelands of the Myaamia (Miami) and Saawanooki (Shawnee) Peoples. Fortified Hill earthworks stands as a testament to the depth of time that Indigenous Peoples have lived in and stewarded this landscape. We acknowledge our responsibility to care for these lands and to honor the ancestral relationship the Tribal Nations continue with these lands on which Pyramid Hill resides.
Much of modern Ohio, including the land where Pyramid Hill is now located, was ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. With the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, it became the policy of the United States government to coerce the removal, forcefully if necessary, of the Tribal Nations in these lands to areas west of the Mississippi River. In 1843, the last Tribal Nation in Ohio, the Wyandotte, were removed from northern Ohio to what became Kansas where they lived next to one of their allies from Ohio, the Delaware. In 1846, the Myaamia were removed from their remaining lands in Indiana. They passed through Hamilton via the Miami and Erie Canal on October 11, 1846, as they also made their way to a reservation in what would become Kansas, where they joined the Shawnee and other Nations removed from the Ohio Valley.
Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park would like to thank and acknowledge the sovereign Nations whose representatives consulted with us and helped us tremendously in developing the interpretation and signage for Fortified Hill Earthwork and continue to provide guidance and collaboration in preservation and developmental efforts. These include:
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Delaware Tribe of Indians
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The Shawnee Tribe
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Miami Tribe of Oklahoma
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Wyandotte Nation
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Through the combined efforts of Dr. Jeff Leipzig’s partnership with the Heartland Earthworks Conservancy HEC, the Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation, and a huge outpouring of community support, the Fortified Hill mound complex has been saved for conservation!
Thanks to our conservation partners including Urban Native Collective, Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition, Archeological Conservancy, Ohio Valley Archeology, and the Cincinnati Museum Center.​
If you are interested in volunteering at Fortified Hill, contact us!
513-868-8336
