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So There's No Archaeological Evidence For The Book Of Mormon?


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Posted

And there is nothing parrot-like those carvings, so I guess we are at a draw.

As Anijen mentioned previously, we now know the glyphs in question are indeed macaws, so it really doesn't matter if you or I think they look parrot-like.

Posted

I wonder too about the identification of things, i.e would a non member scholar know enough about the Book of Mormon to be making parallels?

 

Would a non LDS scholar even be trying to find parallels?

Posted (edited)

As Anijen mentioned previously, we now know the glyphs in question are indeed macaws, so it really doesn't matter if you or I think they look parrot-like.

 

Which glyphs did Anijen debunk?  From post 796, 800, or 811?

 

I will hold firm that macaws don's have protruding ears or walk on 4 legs as seen in the glyphs that I posted.

Edited by pogi
Posted

And in 2005 the Lamanites, were still the principal ancestors of the American Indians.

;)

 

You win some you lose some

Posted (edited)

Which glyphs did Anijen debunk?  From post 796, 800, or 811?

 

I will hold firm that macaws don's have protruding ears or walk on 4 legs as seen in the glyphs that I posted.

Neither do the glyphs. What Zak said were 4 legs (there were 5, actually) were part of a different glyph to which the macaw head was affixed. As I said to him, calling the two glyphs together an elephant is like putting T and h next to each other and saying it's a chair under a tree.

Edited by jkwilliams
Posted (edited)

Which glyphs did Anijen debunk?  From post 796, 800, or 811?

 

I will hold firm that macaws don's have protruding ears or walk on 4 legs as seen in the glyphs that I posted.

Maybe it was just artistic license.

Edited by CA Steve
Posted (edited)

Neither do the glyphs. What Zak said were 4 legs (there were 5, actually) were part of a different glyph to which the macaw head was affixed. As I said to him, calling the two glyphs together an elephant is like putting T and h next to each other and saying it's a chair under a tree.

 

Then you must have missed posts 800 and 811 which clearly show protruding ears and 4 legs.

Edited by pogi
Posted (edited)

This was intresting...

 

 

North America. David Ingram, a 16th century English sailor and explorer claimed to have walked across the interior of the North American continent from Mexico to Nova Scotia in 1568. Ingram signed on with English privateer John Hawkins in 1567 to raid and trade off the coasts of Portuguese Africa and Spanish Mexico (The Defeat of John Hawkins: A Biography of His Third Slaving Voyage (London, 1960). In November 1567, he was marooned with some 100 of his shipmates near Tampico on the coast of Mexico, about 200 miles south of the present Texas/Mexico border. Ingram and two dozen of his party struck out northward into the interior to avoid capture and eleven months later, in October 1568, he and two others (Twide and Browne) of his original party were picked up from the coast of Nova Scotia by French traders, and in return for helping negotiate with the locals, the French captain gave the three Englishmen passage back to Europe. How Ingram and the other two got there is attested only by Ingram's own account, written down 13 years later in 1582 by Sir Francis Walsingham (Ingram himself was illiterate) and published in 1589 in Richard Hakluyt’s "The Principall Navigations, Voiges and Discoveries of the English Nationm made by Sea or ouer Land, to the most remote and farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time within the colmpasse of these 1500 years," of 1589. 306C-Image+Hawkins+and+Map.jpg
Left: Privateer Captain John Hawkins who sailed under letters of Queen Elizabeth I; Right: Early map showing Ingram's course from Mexico through the U.S. to Nova Scotia
 Ingram's account is potentially of considerable historical interest, since he was ostensibly the first European to traverse the North American interior, and his report is peppered with intriguing tidbits, including what may be the first recorded description of an American bison. Some scholars have questioned the entire story, on the grounds that it would have been physically impossible to walk over 3,000 miles through the wilderness in only 11 months, but in 1999 British writer Richard Nathan retraced Ingram's journey in reverse, walking from Nova Scotia to Tampico in just 9 months. In this report to the state secretary of Queen Elizabeth, he described precisely and drew accurate pictures of elephants as well as bison and other animals he and his companions had observed during the journey Charlton Ogburn "The Longest Walk: David Ingram's Amazing Journey," American Heritage Magazine, 1979, Vol 30 #3Ingram could not have known that some centuries later, elephant bones (mastodons and mammoth) would be discovered all over the continent. It is also a curious fact that 200 years later President Thomas Jefferson was informed by a delegation of Indian chiefs that hunting in the interior lands included animals described as elephants. It is a matter of record that President Jefferson asked Lewis and Clark to be on the alert for elephant herds during their exploration of the West (Herbert Wendt,In Search of Adam, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1956, p.525-526). Even as late as 1560 “the Italian cartographer Paula de Furlani drew a map, which is preserved in the British Museum, depicting elephants in the region of the Mississippi Valley. 
 Some scholars have suggested that the elephant (mammoth or mastodon) lived later than hitherto believed. Ludwell Johnson, in an article entitled “Men and Elephants in America” published in Scientific Monthly, wrote that “Discoveries of associations of human and proboscidean remains [Elephantine mammals, including, elephants, mammoths, and mastodons] are by no means uncommon. As of 1950, MacCowan listed no less than twenty-seven” including, as noted by Hugo Gross, a “partly burned mastodon skeleton and numerous potsherds at Alangasi, Ecuador.”

