Jaredite Steel?

[John Williams]

Lets see John... Chitzen Itza built 500 years before the Spanish came which has a pre columlbian horse inscribed on the temple wall... Archeologists estimate that we have only excvated 5% of whats out there and you think the odds are against us of finding anything?

This is from the Above Article and makes reference to the 800 BC Polynesians Chickens found in Chile.

Well, I'm convinced. If a writer/television producer believes it, it must be true.

Honestly, this is a non-academic article in the Atlantic Monthly, which attempts to defend Barry Fell against his critics, though the chief source cited in the article, David Kelley, is quoted as saying "Fell's work [contains] major academic sins, the three worst being distortion of data, inadequate acknowledgment of predecessors, and lack of presentation of alternative views."

Come on, Zak. You can do better than this.

[Zakuska]

A John you must not of finished reading... Kelly Goes on to say that "Some of Fells work" is authentic and offers the only explanation.

Or are you too biased to open your mind?

Lets put your quote and Knee-Jerk reaction into context... (Your out of context quote is in red)

Kelley, who is a contributing editor to The Review of Archaeology, complained in a 1990 essay that "Fell's work [contains] major academic sins, the three worst being distortion of data, inadequate acknowledgment of predecessors, and lack of presentation of alternative views." Among the embarrassments that Kelley and other critics often use against Fell are a series of Celtic ogham inscriptions that were sent to Fell from McKee, Kentucky, in 1988. He dutifully translated the scripts, which later proved to be forgeries. Although Fell was the one to spot that they were fake, the damage was done.

Nevertheless, Kelley and others do credit Fell with raising the possibility of Celtic, Iberian, and North African connections to certain unexplained American inscriptions. The Grave Creek Stone, from West Virginia, is a typical example. Mainstream archaeologists, puzzled by the carvings on it, have long dismissed it as a forgery; but Fell suggested that its symbols derive from an ancient Punic, or Phoenician, alphabet used on the Iberian Peninsula during the first millennium B.C. -- a script unknown, and thus presumably unforgeable, at the time of the stone's discovery, in 1838. Kelley disagrees with Fell's theory that the Grave Creek symbols represent some sort of astronomical text. But the similarity of those symbols to obscure but undisputed Phoenician letters, he believes, is much more than coincidence -- and, at the least, Fell deserves credit for emphasizing the comparison.

It is unusual to detect even this much tolerance for Barry Fell in a member of the academic mainstream. But Kelley can be more enthusiastic yet. With regard to a celebrated (or notorious) hypothesis of Fell's that the stick-figure letters carved into stones at sites ranging from Vermont to Oklahoma are Celtic in origin, Kelley wrote in his Review of Archaeology essay, "I have no personal doubts that some of the inscriptions which have been reported are genuine Celtic ogham." These are the very markings that most orthodox scholars dismiss as plough marks or forgeries or the figments of febrile New Age imaginations. In addition, Kelley resists joining the many of his peers who take potshots at Fell's Druids of New England. He continued,

Despite my occasional harsh criticism of Fell's treatment of individual inscriptions, it should be recognized that without Fell's work there would be no [North American] ogham problem to perplex us. We need to ask not only what Fell has done wrong in his epigraphy, but also where we have gone wrong as archaeologists in not recognizing such an extensive European presence in the New World.

The way Kelley is described by his friend Michael Coe in Breaking the Maya Code (1992) suggests that he might secretly revel in his controversial, if guarded, support for Fell. Coe wrote,

[Dave is] a lively mixture of Irish puckishness and New England Yankee sobriety [whose] large frame, bald head, and leprechaun smile are familiar features at [academic] meetings, where he can always be expected to present a paper that may be unusual and even outrageous, according to one's lights, but is usually grounded in the most impeccable scholarship.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/01/001stengel2.htm

[John Williams]

A John you must not of finished reading... Kelly Goes on to say that "Some of Fells work" is plausable.

Or are you to biased to open your mind?

I read that. I also understand that Kelley is in the distinct minority in lending credence to Fell's work. It is rather interesting, isn't it, that the scholars who have done the bibliograpy of diffusionist literature are Sorenson and Raish from BYU.

I do not discount the diffusionist theories out of hand. What I have consistently said is that the data do not support the specific Book of Mormon diffusionist theory. But as another poster helpfully said, the data aren't all in.

And my knee-jerk reaction was to your use of a popular magazine's article. If a critic had come here with an article from the Atlantic, you would have laughed him or her out of here.

[Zakuska]

Ill attach this here as well.

[Bond...James Bond]

Bond...James Bond:

I never was very good at holding my breath.

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_metals.shtml

Um...I'm supposed to quake in fear when linked to a tool like Lindsay?

