Nine years ago, an array of American Indians, environmentalists, preservationists, New Age spiritualists, diviners, even Cub Scouts rose up to save the Miami Circle, a 2,000-year-old artifact that many embraced as America's own Stonehenge.
But today, the Circle — a series of loaf-shaped holes chiseled into the limestone bedrock at the mouth of the Miami River — is interred beneath bags of sand and gravel, laid over the formation in 2003 to protect it from the elements, and now will remain buried.
And though taxpayers shelled out $27.6 million to purchase the 38-foot Circle and its surrounding two acres, visitors to the site's planned archaeological park likely will never see the actual work of some of Miami's earliest inhabitants.
The reburial was supposed to be temporary, while officials settled on a plan to manage and display the Circle, which has inspired as many theories about its origin and function as it has claims about its spiritual energy and mystical powers.
Ryan Wheeler, Florida's state archaeologist, and other experts who have studied the Circle think the holes were dug by the Tequesta Indians to support wooden posts for a tribal center, or other important structure. But it's has been theorized to be everything from a celestial observatory to a landing pad for aliens.
Whatever it was, this much is certain: There's nothing like it on the continent. Authenticated as prehistoric, it is on the National Register of Historic Places for the clues it could yield about the complex society developed by the Tequestas, a small tribe who were foraging in the Everglades and Biscayne Bay before the building of the Parthenon in Athens.
Yet visitors to the park, which won't open for at least a year, will see only … an 8-foot replica.
Through the years, officials considered putting a thatched-roof hut or a clear-plastic shell over the Circle. But as Wheeler watched its holes fill with water from the rising water table, he said he knew, that, for now, the cost of any display solution was out of reach.
Still, he and other archaeologists insist that, even out of sight, the Circle will retain much of the allure that captivated the world and forced Miami to do something the city has rarely done: save its past from the bulldozers.
"It's like going to a place and seeing a sign, 'George Washington slept here,' " said John Ricisak, Miami-Dade County's archaeologist at the time of the discovery. "You don't need to see George Washington lying in the bed to recognize that something important happened at that spot."
The Circle certainly isn't much to look at. It consists of 24 loaf-shaped basins, each about the size of a sink, and dozens of 4-inch round holes cut into the basins and throughout the Circle interior. Still embedded on one edge is a septic tank from a 1950s apartment complex that stood on the property for five decades.
It was the demolition of those apartments that brought John Ricisak, Miami-Dade County's archaeologist at the time of the discovery, and his boss, Bob Carr, to the site on the day the Circle was unearthed in October of 1998.
As required by local law, the archaeologists had a chance to salvage what they could before developer Michael Baumann started building his $100 million Brickell Pointe towers.
The Tequesta had used the site for centuries; the Spanish reported finding them there when they arrived in the early 1500s. Four centuries later, Miami pioneer William H. Brickell, the pioneer for whom Miami's financial district is named, built a mansion and trading post on the same parcel. Then came the apartments.
So while the archaeologists expected to find artifacts, they doubted any would be intact.
As luck would have it, though, their first test hole unearthed a strange row of cavities in the limestone. Carr knew they were man-made. And the team's surveyor, T.L. Riggs, was certain they were part of a larger circle.
Calculating the center from the arc of the holes, Riggs outlined a perimeter in red spray paint and summoned a backhoe. As the machine clawed its way around the red line, a perfect 38-foot circle emerged.
Immediately, one thought popped into Riggs' mind: Stonehenge. He thought the Circle was a version of the prehistoric stand of large stones in England widely thought to be an astronomical calendar. He shared his speculation with the media, setting off a frenzy that ricocheted around the world. Hard evidence would eventually undermine his theory.
But Riggs' contention galvanized people. Enabled by the Internet and inspired by the approaching millennium, dozens of Save-the-Circle Web sites sprang up.
Groups conducted vigils, chanting, burning incense and beating drums until the county and state agreed to buy the Circle.
Nine years later, even with the Circle fenced off and reburied, the state Web site, http://www.miamicirclesite.com, averages 7,000 hits a month.
Source:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbcircle0110sbjan10,0,6200949.story
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