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| Mirador LiDAR Image Showing Likely Animal Pens |
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| Widely-circulated Artist's Rendering of El Mirador ca. 100 BC |
Monday, October 23, 2017
Flocks and Herds
The Book of Mormon uses some variant of the term "flocks and herds" 23 times e.g. 2 Nephi 5:11, Mosiah 21:16, Helaman 6:12, Ether 10:12. Up to this point, evidence of ancient domesticated animal husbandry besides the dogs and rabbits that were commonly kept for meat has been sparse. That may be changing. The Mirador Basin LiDAR mapping project has produced images of what Richard Hansen calls a network of roads, canals, and corrals or animal pens.
Hansen said that the "sophisticated system of corrals is evidence that meat production in the Mirador Basin may have existed on an industrial level." This intriguing possibility will almost certainly be the topic of some graduate student's dissertation. Dozens of universities from around the world collaborate on the massive Mirador Basin Project investigating the cradle of Maya civilization.
More information about Hansen and El Mirador can be found in the articles "Roads and Highways" and "Hansen and Coe."
Roads and Highways
The Book of Mormon describes roads 3 Nephi 6:8 and highways Helaman 7:10, 14:24, 3 Nephi 8:13 about the time of Christ. We now have spectacular evidence of roads and highways in Mesoamerica about the time of Christ.
LiDAR is an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging. This remote sensing technology uses a small plane that flies in a grid pattern over a target area. The plane carries laser equipment that fires 560,000 bursts per second and builds a massive point cloud of data. Hours of processing on a supercomputer then render a topographic image that can help a researcher identify man-made objects buried beneath a jungle canopy or other ground cover. Combining 2D and 3D images creates highly accurate maps of otherwise hidden features. LiDAR is very expensive. Near Guatemala's Mirador Basin, Richard Hansen used 38 hours of flying time and surveyed 700 square kilometers at a cost in excess of $500,000. Because it can show archaeologists exactly where to dig, hopefully before looters destroy a new site, LiDAR is a coveted technology in the profession.
Hansen is a BYU graduate who got his PhD at UCLA. More than 60 universities from several countries currently collaborate on his massive Mirador Basin Project which has an annual budget in the $2 - 3 million range. It may be the largest archaeology project on earth. I visited El Mirador in January, 2016. I went in via helicopter. The alternative was a 3 day hike or mule ride from the nearest town with a road. Today El Mirador is remote. At the time of Christ, though, it was a busy center connected to neighboring sites via an extensive network of limestone roads (called sacbes in Mayan).
Hansen's survey revealed 240 kilometers of roadways connecting 17 different ancient communities. Up to 40 meters wide, 6 meters thick, and 38 kilometers long, these massive public works projects linked the 200,000 - 250,000 people living in El Mirador with the estimated 1 million people in the surrounding areas. The earliest roads were built ca. 600 BC. The latest were built ca. AD 100. El Mirador achieved apogee ca. 90 BC and was abandoned ca. AD 150. See this Smithsonian article published February 3, 2017.
This poorly-done but informative YouTube video shows Hansen atop one of the Mirador Basin roadways.
Ancient feedlots or stockyards may also have existed near El Mirador. See the article "Flocks and Herds."
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| Maya Lowlands LiDAR Image |
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| Causeway Near the Mirador Basin from the Air |
Hansen's survey revealed 240 kilometers of roadways connecting 17 different ancient communities. Up to 40 meters wide, 6 meters thick, and 38 kilometers long, these massive public works projects linked the 200,000 - 250,000 people living in El Mirador with the estimated 1 million people in the surrounding areas. The earliest roads were built ca. 600 BC. The latest were built ca. AD 100. El Mirador achieved apogee ca. 90 BC and was abandoned ca. AD 150. See this Smithsonian article published February 3, 2017.
This poorly-done but informative YouTube video shows Hansen atop one of the Mirador Basin roadways.
Ancient feedlots or stockyards may also have existed near El Mirador. See the article "Flocks and Herds."
Monday, October 16, 2017
Top 10 Literary and Linguistic Evidences for the Book of Mormon
In an article begun in May, 2017, I summarized the ten archaeological evidences for the Book of Mormon I find most convincing. This article will summarize ten literary and linguistic evidences for the Book of Mormon that strike me as compelling.
1. Chiasmus. Ancient literary traditions in largely oral cultures used narrative structures as mnemonic devices in their texts. One of the best known is chiasmus, aka reverse parallelism, associated primarily with Semitic texts and in recent decades widely recognized throughout both the Old and New Testaments. . In a chiasm, narrative motifs build up to a climactic center, then repeat themselves in reverse order in the second half of the pericope. A good example is Mosiah 5:10-12. This beautiful six-element chiasm, the first one recognized in the Book of Mormon in modern times, was discovered by Jack Welch in the early morning hours of August 16, 1967 while he was serving as an LDS missionary in Regensburg, Germany:
A whosoever will not take upon him the name of Christ
B must be called by some other name;
C therefore, he findeth himself on the left hand of God.
