From Monday, June 19 to Wednesday, June 21, 2023, Scripture Central convened a Book of Mormon geography workshop in Mexico City. Participants included:
- Luis Castillo, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Luis is the author of several interesting articles about possible Book of Mormon connections with ancient Maya culture.
- Agricol Lozano, Mexico City. Agricol is a serious lifelong student of the Nephite text.
- Kirk Magleby, American Fork, UT. I author this blog.
- Alexandro Martinez, Puebla, Mexico. Alejandro maintains the website Geografia del Libro de Mormon.
- Anna Lillia Mendez, Mexico City. Anna Lillia has been a careful student of the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerican culture for decades.
- Alan Miner, Springville, UT. Alan authored Step by Step through the Book of Mormon which is a comprehensive history of thought on Book of Mormon geography.
- Estefanía Morlett, Mexico City. Estefanía took notes and kept us organized.
- Daniel Muñoz, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Daniel is a native Yucatec Mayan speaker with a degree in anthropology.
- Felipe Olguin, Hidalgo, Mexico. Felipe is a long-time student of the Book of Mormon.
- Braulio Sánchez, Mexico City. Braulio was our videographer and audio recorder.
- Javier Tovar, Hidalgo, Mexico. Javier is an archaeologist accredited with INAH. For the last several years, he has been ground-truthing possible Book of Mormon sites.
- Gabriela Valdez, Estado de Mexico. Gaby is a professional genealogist and historian.
- Pepe Valle, originally from Veracruz, Mexico, now living in Spanish Fork, UT. Pepe is the most watched "Come Follow Me" video presenter in Spanish and is one of the Spanish voices of the Tabernacle Choir.
We went over methodology, assumptions about the text, interpretive apparatus, the exegesis of key passages, proposed real-world locations, and the degree of fit to the text for various proposals. Any participant was free to suggest alternative locations and some of those locations were accepted by the group and incorporated into the working compendium model.
We had two main goals for the workshop: A) Empower a group of capable Mexican Saints with the tools and knowledge necessary to move Book of Mormon geography forward, and B) achieve consensus, if possible, on the most likely location of key Book of Mormon places. We successfully achieved both goals. The "Lamanite Consensus Model" of Book of Mormon geography is now reality.
1. Today in Yucatec Mayan, a class of "dignatarios Mayas" that deal with laws and the administration of justice are called "alma kan." The title carries military, commercial, and religious connotations. Luis and Daniel are convinced this honorific title, attested in epigraphic inscriptions from the early classic era, is a legacy from Alma, first Nephite Chief Judge per Mosiah 29:42.
2. The large bodies of water mentioned in Alma 50:29 and Helaman 3:4 were likely in the Trans-Volcanic Belt in Central Mexico. High peaks in this region result in abundant rainfall.
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| Trans-Volcanic Belt in Central Mexico - Land of Lakes |
3. "Desierto" in the Spanish Book of Mormon as the translation for "wilderness" would be better rendered "silvestre."
4. "Manantiales" in the Spanish Book of Mormon as the translation for "head of river" would be better rendered "cabeza de rio."
5. The city of Mulek which we have previously correlated with the site of Cerros, Belize, we now correlate with the site of Santa Rita aka Hok' ol K'in in Corozal, Belize. Cerros is too easy to isolate by positioning troops at the base of the peninsula. Cerros has a 2,000 year old dock.
6. Temperatures often reach 40 degrees centigrade (104 degrees fahrenheit) in the Chetumal area, giving context to the phrase "heat of the day" in Alma 51:33.
7. The city of Bountiful which we have previously correlated with the site of Bugambilias, Quintana Roo, we now correlate with the site of Oxtankah a few kilometers northward along the coast. Beginning about 500 BC, Oxtankah was the dominant site in the Chetumal area north of the Rio Hondo.
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| Proposed Book of Mormon Cities Around Bay of Chetumal |
8. The Lamanai - Jershon correlation held up under scrutiny. Luis and Daniel are convinced Lamanai meaning "submerged crocodile" could be a legacy from "Laman" whom the text likens unto a river in 1 Nephi 2:8, 16:12.
In Erik Boot's 2003 article "The Human Hand in Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Writing" published on Mesoweb, 21 of 45 signs show a perforation (agujero).
