Ancient Nephite Textiles

[Uncle Dale]

How many iron or metal mines are found in the central jungle?

Not many, so with limited resources the weaponry might be superior but in such limited number as to be of some short term advantage.

The Chinese had gunpowder, which of course gave them world domination over the Mongols and other nations.....

You know what?

There was a time when I looked at such controversies through eyes like yours.

From your side of the fence.

Well, at least from the Reorganized LDS side of the fence, which is much the same.

I've moved on.

Will you one day do the same?

UD

[Brant Gardner]

If the Nephites and Mulekites were essentially pacifists, who were uninterested

in subduing neighboring Amerind tribes, they may have had so little interaction

with them, as to leave no trace of cultural borrowing, either way.

We don't know enough about the Mulekites to know about their concepts of militarism, but the Nephites did not appear to initiate military actions. Nevertheless, they were attacked throughout the text. There was obviously military interaction. However, I see no reason to limit it. I see textual evidence of cultural borrowings which included social order, definitions of economic status and certain religious ideas (all of which were deemed apostasy).

But, so far as I can tell from re-constructions of preColumbian history, the Nephites

would have had to live in some very remote corner of the Americas, out of the

path of migrations and conquests, not to have significantly encountered the Indians.

Quite true. However, I would never suggest that they had no interaction. I am simply suggesting that the logical path of cultural diffusion was from the larger, established populations into the immigrant and that there was very little the immigrant population could have offered that would have been attractive (metal working being an obvious exception).

Again -- if what you propose was really the case, I would expect to find a

"blank spot" in the geographic distribution of artifacts attributable to Indians,

in which the Nephites/Lamanites existed for centuries, without interactions

with their neighbors. Can you locate such a place on the archaeological map?

That would be a fool's errand. What I find is locations where the material culture shows signs of participation in the greater physical culture around them--rather like the temple of Solomon being built on a typical Levantine model.

[Jeff K.]

You know what?

There was a time when I looked at such controversies through eyes like yours.

From your side of the fence.

Well, at least from the Reorganized LDS side of the fence, which is much the same.

I've moved on.

Will you one day do the same?

UD

As a convert to the LDS side I would say yes, I have indeed progressed in my movement. But I appreciate the interaction and questions you raise.

[Uncle Dale]

...

That would be a fool's errand.

...

So was the quest to find Troy -- but it eventually bore fruit.

Perhaps the Latter Day Saint quest to understand the BoM accounts,

in terms of American history and geography will yet yield some fruit.

It would not be quite the same thing, as many here might envision --

but the discovery of some ancient Palestinian ship's wreckage, in

the age old mud of an American harbor, might one day have us all

rushing back to our keyboards to pound out our "I told you so's."

We shall see.

UD

[pcarthew]

There are no Nephites, never have been any Nephites, hence no Nephite textiles. Marrying indengious cultures into Smith's fictions is nothing more then cultrial thievery.....

I suggest the better comparison of Nephite textiles would be with the textiles of Hobbits.....

Boy, all this time I have been believing....Based on your two lines of babble here you have got to be right! Now where are those Hobbits....I wonder if they have the answer to my questions?

[Brant Gardner]

So was the quest to find Troy -- but it eventually bore fruit.

I agree that searching for the right things can bear fruit. The discovery of Troy is actually reasonably relevant. The text was searched for geographic clues, and then a dig was made at the plausible location. Ruins were found that dated to the right time period.

The one difference is that the nature of the cultures told us a little of what to expect. Nevertheless, the site of Troy is accepted without any signposts saying "this is Troy." It is an argument built on the combination of the textual evidence and archaeology.

I suggest that the same has been done for the Book of Mormon. What I referred to as a "fool's errand" was attempting to find a location that was unaffected by a surrounding culture. That very definition of the problem is so unlikely in historical contacts that it is simply the wrong premise.

It would not be quite the same thing, as many here might envision --

but the discovery of some ancient Palestinian ship's wreckage, in

the age old mud of an American harbor, might one day have us all

rushing back to our keyboards to pound out our "I told you so's."

Except that it wouldn't do anything in the academic community to support the Book of Mormon. There are indications that other peoples may have ended up on this continent, but the supposition is that they had no effect--a shipwreck or two (or more).

Oddly enough, about the same number of people as in Lehi's party--archaeologists don't expect that they had any effect on the culture at all.

[Uncle Dale]

...

What I referred to as a "fool's errand" was attempting to find a location that was

unaffected by a surrounding culture.

...

And yet, at whatever level of occupation writers now identify "Troy," my understanding

of that identification, is that it is partly based upon that level NOT being a Mycenaean

city -- of its having stables for the famous horses of Troy, etc. etc.

It would be a waste of time to dig exploration trenches through all the tells of

Asia Minor, searching for a site that had no evidence of Mycenaean/Minoan contact;

but finding evidence of those particular cultures in abundance, might warn us that

we had NOT discovered Troy.

Same thing goes for Meso-America. Our digging through layers of continuous occupation

at a site that indicated only a progressive development of a Native American culture,

with absolutely no evidence of exotic intrusions, might serve to warn us that we had

NOT discovered Zarahemla.

On the other hand, discovery of a site showing evidence of the sudden appearance of

a fully developed culture, occupied during the Nephite period, and showing indications

of something more than the surrounding material culture(s), might at least give us hope

that we had come upon an intrusive site of colonization.

Again, if the textiles, ceramics, burial evidence, etc. discovered at that site were

markedly different from those of the surrounding material culture(s), we might at least

theorize that we had come upon such a colony.

All of which leads me to say that while my original suggestion may be a "fool's errand;"

is was not without some basis in logic.

Unless Israelite culture was very inferior to native American culture, we might expect a

Hebrew-speaking, Egyprian-writing people, operating under the supernatural influence

of Divine Providence, to retain its metallurgy, weaponry, ceramics, textiles, etc.

Am I totally wrong?

Does the BoM LGT predict the existence of such a site, south of Mexico and north of Peru?

UD

.