D And I would that ye should remember also,
E that this is the name ...that never should be blotted out,
F except it be through transgression;
F therefore, take heed that ye do not transgress,
E that the name be not blotted out of your hearts
D ...I would that ye should remember to retain the name ...
C that ye are not found on the left hand of God,
B but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called
A and also, the name by which he shall call you.
There are dozens of impressive chiasms in the Book of Mormon, including the masterful Alma 36 which may be the most elegant chiastic structuring of any passage known from any ancient literature.
See the article entitled "Recent Book of Mormon News" for links to excellent videos shown during and resulting from the remarkable Chiasmus Jubilee held on BYU Campus on August 16, 2017. The Jubilee followed the first-ever academic conference on chiasmus where eminent scholars from Jewish, Catholic, Evangelical, and Latter-day Saint faith traditions presented their research.
2. Paronomasia. Ancient writers were masters of puns and other plays on words deployed for rhetorical effect. In recent years, many profound examples have been found in the Book of Mormon. Matthew Bowen, a member of the BYU-Hawaii Religion faculty, has led this scholarly endeavor, publishing several influential articles in Interpreter. See for example "Father Is a Man: The Remarkable Mention of the Name Abish in Alma 19:16 and its Narrative Context." Here are some examples of naming word play I find particularly insightful:
3. Early Modern English. Through the diligent efforts of Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, we now know that the language of the earliest Book of Mormon translation was closer to the Early Modern English spoken when Shakespeare was a youth than the Jacksonian American English codified in the 1828 Websters Dictionary. See the articles "Early Modern English" and "English in the Book of Mormon." Without help from an external (divine) source, a mono-linguist simply cannot dictate a long (268,000 words) and complex text over the course of approximately 65 working days in a language that neither his mother nor his father nor their mothers nor their fathers spoke.
4. Stylometry. Computerized statistical tests run against blocks of text can often distinguish the words of Author A from the writings of Author B. Authors have writing styles that consciously or sub-consciously pervade their work. Many such tests run by different teams over decades demonstrate with high degrees of confidence that the Book of Mormon was written by multiple authors whose varied styles differ in statistically significant ways. The work that launched this area of inquiry was published by Wayne A. Larsen, Tim Layton, and Alvin C. Rencher. See "Who Wrote the Book of Mormon? An Analysis of Wordprints" in BYU Studies 20:3, Spring, 1980. Layton, a friend of mine, is currently serving as Mission President in California, Bakersfield.
John L. Hilton, a physicist who taught at UC Berkeley and worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, took up the challenge of verifying the Larsen, Layton, Rencher results using improved statistical techniques. He worked for years with an interfaith team of colleagues in the East Bay area. In the end, they not only verified but strengthened the 1980 results. See "On Verifying Wordprint Studies: Book of Mormon Authorship" in Noel B. Reynolds, editor, Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited (Provo: FARMS, 1997).
The current standard-bearer in this area is Paul J. Fields, a statistical analyst who holds a PhD from Penn State. See Matthew Roper, Paul J. Fields, and G. Bruce Schaalje, "Stylometric Analyses of the Book of Mormon" in Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 21/1 2012.
See Book of Mormon Central KnoWhy #389 "What Can Stylometry Tell Us about Book of Mormon Authorship?"
5. Intertextuality. Book of Mormon authors had access to a version of the Hebrew Bible contained on the plates of brass 1 Nephi 5:10-13. When the Savior visited the Nephites in land Bountiful after his resurrection, he shared additional scriptures with them 3 Nephi 23:6 which were recorded in official national annals. Therefore, it should not be too surprising that Book of Mormon writers quote, allude to, echo, and expand upon biblical passages. The Book of Mormon is remarkable for the sheer volume of intertextual references, and for the creative, meaningful ways the Nephite record weaves the two texts together. David J. Larsen is an Old Testament scholar who holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews (Scotland). His 104 page "Overview of the Use of Biblical Psalms in the Book of Mormon Text" is currently in private circulation. Larsen has identified 60 instances of intertextuality between the Book of Mormon and the Psalms, many of which also interweave phrases and concepts from additional sources such as Proverbs, 2 Samuel, and Ezekiel.
Some "Royal Psalms" extol David. The writers on the small plates (Nephi and Jacob) tend to avoid them and seem influenced by the Deuteronomistic reforms that had recently been introduced in the Jerusalem of Lehi's day. Psalms generally attributed to the exilic or post-exilic period in Judaism are far less frequently referenced in the Book of Mormon than earlier compositions, as we would expect.