9. Many parts of the coasts of Belize and Quintana Roo are lined with mangrove trees which makes them practically inaccessible from the ocean. Mangroves also grow along rivers.
10. As you head north along the Belizean coast from Corozal, you come to a lookout point (mirador) that gives you a good view of Chetumal across the mouth of Rio Hondo. Luis and Daniel believe this is the point where the Lamanite army turned back towards Corozal as described in Alma 52:28.
11. One of the murals from Santa Rita published in Arqueología Mexicana shows a decapitated sacrificial victim with a beard. This could be another example of intentional ethnic cleansing. The drawing is from Thomas Gann in 1900.
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| Santa Rita Mural with Bearded Sacrificial Victim |
For an image of bearded sacrificial victims from Bilbao, Guatemala, see the blog article "Light from Guatemala."
12. The earliest architecture at Santa Rita and Oxtankah was plain and fairly simple. Later classic era construction was more elaborate and complex in line with Maya structures elsewhere. Hugh Nibley thought Nephite golden age architecture would likely be plain and fairly simple.
13. The Mexican saints are convinced Jesus Christ visited their lands anciently. They point to several glyphic depictions of hands with perforations from sites such as Palenque, Yaxchilán, Copan, and Tulum as evidence that the crucified Savior was known among their ancestors.
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| Glyphs Depicting Perforated Hands |
In Erik Boot's 2003 article "The Human Hand in Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Writing" published on Mesoweb, 21 of 45 signs show a perforation (agujero).
14. The Mexican saints love Izapa Stela 5. They envision a boat with 6 passengers sitting on deck and a cuadrangular sail outlined by geometric lines drawn between key points in the scene.
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| Stela 5 as Depiction of a Boat per Mario A. Popoca |
15. There are 14 water scrolls along the bottom and right-hand edges of Stela 5. This image taken by Matthew W. Stirling in 1941 shows all 14. 10 along the bottom crest to the right. 1 at the bend is larger than the others. It also crests to the right. The top 3 along the right-hand side crest to the left.
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| 14 Water Scrolls on Stela 5, 3 Cresting to the Left |
Anna Lillia interprets the 3 water scrolls as depicting the 3 days described in 1 Nephi 18:13-14 when the voyaging Lehites were driven backwards by a storm. The large water scroll at the elbow she interprets as the 4th day when the storm increased in intensity, then eventually subsided when Nephi was finally released after being tied to the mast.
16. Stela 5 shows a tree with 8 branches. 7 of the branches bear fruit. The 8th branch on the right-hand side has no fruit, but it does have 2 grafts hanging from it. This is an image taken in the early 1960's.
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| 7 Tree Branches with Fruit, 1 with Grafts |
The 7 branches bearing fruit the Mexican saints correlate with the 7 lineages mentioned in Jacob 1:13, 4 Nephi 37-38, and Mormon 1:8-9.
17. Gaby likes the correlation first proposed by John L. Sorenson that the El Chayal obsidian outcrop north of Guatemala City is probably Oneidah (critical text orthography), the place of arms mentioned in Alma 47:5.
18. Luis and Daniel believe there may be a linguistic correlation between the Lamanite king "Aaron" mentioned in Mormon 2:9 and the Maya honorific title "Ahau."
19. The land of Joshua which we have previously placed in the general vicinity of Pijijiapan, Chiapas, has been moved slightly. After ground-truthing, Javier Tovar believes the site of Lluvia Dulce, 15 air kilometers NW of the site of Pijijiapan (which is about 2 air kilometers S of the city of Pijijiapan), is a viable candidate for Joshua. Lluvia Dulce was occupied in the late preclassic - early classic time period when Mormon describes the Nephites in the land of Joshua.
20. We have previously correlated the city of Nephihah with Cancuen. Luis expressed concern that perhaps Nephihah should be closer to Moroni. Cancuen is 133 air kilometers W of Tiger Mound (Moroni) and 57 kilometers S of Ceibal (Aaron). The site of Poptun is one possibility that sits just about midway between Tiger Mound and Ceibal. The group did not act on this suggestion, so the correlation for Nephihah remains Cancuen pending further study.
21. Agricol suggested that just as Palestine is centrally located to spread the good news of the Gospel to the four corners of the Old World, Mesoamerica is centrally located to do the same in the New World.
