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The Nephite Collapse(s)


Ntrw

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My minimalist Four Seas model.

 

And whoso receiveth this record, and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these. Behold, I am Moroni; and were it possible, I would make all things known unto you.

 

Mormon was writing in the late 300's AD; and Moroni, between around 400 and 420 AD. They lived in what archeologists call the Early Classic thus with the exception of the Small Plates, and despite using preexisting  sources, from earlier times, the majority of the Book of Mormon was written during this period.


Mormon and Moroni, like us, would  nessecarily have seen the past through the lenses of their present. However, unlike their writings about a Pre-Classic past they had no first hand knowledge of, their descriptions of their own time is based on their own experience.


Similiarly, it may be fair to assume that the further back in time their descriptions of the  past take place, the less accurate they are likely to be. This is because primary sources would be more copious from times most proximate to their present and less abundant the further they write back in time.


Though the Nephite prophet-historians wrote some records on metal plates, it is a mistake to assume that the practice was ubiquitous or even common. Records in the Book of Mormon are also described as being written on flammable materials(Alma 14:8,14) and were often made the  targets  of destruction(Mormon 2:17, Mormon n 6:6; Enos 1:13-14).


For these reasons, with the exception of the Small Plates, whenever we read the Book of Mormon, relative to mesoamerica, we should do so through the lens of the Classic for this is the historical filter through which Mormon and Moroni likely viewed their world and past. This being the case, we should expect Mormon and Moroni to anachronistically retroject conditions from the Classic into the Preclassic. Further more, the Classic is the period from which we have the earliest decipherable written records from the region, making them of inestimable worth when studying the Book of Mormon.


This post is based on "my" Four Seas Model of Book of Mormon geography, with Highland Guatemala being the land of Nephi and the river Sidon being either the Grijalva or Usumacinta, with the land of Zarahemla being on the west bank of one and only one of those two rivers. I don't know which river and, minus a "mesoamerican nahom", I won't guess.


Anachronism: The Teotihuacano Robbers

In Helaman 3, we read the description of a group of people who migrate to a land that:


1)is an "exceedingly great distance" "northward" of Nephite lands.


2)contains "large bodies of water and many rivers"


3)is home to people who are expert in the use of cement.


4)had undergone deforestation.


5)had people who hailed from the land southward, ie Nephites and Ammonites.


6)and whose inhabitants "began to cover the face of the whole earth".

 

From about 200AD to 600 AD the only area in the Americas that possibly matches these six criteria is the city of Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan is:


1)north-west from the central depression of Chiapas and the Maya regions.


2)is in the Teotihucan Valley, a side pocket of the Valley of Mexico. The Valley of Mexico being home to Lakes Xaltocan, Texcoco, Xochimilco and Chalco.


3)Teotihuacanos made extensive use of cement.


4)It has been proposed that the destruction of the surrounding forests, nessecary for the burning of the lime stone, which went into building Teotihuacan, contributed to erosion and the desiccation of the region.


5)There was a strong southern(Mayan) presence at Teotihuacan(3).


6)Teotihuacan influence extended into the Gulf Coast of Mexico, Oaxaca and as far south as Guatemala.

 

If the narrow neck of land is/is at the strait of Tehuantepec then the only place that fits this description is Teotihuacan. However, Mormon's account seems anachronistic. Helaman ch. 3 does not describe the Teotihuacan of 50BC, it describes the Teotihuacan of 250AD and beyond. It does not describe the Teotihuacan of Helaman's day, but the Teotihuacan of Mormon's day, the late 300's AD. It does not describe what Teotihuacan was like during the days of the actual migration recorded in Helaman 3; it describes what Teotihuacan was like when Mormon was alive and writing.

 

The ancient Greek historian Xenophon did something similar. Xenophon incorrectly records that Cyrus the Great received and distributed gold darics.The daric did not exist until after the lifetime of Cyrus. The daric began to be used during the reign of Darius; the coin(daric) was named after him. Since the daric was used during Xenphon's time, we can see how this mistake was made. As ancient historians, both Mormon and Xenophon took the conditions of their day and retrojected them into the past.

 

Mormon takes the time and effort to describe a migration to what would eventually become Teotihuacan, because Teotihuacan was very much on his mind. The Teotihuacanos of Mormon's day were doing what the Gadianton Robbers of Helaman's day were doing; they were usurping power and disrupting the social order. The story in Helaman 3 allows Mormon to connect the two in his mind.