6. Semitic and Egyptian Influences in Mesoamerican Languages. Brian Stubbs is a noted linguist, one of the world's experts on the Uto-Aztecan language family which includes Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. In his 2015 Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan (Provo: Grover Publications), Stubbs finds hundreds of cognates as well as syntax, morphology, and pattern shifts over time that all point to Semitic contributions into Uto-Aztecan at about the Book of Mormon time period. My Jewish-LDS philologist friend, Adan Rocha of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, corroborates Stubbs via somewhat different methodology. Robert F. Smith extends Stubbs by showing Semitic and Egyptian influences in the Otomanguean language family which includes Oaxacan Mixtec and Zapotec. See Sawi-Zaa 2016 Version 3.
7. Internal Consistency. The Book of Mormon is large and complicated with many plot twists, flashbacks, and literary genre changes. Specialists have studied it for decades using the tools of various disciplines. Most diligent students come away with a profound appreciation for its integrity and constancy bordering on predictability. The Book of Mormon has a high, even astonishing degree of internal consistency. Nibley, Welch, Sorenson, Skousen, the Hardys, the Rosenvalls - people who know this text very well - have all commented on its steady uniformity and dependable rationality. It demonstrates strong editing for conformity to persistent organizing principles.
My own work has dealt largely with geography and potential correlations between the text and the real world. Across several hundred phrases with geographic implications, I have found only a handful of irreconcilable passages. See the article "Scribal Error." I seldom compose a single page without an egregious faux pas. The Book of Mormon's near perfection is simply breathtaking. I have no problem accepting Joseph Smith's description of the Nephite text as "the most correct of any book on earth."
8. Source Complexity. When we first organized Book of Mormon Central in 2015, one of our first projects was what we call the "Book of Mormon Redaction Chart." It continues to be a popular, albeit large and therefore slow to download, item in our archive. When we display this impressive chart in a public setting, people spend minutes poring over the details. Most are unaware of the subtle complexity behind the multiple sources that all came together to form our current Book of Mormon. See the excellent article by John L. Sorenson entitled "Mormon's Sources" in Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture, 20/2 2011.
9. Plan Under-girding the Book of Ether. Beginning with Ether descended from Coriantor in Ether 1:6, the Book of Ether lists a 30 person genealogy in reverse chronological order ending with Orihah son of Jared in Ether 1:32. Ether 1:33 then begins a history in precisely the opposite order that introduces each person starting with Jared and goes through the list one-by-one ending with Ether in Ether 11:23. Many historical details and plot elements intervene, but the author (Ether) and abridger (Moroni) stay true to this meticulous master plan throughout the book. Book of Mormon Central's KnoWhy #235 has some great graphics illustrating this 30 element scrupulous backwards then forwards pattern.
10. Parallelisms. Words in a sentence convey meaning, but words organized into parallelistic literary structures add balance and rhythm, elevating mere prose into great literature, even poetry. The repetition of words and forms inherent in parallelisms can facilitate the smooth flow of ideas and make passages more persuasive. Parallelisms abound in the Book of Mormon, a divinely-commissioned work designed to convince "Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations." Title Page of the Book of Mormon.
Parallelistic literary devices in the Book of Mormon include synonymous, antithetical, repetitive numerical, and circular repetitive forms. See Donald W. Parry, "Research and Perspectives: Hebrew Literary Patterns in the Book of Mormon" in Ensign, October, 1989. Parallelisms are so pervasive in the text that people have published entire re-formatted editions of the Book of Mormon highlighting the structures they see:
The Book of Mormon is miraculous, beautiful, and true. This Book of Mormon Central blog article introducing the second evidence video in a planned series highlights some of its remarkable sophistication.
1. Chiasmus. Ancient literary traditions in largely oral cultures used narrative structures as mnemonic devices in their texts. One of the best known is chiasmus, aka reverse parallelism, associated primarily with Semitic texts and in recent decades widely recognized throughout both the Old and New Testaments. . In a chiasm, narrative motifs build up to a climactic center, then repeat themselves in reverse order in the second half of the pericope. A good example is Mosiah 5:10-12. This beautiful six-element chiasm, the first one recognized in the Book of Mormon in modern times, was discovered by Jack Welch in the early morning hours of August 16, 1967 while he was serving as an LDS missionary in Regensburg, Germany:
A whosoever will not take upon him the name of Christ
B must be called by some other name;
C therefore, he findeth himself on the left hand of God.
D And I would that ye should remember also,
E that this is the name ...that never should be blotted out,
F except it be through transgression;
F therefore, take heed that ye do not transgress,
E that the name be not blotted out of your hearts
D ...I would that ye should remember to retain the name ...
C that ye are not found on the left hand of God,
B but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called
A and also, the name by which he shall call you.
There are dozens of impressive chiasms in the Book of Mormon, including the masterful Alma 36 which may be the most elegant chiastic structuring of any passage known from any ancient literature.