[peeps]

Ill attach this here as well.

Now if only we can find out more about this race of headless men, we might get somewhere on the horse issue!

[Zakuska]

Now if only we can find out more about this race of headless men, we might get somewhere on the horse issue!

Perhaps Washington Irving plagerized a Mayan legend?

[Heathen]

Ill attach this here as well.

Why is this necessarily a horse, and not a llama?

[peeps]

Why is this necessarily a horse, and not a llama?

I thought it looked like a tapir.

[Anijen]

3rd and 4th century

and here

[Zakuska]

Llamma? You tell me...

Why is the head pointed down in equine style (like a horse or a mule) instead of strait out?

See for example...

Royal Llamma of the Inka

Im sure the artison would have known the difference.

You also have to remember that Chitza Itza is where the Elephant reliefs come from. You know... like the ones outside Larry Millers Myana Restaurant.

<Picture forth coming>

Theres also the Elephant Headress of Copan.

peeps,

Looks more like a "Sacred Dog" than a Tapir.

[Anijen]

found in mexico

[Anijen]

Despite the departure of the mining folk, the names theyâ??d given to their surroundings stayed. Like Silverbell Road, where in 1924 Charles E. Manier took his family out for a Sunday drive and stopped to view an old, abandoned lime kiln. The lime produced by the kiln had interacted with the surrounding soil and created large, stratified deposits of caliche or â??desert cement.â? Manier saw something protruding from the caliche, retrieved a shovel from his car, and soon had in his possession a sixty-two pound cross, which closer examination revealed was actually two lead crosses riveted together.

Inscribed lead crosses found on Nov. 28, 1924 off of Silverbell Road, Pima County, Arizona & Prof. Cyclone Covey.

Manier found thirty one (some say thirty-two) lead objects on Silverbell Road, several miles outside of Tucson, between 1924 and 1930. The objects consisted of crosses, swords and ritual items, many of which were inscribed in Latin and Hebrew. Masonic emblems, specifically the square and compass symbol, were recognized early, but most investigators were apparently too concerned with the fantastic tale as told on the various inscribed artifacts to pursue any possible Masonic significance or origin. The tale, according to initial translations, involved Romans from early Medieval times sailing to North America. It was thought by the translators that a North American destination was named in the inscriptions, as â??Calalus, the Unknown Land.â? No one, at the time, dared to venture an explanation or etymology for Calalus and though some interest persisted, the matter was essentially forgotten until a history professor in the early 1970s became involved and eventually published a book which argued for acceptance of the fantastic tale (Covey 1975).

[Zakuska]

This one was intresting...

Recent Survival Of The Elephant In The Americas

Mayan "elephant motif".

Elephants were supposed to have disappeared from the America about 10,000 years ago as the Ice Ages waned. This date is another of those "consensus" scientific facts that no one dares challenge if he or she wishes to get published or win research grants. Although this subject remains "closed off" in normal scientific intercourse, there remain tantalizing hints that elephants roamed the Americas until very recently - perhaps even a few hundred years ago!

The following snippets are culled from two articles written by G. Carter, Texas A&M, now emeritus, but always heretical:

1. Numerous folk memories of the elephamt were retained by American Indians.

2. A mastadon was killed, cooked, and eaten by humans in Ecuador circa 1500 BC.

3. Indians told Thomas Jefferson that elephants could still be seen in the region of the Great Lakes.

4. In Florida, a cache of extinct animals, including elephants, was carbon-dated at 2000 BP.

5. Elephant heads are prominent in art and sculpture from Mexico, Central American, and northern South America.

(Carter, George F.; "A Note on the Elephant in America," and "The Mammoth in American Epigraphy," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 18:90 and 18:213, 1989.)

Reference. The evidence for the recent survival of the mammoth is presented in BMD10 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. Details here.

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf068/sf068b07.htm

Biological Anomalies: Mammals II: A Catalog of Biological Anomalies

Our fifth biology catalog completes out study of mammilian anomalies. This volume parallels Humans II and III with major sections on the fossil record and cryptozoology. In addition, there are shorter sections on genetics, organs, bodily functions, and interactions between mammals and other life forms.

Typical subjects covered:

Biochemical curiosities * Recent survivals of the mammoth, ground sloth, thylacine * Out-of-place mammals * Dearth of transistional fossils * Male lactation * Sleeplessness in mammals * Inheritance of rotational effects * Magnetite in mammals * Microbat data processing * The onza, nandi bear, Steller's sea ape, and others.

Comments from reviews: Essential for all libraries, schools and serious Forteans. Fortean Times

324pp, hardcover, $21.95, 89 illus., 3 indexes, 1996. 527 references, LC 91-68541. ISBN 0-915554-31-3. 7" x 10".