 

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Two forms of "ochk'in kaloomte', "western autocrat"; image from Reading The Mayan Glyphs, by Michael Coe.


It's important to remember that we don't know what the Teotihucanos called themselves or their city. Teotihuacan is the name the Aztecs gave for what, for them, were impressive though abandoned ruins. The Mayan kings affiliated with Teotihuacan bore the title of ochk'in kaloomte', roughly translated as "western autocrat".


It's also likely that the Gadianton Robbers of Mormon's day did not refer to themselves as such but rather that, for Mormon and Moroni, "Gadianton" was used the way the word "mafia" is used today, in describing organized crime syndicates, whether or not they originated in Sicily.


Using this Classic Maya lens to equate the Gadianton Robbers of Mormon's day with the Teotihuacanos is important, because going forward, we will see the role this/these faction(s) played in the later "revolution" described by Mormon  and Moroni.


A note on intellectual honesty: the reader should proceed assuming that the mesoamerican sections of this post are plagiarized, because they are. Though I have cited my sources at the bottum, I have  very liberally redacted, copied and edited the work of Michael Coe, Estrada-Belli, the NWAF and others, so as to make for an easier read. Also, the ideas in this post owe their origin and inspiration to John L. Sorenson, Brant Gardner and others. This post is a wholly derivative work.


The Book of Mormon

The historical content in 3 Nephi & 4 Nephi can be summarized in the following way: during the years of 16 to 22 AD, the Nephites temporarily gathered in the lands of Zarahemla and Bountiful, fortified in a defensive position resembling, but not identical to, a "scorched earth" policy. Between 30 AD and 35 AD, the Nephite government collapses, followed by a series of natural disasters, which caused a wholesale abandonment of many, but not all, Nephite sites. Jesus Christ appears to a group of believers in Bountiful. 

 

Between 35 AD to 200 AD, the old identities of Nephite and Lamanite come into disuse, a non-hierarchical and communitarian social order develops then ends. Between 200 and 300 AD, "Gadianton Robbers" come back onto the scene as traders and mercantilists, wealth and social hierarchies become more pronounced and other "churches" are established. The 3 Nephites are deposed and Nephite believers once again become a minority. 


At about 245AD, "the wicked part of the people began again to build up the secret oaths and combinations of Gadianton"(4 Nephi 1:42). The Gadianton Robbers "spread over all the face of the land"; and "traffic in all manner of traffic"(4 Nephi 1:46).


By about 326AD, the Gadianton Robbers are among the Lamanites and "infest the land"(Mormon 1:18). By about 350AD, the Gadianton Robbers and the Lamanites are united in war against the Nephites. The Nephites are forced to enter a treaty with the Lamanites and the robbers of Gadianton, in which they get the lands of inheritance divided"(Mormon 2:26,27).

 

By 330 AD, the land was "filled with robbers and with Lamanites"; blood and carnage "spread throughout all the face of the land" and it was "one complete revolution" throughout the region. By 400 AD, the Lamanites had hunted the Nephites, down "from city to city" and "from place to place". The Lamanites are at war with each other; and "the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed".

 

Central Depression of Chiapas 

During the Istmo phase of Chiapa de Corzo, which spanned the years from AD 100 to 300, the ceramic assemblage shows no connections with the Maya area. Instead, Chiapa de Corzo seems more connected ceramically with the Tehuantepec region of the Isthmus and the Gulf Coast, than to the Maya area, as it once was(4). 


At Santa Cruz, 100 AD marks the beginning the an abandonement that lasted for several hundred years. The preceding phase, the Late Chiapilla(100BC - 100 AD) was characterized by sherd types identical to that of Chiapa de Corzo's Guanacaste phase.

 

 

Protoclassic activity at Chiapa de Corzo peaked during the Horcones phase (AD 100-300) as tombs became more elaborate and craft specialization soared to new heights in the refinement of pottery, obsidian, shell, amber, and alabaster(NWAF).