See the article entitled "Recent Book of Mormon News" for links to excellent videos shown during and resulting from the remarkable Chiasmus Jubilee held on BYU Campus on August 16, 2017. The Jubilee followed the first-ever academic conference on chiasmus where eminent scholars from Jewish, Catholic, Evangelical, and Latter-day Saint faith traditions presented their research.
2. Paronomasia. Ancient writers were masters of puns and other plays on words deployed for rhetorical effect. In recent years, many profound examples have been found in the Book of Mormon. Matthew Bowen, a member of the BYU-Hawaii Religion faculty, has led this scholarly endeavor, publishing several influential articles in Interpreter. See for example "Father Is a Man: The Remarkable Mention of the Name Abish in Alma 19:16 and its Narrative Context." Here are some examples of naming word play I find particularly insightful:
- Alma in Hebrew means "youth." When Alma1 is first introduced in Mosiah 17:2, he is described as "a young man."
- Alma can also carry the connotation "hidden" and in Mosiah 18:5 he explicitly hides from King Noah's troops.
- Noah in Hebrew means "rest" with the pejorative connotation "lazy." Mosiah 11:6 accuses Noah and his priests of laziness.
- Jershon in Hebrew means "inherit." The first time Jershon is mentioned in the text the land is given to the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi for their inheritance Alma 27:22-24.
3. Early Modern English. Through the diligent efforts of Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, we now know that the language of the earliest Book of Mormon translation was closer to the Early Modern English spoken when Shakespeare was a youth than the Jacksonian American English codified in the 1828 Websters Dictionary. See the articles "Early Modern English" and "English in the Book of Mormon." Without help from an external (divine) source, a mono-linguist simply cannot dictate a long (268,000 words) and complex text over the course of approximately 65 working days in a language that neither his mother nor his father nor their mothers nor their fathers spoke.
4. Stylometry. Computerized statistical tests run against blocks of text can often distinguish the words of Author A from the writings of Author B. Authors have writing styles that consciously or sub-consciously pervade their work. Many such tests run by different teams over decades demonstrate with high degrees of confidence that the Book of Mormon was written by multiple authors whose varied styles differ in statistically significant ways. The work that launched this area of inquiry was published by Wayne A. Larsen, Tim Layton, and Alvin C. Rencher. See "Who Wrote the Book of Mormon? An Analysis of Wordprints" in BYU Studies 20:3, Spring, 1980. Layton, a friend of mine, is currently serving as Mission President in California, Bakersfield.
John L. Hilton, a physicist who taught at UC Berkeley and worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, took up the challenge of verifying the Larsen, Layton, Rencher results using improved statistical techniques. He worked for years with an interfaith team of colleagues in the East Bay area. In the end, they not only verified but strengthened the 1980 results. See "On Verifying Wordprint Studies: Book of Mormon Authorship" in Noel B. Reynolds, editor, Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited (Provo: FARMS, 1997).
The current standard-bearer in this area is Paul J. Fields, a statistical analyst who holds a PhD from Penn State. See Matthew Roper, Paul J. Fields, and G. Bruce Schaalje, "Stylometric Analyses of the Book of Mormon" in Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 21/1 2012.
See Book of Mormon Central KnoWhy #389 "What Can Stylometry Tell Us about Book of Mormon Authorship?"
5. Intertextuality. Book of Mormon authors had access to a version of the Hebrew Bible contained on the plates of brass 1 Nephi 5:10-13. When the Savior visited the Nephites in land Bountiful after his resurrection, he shared additional scriptures with them 3 Nephi 23:6 which were recorded in official national annals. Therefore, it should not be too surprising that Book of Mormon writers quote, allude to, echo, and expand upon biblical passages. The Book of Mormon is remarkable for the sheer volume of intertextual references, and for the creative, meaningful ways the Nephite record weaves the two texts together. David J. Larsen is an Old Testament scholar who holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews (Scotland). His 104 page "Overview of the Use of Biblical Psalms in the Book of Mormon Text" is currently in private circulation. Larsen has identified 60 instances of intertextuality between the Book of Mormon and the Psalms, many of which also interweave phrases and concepts from additional sources such as Proverbs, 2 Samuel, and Ezekiel.
Some "Royal Psalms" extol David. The writers on the small plates (Nephi and Jacob) tend to avoid them and seem influenced by the Deuteronomistic reforms that had recently been introduced in the Jerusalem of Lehi's day. Psalms generally attributed to the exilic or post-exilic period in Judaism are far less frequently referenced in the Book of Mormon than earlier compositions, as we would expect.