[Heathen]

found in mexico

Found in Alaska. (Size 10 1/2 foot for reference)

[Anijen]

Check out this site here interesting not steel but precolumbian...

[peeps]

* Male lactation

I'm really tired - this is all I can focus on from your post. I'm packing it in for tonight. Cheers.

[Heathen]

found in mexico

Found in Alaska. (Size 10 1/2 foot for reference)

[Zakuska]

I'm really tired - this is all I can focus on from your post. I'm packing it in for tonight. Cheers.

Heres the source for the Elephants:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin...=1&SRETRY=0

Maybe I should get back to steel.

[John Williams]

Ill attach this here as well.

That's one tiny horse, if the drawing is to proportion, particularly if the man is indeed headless. I'm thinking it looks more like a dog or a wolf.

[Scott Lloyd]

Good heavens, Scott. I hope you're not serious here. The text is pretty straightforward: Shule was angry and made swords to overthrow the king. No divine intervention is mentioned at all; it isn't presented as a miracle. I'm just shaking my head over this one. I suppose one could explain every anachronism as a miracle: God miraculously provided horses and chariots just when Lamoni needed them.

OK, you caught me in a moment of carelessness.

But with that mea culpa on the table, let me point out that the term "steel" is also found in the King James Bible in Old Testament passages, where the word would seem equally as anachronistic as it does in the Book of Mormon but probably refers to bronze.

Knowing that, it is not difficult for me to see that the term in the Book of Mormon -- the translation of which was rendered in a form imitative of the style and terminology of the King James Bible -- probably has a similar application.

[John Williams]

OK, you caught me in a moment of carelessness.

But with that mea culpa on the table, let me point out that the term "steel" is also found in the King James Bible in Old Testament passages, where the word would seem equally as anachronistic as it does in the Book of Mormon but probably refers to bronze.

Knowing that, it is not difficult for me to see that the term in the Book of Mormon -- the translation of which was rendered in a form imitative of the style and terminology of the King James Bible -- probably has a similar application.

I understand that "steel" in the OT refers generally to copper alloys; be that it may, the smelting and metallurgy described, even if it is copper or bronze, is still anachronistic in the New World.

As for the carelessness, I hope you took my response as lighthearted as it was meant.

[Zakuska]

I understand that "steel" in the OT refers generally to copper alloys; be that it may, the smelting and metallurgy described, even if it is copper or bronze, is still anachronistic in the New World.

As for the carelessness, I hope you took my response as lighthearted as it was meant.

Anachronistic in the new world? No more Anachronistic than "Fired Brick" in the constructiuon of some Mayan Temples and which lead Bill Fell to conclude that they where constructed by Romans/Phoenecians trained in Roman Brick Yards.

[John Williams]

Anachronistic in the new world? No more Anachronistic than "Fired Brick" in the constructiuon of some Mayan Temples and which lead Bill Fell to conclude that they where constructed by Romans.

It's Barry Fell, and as you have pointed out in another thread, his conclusions are not widely accepted. do you have a specific reference for "fired brick" in Mayan temples? I would like to see it before I give you another knee-jerk critical response.

[Zakuska]

Yes the Atalantic Article I earlier referenced. You should really read the Article, rather than dismiss it "out of hand" becuase it may have a reference or two to Atlantis.

Mayan Fired Bricks

When Fell came across an archaeological anomaly, he gnawed at it relentlessly until an explanation issued forth. For instance, his curiosity aroused by oddities at the Comalcalco temple site, on the coast of Tabasco, in southeastern Mexico, Fell prepared reams of comparative analysis in support of a Mediterranean role in the temple's origins. The key, he insisted, was the use of fired bricks in the construction of the temple walls -- an anomaly in the region. Comparing supposed masons' marks at the site with analogues from Rome, Crete, and Libya, Fell disputed mainstream assertions that this was a Classic Mayan site. With characteristic bravado he wrote that it was designed and probably built by "visitors from Europe and North Africa, trained in the manufacture of fired bricks in Roman brickyards." Moreover, these visitors came "during the first three centuries of the Christian era." Fell's absolute certainty, in this and myriad other epigraphic "explanations," inflamed mainstream scholars. But although another researcher has identified a few other instances of fired-brick construction in Mesoamerica, mysteries remain about Comalcalco and the profusion of its scripts. Fell's ghost is not easy to exorcise from this place.

Heres another source that speak of the fired bricks at Comalcalco temple...

http://www.delange.org/Comalcalco/Comalcalco.htm

So the earlier argument that Mayans didn't have "Special Fired Bricks" to be able to make Kilns capable of making steel is once again proven to be a red herring. Remember they also made white plaster with their Kilns at 900-100 Degrees C.