 

At the site of Santa Rosa, the Phase 5(200 AD - Possible Hiatus) artifact distribution indicates settlement redistribution and population decline; mound construction was largely limited to the modification of existing structures. The sherds of Phase 5 and Phase 6 are nearly identical. The coincidence of distribution, in it's difference from the other phases, may represent a break with earlier traditions, as ceramics distribution now runs along a north-east by south-west axis, as opposed to the east-west axis of earlier periods(Delgado, 79).

 

At Chiapa de Corzo, 300-400 AD, the craft activity of the site diminished and long-distance ties contracted, but powerful lineages seem to have occupied the site as scores of individuals came to be interred in refurbished temple buildings and in large residences(Mormon 1-9).


400 AD: Beyond this date, the Chiapa de Corzo's principal buildings ceased to be maintained. The final "occupational" phases of the site witnessed the occasional burial of important personages in deserted pyramidal mounds. By this time, the ruins had become a place of pilgrimage, perhaps for displaced Zoque peoples now ruled by Chiapanec invaders. 


The Chiapanec chose to occupy the adjacent floodplain of the Grijalva River where the modern town was constructed and to leave the Zoque ruin on the nearby plateau untouched. This abandonment of Chiapa de Corzo was shared by other sites in the Central Depression, such as  Mirador, Piedra Parada, and Ocozocoautla(Agrinier, pg. 100). 


Back at Santa Cruz, 400 A.D. marks the beginning of a reoccupation of the site, following several centuries of abandonment and disuse, followed by a subsequent disturbance of the earlier occupations.

 

The Maya Regions

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High-Precision Radiocarbon Dates for Ceibal.


Perhaps it was not as sudden as the archaeological remains suggest, but between about AD 1 and 250, Lowland Maya peoples certainly moved around at a frequency that was much greater than the preceding centuries. The general trend seemed to have been that populations moved out of the low-lying areas next to seasonal water sources and into upland, defensible locations(5) During this time, peoples suddenly abandoned sites in and around E-Group centers that had once exploded into large monumental gathering spaces with elaborate temples(5).

 

In the Maya Lowlands, the “First Maya collapse” in the first centuries AD is an example of a period of major cultural, political, demographic and environmental changes. The complexity of the collapse has just begun to unravel, and future work will further clarify the apparent material and spatial shifts in population and political authority(5).

 

Two main factors contributed to the abandonment of some Late Preclassic centers . First, as the growing body of paleoclimatic evidence shows , the environment experienced a period of extended dryness in the end of the Late Preclassic. The changes in available groundwater compounded with the gradual erosion caused by deforestation and other man made mismanagement meant that many of the seasonal water sources were no longer viable in many places(5)

 

Agriculture then had to move farther away from the monumental centers or to wholly different areas in nearby watersheds. The second factor contributing to abandonment was undoubtedly political in nature.(5).

 

During this period, the carving and painting of inscriptions may have been interrupted by widespread warfare and a generalized crisis in Maya society, which uprooted elites from their palaces. Whatever the causes, this short but intense period of turmoil would effectively have resulted in the loss of many inscriptions, especially those written on perishable material, in a way similar to the deliberate destruction of Maya books by Spanish missionaries. As the literate elites were evicted from power in favor of non-literate or semi-literate military factions, books and any knowledge relating to them may have quickly been lost(6).

 

After this brief dark age, at around 250 AD, order and elite tradition were restored within the Lowlands when new dynasties consolidated their power at sites outside of the Mirador Basin, such as Tikal. The new elites simply adopted what knowledge had survived of the ancient writing system and then continued in a new tradition(6).

 

The distant center of Teotihuacan might have had an influential role in the formation of the Classic Maya state. Sanders and Price (1968) proposed that Classic Maya society was the product of a process of secondary state formation emanating from the area of primary state formation, the central Highlands of Mexico. This process was viewed from an evolutionary perspective, envisioning Late Preclassic Highland centers such as Kaminaljuyú being transformed into state-organized societies after the arrival of elite emissaries from Teotihuacan(6).

 

Speaking of Teotihuacan, Michael  Coe has also asked whether these Teotihuacanos were warriors or traders? They may well have been both. By Aztec times in central Mexico there was a special caste of armed merchants called pochteca, who journeyed into distant countries in search of rare manufactures and raw materials not available in the homeland, all of which were destined for the king. From representations of the pochteca god at Teotihuacan, we know that the institution is at least as old as the Early Classic. Thus, Kaminaljuyu may have been a southeasterly outpost of long-distance traders from that great city, established for the purpose of exporting Maya riches for the Teotihuacan throne(2).