6. Semitic and Egyptian Influences in Mesoamerican Languages. Brian Stubbs is a noted linguist, one of the world's experts on the Uto-Aztecan language family which includes Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. In his 2015 Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan (Provo: Grover Publications), Stubbs finds hundreds of cognates as well as syntax, morphology, and pattern shifts over time that all point to Semitic contributions into Uto-Aztecan at about the Book of Mormon time period. My Jewish-LDS philologist friend, Adan Rocha of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, corroborates Stubbs via somewhat different methodology. Robert F. Smith extends Stubbs by showing Semitic and Egyptian influences in the Otomanguean language family which includes Oaxacan Mixtec and Zapotec. See Sawi-Zaa 2016 Version 3.
7. Internal Consistency. The Book of Mormon is large and complicated with many plot twists, flashbacks, and literary genre changes. Specialists have studied it for decades using the tools of various disciplines. Most diligent students come away with a profound appreciation for its integrity and constancy bordering on predictability. The Book of Mormon has a high, even astonishing degree of internal consistency. Nibley, Welch, Sorenson, Skousen, the Hardys, the Rosenvalls - people who know this text very well - have all commented on its steady uniformity and dependable rationality. It demonstrates strong editing for conformity to persistent organizing principles.
My own work has dealt largely with geography and potential correlations between the text and the real world. Across several hundred phrases with geographic implications, I have found only a handful of irreconcilable passages. See the article "Scribal Error." I seldom compose a single page without an egregious faux pas. The Book of Mormon's near perfection is simply breathtaking. I have no problem accepting Joseph Smith's description of the Nephite text as "the most correct of any book on earth."
8. Source Complexity. When we first organized Book of Mormon Central in 2015, one of our first projects was what we call the "Book of Mormon Redaction Chart." It continues to be a popular, albeit large and therefore slow to download, item in our archive. When we display this impressive chart in a public setting, people spend minutes poring over the details. Most are unaware of the subtle complexity behind the multiple sources that all came together to form our current Book of Mormon. See the excellent article by John L. Sorenson entitled "Mormon's Sources" in Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture, 20/2 2011.
9. Plan Under-girding the Book of Ether. Beginning with Ether descended from Coriantor in Ether 1:6, the Book of Ether lists a 30 person genealogy in reverse chronological order ending with Orihah son of Jared in Ether 1:32. Ether 1:33 then begins a history in precisely the opposite order that introduces each person starting with Jared and goes through the list one-by-one ending with Ether in Ether 11:23. Many historical details and plot elements intervene, but the author (Ether) and abridger (Moroni) stay true to this meticulous master plan throughout the book. Book of Mormon Central's KnoWhy #235 has some great graphics illustrating this 30 element scrupulous backwards then forwards pattern.
10. Parallelisms. Words in a sentence convey meaning, but words organized into parallelistic literary structures add balance and rhythm, elevating mere prose into great literature, even poetry. The repetition of words and forms inherent in parallelisms can facilitate the smooth flow of ideas and make passages more persuasive. Parallelisms abound in the Book of Mormon, a divinely-commissioned work designed to convince "Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations." Title Page of the Book of Mormon.
Parallelistic literary devices in the Book of Mormon include synonymous, antithetical, repetitive numerical, and circular repetitive forms. See Donald W. Parry, "Research and Perspectives: Hebrew Literary Patterns in the Book of Mormon" in Ensign, October, 1989. Parallelisms are so pervasive in the text that people have published entire re-formatted editions of the Book of Mormon highlighting the structures they see:
- Wade Brown, The God-Inspired Language of the Book of Mormon: Structuring and Commentary (Clackamas, OR: Rainbow, 1988).
- Donald W. Parry, The Book of Mormon Text Reformatted According to Parallelistic Patterns (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1992).
- Donald W. Parry, Poetic Parallelisms in the Book of Mormon: The Complete Text Reformatted (Provo, UT: Maxwell Institute, 2007).
- Alan C. Miner is currently preparing a multi-volume work with extensive textual apparatus to highlight parallelisms.
The Book of Mormon is miraculous, beautiful, and true. This Book of Mormon Central blog article introducing the second evidence video in a planned series highlights some of its remarkable sophistication.
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Ear Ornaments
The Book of Mormon mentions "ear-rings" 2 Nephi 13:20 in an Isaiah citation. The text uses the word "heavy" to describe ears 2 Nephi 16:10, also in a passage from Isaiah. The Book of Mormon associates some variant of the word "open" with ears as in 1 Nephi 20:8, 2 Nephi 7:5, Mosiah 2:9, and 3 Nephi 11:5.
Elites throughout Mesoamerican history wore circular ear spools aka ear flares or ear plugs that literally opened ear lobes, made ears heavy, and could easily be described as ear-rings.
Notice that all these Olmec figurines from ca. 800 BC are wearing ear spools.
Copan Stela A depicts Waxaklajun Ub'aah K'awiil (18 Rabbit), the 13th ruler, wearing large ear spools. This stela was dedicated on Maya Long Count date 9.14.19.8.12 (January 30, AD 731).
These greenstone (jadeite) ear spools from Oaxaca ca. AD 1200 are in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Elites throughout Mesoamerican history wore circular ear spools aka ear flares or ear plugs that literally opened ear lobes, made ears heavy, and could easily be described as ear-rings.
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| La Venta Offering 4 now in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico |
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| Copan Stela A in the Museo de Esculturas, Copan, Honduras Photo by Kirk Magleby December 28, 2015 |
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| Mixtec Ear Spools |
Similar artifacts are found throughout Mesoamerica in almost all time horizons. See, for example, Thomas A. Lee, Jr. "The Artifacts of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico," Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, Number 26 (Provo: BYU-NWAF, 1969) page 191.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Flammable Books
The Book of Mormon describes writing on flammable materials in the city of Ammonihah ca. 82 BC Alma 14:8. Our current correlation places the city of Ammonihah at the site of El Hormiguero II in the NW corner of Peten, Guatemala. Writing on plaster coated amate bark-paper (from Ficus [fig] or Morus [mulberry] trees) is attested archaeologically from two southern Mesoamerican sites in early to middle classic time horizons.
1. Two congealed codex fragments were recovered from Mounds 9 (burial 22) and 10 (burial 30) at Mirador, Chiapas. Both date to the Laguna-Nuti phase (AD 300 - 500).
Pierre Agrinier, Mounds 9 and 10 at Mirador, Chiapas, Mexico, Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, Number 39 (Provo: BYU NWAF, 1975). These fragments are now in the custody of INAH in Mexico City.
Some depictions of bark-paper codices on stone, painted ceramic vessels, and murals are much earlier than these decayed fragments. See, for example, the Olmec bound screen-fold codex illustrated in the article Cylinder Seals. Mayan epigraphic inscriptions reference 'paper' or 'books' (hu'n) and 'writers' (aj tz'ib).
Many Classic Maya depictions of scribes at work painting codices have survived. Here is one example:
The figure on the right is carving a mask. The figure on the left is the maize god as a scribe with a paint pot in his left hand, a brush in his right, and a bark paper folded codex on the ground in front of him.
Article updated on November 8, 2017.
1. Two congealed codex fragments were recovered from Mounds 9 (burial 22) and 10 (burial 30) at Mirador, Chiapas. Both date to the Laguna-Nuti phase (AD 300 - 500).
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| Deteriorated Codices from Mirador, Chiapas |
2. Fragments of a congealed codex were recovered from structure A-1, pyramid C, burial A6 at Uaxactun, Peten, Guatemala. The burial dates to AD 400 - 600. Structure A-1 itself was begun in the late Pre-classic (AD 1 - 250).
Nicholas P. Carter and Jeffrey Dobereiner, Multispectral imaging of an Early Classic Maya codex fragment from Uaxactun, Guatemala, Antiquity, 90 351 2016. The Uaxactun fragments are now in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard. These fragments had 2 different plaster layers applied, the only known attestation of the early Maya scribal practice of erasure and re-inscription on codices. Resurfacing and repainting on murals is well-attested. Writing on plaster overlaid gourds is known from the UNESCO World Heritage site of Cerén, El Salvador (volcanic ash fall covered an entire village, leaving unusually well-preserved remains a la Pompeii); Baking Pot, Belize; and a royal tomb at El Zotz, Peten, Guatemala dating to AD 300 - 400.
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| Deteriorated Codex from Uaxactun, Peten |
All codex fragments and some of the gourds were found in mortuary contexts. See for example the Uaxactun image in the blog article "Partake of the Fruit." The Book of Mormon explicitly correlates words and death Mosiah 17:20.
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| Relative Locations of Referenced Sites |
Many Classic Maya depictions of scribes at work painting codices have survived. Here is one example:
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| Justin Kerr Rollout Photograph of Maya Vase K1185 |
Article updated on November 8, 2017.
Friday, October 6, 2017
Cylinder Seals
The act of sealing something, particularly writing, was important enough in the Nephite worldview that it would not be surprising to find seals in the Mesoamerican archaeological record, and we do. This collection of roller stamps or cylinder seals is housed in the Snite Museum on the campus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The seals were used to make impressions in plastic materials such as wax or clay, and to ink patterns on paper, skin or fabric. Most of these seals came from a single cache at the Olmec site of Las Bocas, Puebla.
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| Olmec Cylinder Seal with Net Design, Unknown Provenience |
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| Olmec Roller Seal from Las Bocas, Puebla ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Pubela, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Late Classic Veracruz Roller Seal, ca. AD 600 - 900 |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Roller Seal, Las Bocas, Puebla, ca. 1,500 - 1,000 BC |
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| Olmec Earthenware Pot, Tlapacoya, Mexico, Mexico Ayotla Phase, ca. 1,500 - 1,300 BC |
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| Locations of Tlapacoya and Las Bocas |
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Ancient Ocean Crossings
I just finished reading an excellent new 508 page book by Stephen C. Jett entitled Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017.