 

Teotihuacan was thus the mighty city that held dominion over large parts of Mexico in the Early Classic, as the center of a military and commercial empire that may have been greater than that of the much later Aztec(2). Shortly after AD 400, the highlands fell under Teotihuacan domination. The Teotihuacanos, as an intrusive group of central Mexicans, might have seized Kaminaljuyu, where they built for themselves a miniature version of their capital. An elite class consisting both of Central Mexican foreigners and of a local nobility with whom they had marriage ties could have ruled over a captive population of largely Mayan descent(2).

 

Subsequent penetration of Teotihuacan traders and accompanying military groups, similar to the Aztec pochteca, into the Peten region would also have transformed the Preclassic Tikal chiefdom into an Early Classic Maya state. Just as evidence of Teotihuacan-style temple architecture and richly furnished tombs in Early Classic Kaminaljuyú is interpreted as a sign of a foreign enclave of elite merchants at that site, the mounting evidence of Teotihuacan-style architecture and ceramics at Tikal has inspired many scholars to envision a strong Teotihuacan influence on Tikal at the opening of the Classic period(6). 

 

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My minimalist Four Seas Model.

 

Another important series of events took place in the Holmul region around AD 300 as the Holmuleños built a small ceremonial center: a palace on a platform , a ritual plaza complete with ball-court, and a funerary pyramid-shrine , all only 1 kilometer outside the main ceremonial hill (Estrada-Belli 2001). This place is now known as La Sufricaya. Here the occupants carved inscriptions on stelae, some of the earliest in the Maya Lowlands. Their dates range from 376 to 422 and thus accurately reflect the occupation span of the place, as  documented by and through archaeological excavations(6).


The inside and the outside of the palace were decorated with colorful murals. Painted on the walls of one of the rooms in the palace are scores of warriors dressed in Teotihuacan style and holding Teotihuacan-style weapons, such as trilobed-tipped darts and atlatl (Estrada-Belli 2003b; Estrada-Belli et al. 2009). They appear to be seated on the steps of a platform, perhaps that of the palace itself. Other individuals, wearing a mix of Maya and Teotihuacan garb, bring offerings or simply stand. 

 

During approximately the next 100 years, Tikal, with the support of its Teotihuacan allies, successfully consolidated its hegemonic control over much of the Lowlands by securing key sites. Aside from obvious episodes of conquest, part of this process may have involved inserting new dynastic centers (with one of their own as founder) in areas void of occupation or between unfriendly neighbors(6).


The most notable case is that of Copan , Honduras, whose founder, the Teotihuacan-affiliated Yax K’uk’ Mo’, in the year AD 426 made an arrival similar to that of Siyaj K’ahk’ at Tikal, displaced the existing ruler, and founded a new royal center a short distance from the earlier ceremonial plaza. He thus secured a distant province near an important Lowland –Highland trade route. Along it traveled such vital resources as obsidian and jade. The nearby kingdom of Quirigua was founded by a vassal of the Copan king shortly thereafter to secure this same route(6).

 

Sources

(1)The Gadianton Robbers in Mormon's Theological History:Their Structural Role and Plausible Identification, by Brant Gardner

 

(2)The Maya 7th Edition,by Michael Coe. Pg 90-92.

 

(3) "Tetitla and the Maya Presence at Teotihucan" by Karl Taube


(4)Ritual Deposits and Sculpted Stones: The Construction of Identity at Late Preclassic Chiapa de Corzo, pg. 10 

 

(5)Architecture and the Origins of Preclassic Maya Politics pg.112, 113, 142.

 

(6)Fransisco Estrada Belli; The First Maya Civilization: Ritual and Power Before the Classic Period. 

 

"Chiapa de Corzo," The Chiapa de Corzo Archeological Project, accessed June 20, 2018, http://chiapadecorzo.byu.edu

 

Agustin Delgado, "Excavations at Santa Rosa, Chiapas, Mexico", Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, no. 17; Publication (New World Archaeological Foundation), no. 13 (1965): 79.

 

Pierre Agrinier; Mounds 9 and 10 at Mirador, Chiapas, Mexico, 1975.

 

Moderator: You need to have a discussion point. Your cut and paste probably exceeds Fair Use. 

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