Jett is an emeritus professor of geography, textiles, and clothing at the University of California, Davis. He holds a PhD in geography from Johns Hopkins. He is the founding editor of Pre-Colombiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts.
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| Important New Book |
Jett acknowledges the pioneering work of his friend, John L. Sorenson (BYU emeritus), and Sorenson's collaborators, Martin H. Raish (BYU Idaho) and Carl L. Johannessen (University of Oregon emeritus).
Diffusionist literature is often scientifically shallow. Not this volume. Jett is source critical, balanced, and logical. This work is clearly a capstone to a lifetime of careful scholarship. The bibliography runs for 60 pages. The author lines up many standard isolationist arguments and knocks them over like pins in a bowling alley. Along the way, his erudition and common-sense practicality seldom fail to impress. His command of nautical terminology and the details of vessel design is extraordinary.
Jett is ably corroborated by Alice Beck Kehoe's earlier Traveling Prehistoric Seas: Critical Thinking on Ancient Transoceanic Voyages (London and New York: Routledge, 2016).
Kehoe is an emeritus professor of anthropology at Marquette.
A 2012 blog article describes a most interesting book by Stephen C. Compton entitled Exodus Lost. Compton marshals dozens of evidences to demonstrate a cultural connection between the Olmec of southern Mexico and the Hyksos who ruled Egypt between 1650 and 1550 BC.
Two 2015 blog articles talk about the important book from Brian D. Stubbs entitled Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan. The article "Uto-Aztecan" introduces Stubbs' thesis and the article "Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan" shows the book.
Compton's 2011 book, Stubbs' 2015 book, and now Jett's 2017 book preceded by Kehoe's 2016 book combine to offer compelling evidence from multiple disciplines that ancient cultural contacts occurred between the Old World and the New.
For some observations from eminent Mesoamericanist Michael D. Coe (Yale, emeritus) on transoceanic cultural diffusion he sees from Southeast Asia into the Maya area, see the article "Hansen and Coe.
For dramatic validation of Jett's thesis, see the article "Peopling the Americas."
Jett is ably corroborated by Alice Beck Kehoe's earlier Traveling Prehistoric Seas: Critical Thinking on Ancient Transoceanic Voyages (London and New York: Routledge, 2016).
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| Another Important New Book |
A 2012 blog article describes a most interesting book by Stephen C. Compton entitled Exodus Lost. Compton marshals dozens of evidences to demonstrate a cultural connection between the Olmec of southern Mexico and the Hyksos who ruled Egypt between 1650 and 1550 BC.
Two 2015 blog articles talk about the important book from Brian D. Stubbs entitled Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan. The article "Uto-Aztecan" introduces Stubbs' thesis and the article "Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan" shows the book.
Compton's 2011 book, Stubbs' 2015 book, and now Jett's 2017 book preceded by Kehoe's 2016 book combine to offer compelling evidence from multiple disciplines that ancient cultural contacts occurred between the Old World and the New.
For some observations from eminent Mesoamericanist Michael D. Coe (Yale, emeritus) on transoceanic cultural diffusion he sees from Southeast Asia into the Maya area, see the article "Hansen and Coe.
For dramatic validation of Jett's thesis, see the article "Peopling the Americas."
Monday, October 2, 2017
Recent Book of Mormon News
July 19, 2017 an important new edition of the Book of Mormon began appearing on bookstore shelves. Entitled A New Approach to Studying The Book of Mormon, this edition organizes the text episodically into 214 events. Every word appears just as it does in the LDS 2013 edition, but in a re-formatted structure that honors narrative boundaries rather than dividing the text up as Orson Pratt did when he published the 1879 edition with our modern chapter and verse designations. So, for instance, Jacob's extended olive tree metaphor (event 36) includes all of Jacob chapters 4, 5, and 6. This edition also highlights quoted passages typographically and shows narrators, speakers, locations, and dates in the margins. Click here for an animated demo.
The result is aesthetically pleasing and intuitive reading. An advanced binding system allows this paperback book to lay flat on a reading surface. The father son team of Lynn and Dave Rosenvall (The Olive Leaf Foundation) have been pre-eminent scriptural scholars for decades. They wrote the original Gospel Library Scriptures app (now distributed and maintained by the Church) most of us use regularly on our mobile devices. They are also the force behind the highly original and very thoughtful Baja model of Book of Mormon geography.
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August 16, 2017 was the 50th anniversary of Jack Welch's discovery of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon and we had quite a celebration.
Click here to watch the entire 2 hour program held in the JSB Auditorium on BYU Campus.
Click here for Jack's son Greg's clever 10 minute video of the discovery.
Click here for Book of Mormon Central's moving 8 minute video of the discovery narrated by Jack himself.
Click here for Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's brilliant closing remarks entitled "The Greatness of the Evidence."
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September 1, 2017 The first 137 Book of Mormon Central KnoWhys, published as a handsomely-illustrated book by Covenant Communications, began appearing on bookstore shelves.
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September 23, 2017 was going to be Book of Mormon Central's first-ever conference in Mexico City. Nearly 1,500 people had registered. Then a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Mexico on September 19, killing 363 people in Oaxaca, Puebla, the state of Mexico, Morelos, Guerrero, and Mexico City. While Brant Gardner and I (Kirk Magleby) were in the air en route, the government of Mexico City declared 3 days of mourning and banned large public gatherings. We re-grouped, helped serve earthquake victims, trained our staff, and visited the sites of Cholula, Tula Hidalgo, and Teotihuacan.
In the back row from L to R are Javier Tovar of Atotonilco de Tula, Hgo; Adan Rocha of San Luis Potosi, SLP; and Benjamin Monroy of Salt Lake City, UT. To the left is Noe Correa of Eagle Mountain, UT. In the front row from L to R are Jesus Inda of San Quintin, BC; Brant Gardner of Albuquerque, NM; and Kirk Magleby of American Fork, UT.
The Mexico City conference is re-scheduled for November 18, 2017.
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September 20, 2017 the LDS Church acquired the printer's manuscript from the Community of Christ (known as the RLDS Church from 1872 until the year 2000) for $35 million. The sale price set a new world record for a manuscript. The Book of Mormon is not as important today in Community of Christ affairs as it was in previous generations. It continues to be a vital part of religious life in many Restoration Branch congregations who have dissociated themselves from the Community of Christ.
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September 30, 2017 Pres. Russell M. Nelson gave a great talk about the Book of Mormon in the Saturday afternoon session of LDS General Conference. "The full power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is contained in the Book of Mormon. Period."
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October 1, 2017 Elder Tad R. Callister gave a terrific talk about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in the Sunday afternoon session of LDS General Conference. "This book is the one weight on the scales of truth that exceeds the combined weight of all the critics' arguments."
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Warren Aston will travel soon to the Hill Cumorah in New York with a geologist. They will attempt to shed light on the stone box that Moroni built ca. AD 421 to hold the plates.
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| Re-formatted Edition of the Book of Mormon |
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August 16, 2017 was the 50th anniversary of Jack Welch's discovery of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon and we had quite a celebration.
 |
| Robert Pack Painting of Paul Gaechter and Jack Welch in Innsbruck in 1968 |
Click here for Jack's son Greg's clever 10 minute video of the discovery.
Click here for Book of Mormon Central's moving 8 minute video of the discovery narrated by Jack himself.
Click here for Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's brilliant closing remarks entitled "The Greatness of the Evidence."
--
September 1, 2017 The first 137 Book of Mormon Central KnoWhys, published as a handsomely-illustrated book by Covenant Communications, began appearing on bookstore shelves.
 |
| Knowing Why by Book of Mormon Central |
September 23, 2017 was going to be Book of Mormon Central's first-ever conference in Mexico City. Nearly 1,500 people had registered. Then a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Mexico on September 19, killing 363 people in Oaxaca, Puebla, the state of Mexico, Morelos, Guerrero, and Mexico City. While Brant Gardner and I (Kirk Magleby) were in the air en route, the government of Mexico City declared 3 days of mourning and banned large public gatherings. We re-grouped, helped serve earthquake victims, trained our staff, and visited the sites of Cholula, Tula Hidalgo, and Teotihuacan.
 |
| Book of Mormon Central Visit to Tetitla Compound, Teotihuacan September 23, 2017 |
The Mexico City conference is re-scheduled for November 18, 2017.
--
September 20, 2017 the LDS Church acquired the printer's manuscript from the Community of Christ (known as the RLDS Church from 1872 until the year 2000) for $35 million. The sale price set a new world record for a manuscript. The Book of Mormon is not as important today in Community of Christ affairs as it was in previous generations. It continues to be a vital part of religious life in many Restoration Branch congregations who have dissociated themselves from the Community of Christ.
 |
| Printer's Manuscript of 1 Nephi Chapter 1 |
September 30, 2017 Pres. Russell M. Nelson gave a great talk about the Book of Mormon in the Saturday afternoon session of LDS General Conference. "The full power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is contained in the Book of Mormon. Period."
--
October 1, 2017 Elder Tad R. Callister gave a terrific talk about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in the Sunday afternoon session of LDS General Conference. "This book is the one weight on the scales of truth that exceeds the combined weight of all the critics' arguments."
--
Warren Aston will travel soon to the Hill Cumorah in New York with a geologist. They will attempt to shed light on the stone box that Moroni built ca. AD 421 to hold the plates.
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