 

http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2012/12/another-look-at-elephants-in-ancient_20.html

Edited by Zakuska
Posted

Quetzal Temple of the Cross, Palenque Animal Hieroglyphs

 

The color of the bird and the very long tail feathers have already been mentioned, and these explain the reason of the importance of this bird among the Mayas. It is claimed by several old authorities that the quetzal was reserved for the rulers, and that it was death for any common person to kill this bird for his own use. It seems from a statement in[341] Landa (1864, p. 190) that birds were domesticated for the feathers. This bird occurs again and again in various modifications throughout the Maya art. The feathers of the quetzal are the ones usually associated with the serpent, making the rebus, Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, the culture hero of the Nahuas, or Kukulcan, which has the same signification among the Mayas. It is impossible to mention here all the various connections in which the quetzal appears. The feathers play an important part in the composition of the head-dresses of the priests and warriors, especially those in the stone carvings. A quotation has already been given from Landa, showing the use made of feathers in the dress of the people. Text shows perhaps the most elaborate representation of this bird. It is found on the sculptured tablet of the Temple of the Cross at Palenque. The quetzal is shown seated on top of a branching tree which was long taken to represent a cross. A similar representation is seen[342] on the tablet of the Temple of the Foliated Cross from the same ruined city. In the Codex Fejervary-Mayer, there are four trees in each of which there is a bird. A quetzal is perched in the one corresponding to the east, which is regarded as the region of opulence and moisture. Seler (1901, p. 17) suggests that the quetzal in the tree on the two bas-reliefs at Palenque may represent a similar idea and that temples which would show the other three trees and their respective birds had not been built in that center.
Mayan+Birg+Hieroglyphs+tragon.png
 
The representation of the quetzal as an entire bird is, after all, comparatively rare. The most realistic drawing is seen on a jar from Copan in the collections of the Peabody Museum. The whole body of the bird is shown as a head-dress in a few places in the codices where birth and the naming of children are pictured. In Dresden 16c (fig. 3) and Tro-Cortesianus 94c ( fig. 6), the quetzal is the head-dress of women. In Dresden 13b , fig. 2), a partial drawing of the bird is shown as a part of the head-dress of god E, in Dresden 7c , fig. 1) of god H, and in Tro-Cortesianus 110c of god F. The feathers alone appear as a female head decoration in Dresden 20c , fig. 8). It occurs as a sacrifice among the rites of the four years in Tro-Cortesianus 36b , fig. 12). In Tro-Cortesianus 70a (, fig. 5), it is found in the act of eating fruit growing over the “young god.” In Tro-Cortesianus 100b , fig. 4), the bird is perched over the encased head of god C.
There seems to be a glyph used for the quetzal. In those drawn in  figs. 10, 17, it is noticeable that the anterior part only of the head is shown. The first is a glyph from the tablet of the Temple of the Sun at Palenque, and at least suggests the quetzal by the feathers on the top of the head, as also , fig. 13, a glyph from Copan, Stela 10, where the entire head appears in a much conventionalized form. Other glyphs are shown in figs. 14-16, in which there is a single prominent recurved feather shown over the eye, succeeded by a few conventionalized feathers, then one or more directed posteriorly. It is to be noted that whereas in many[343] previous examples of glyphs the full drawing of the animal or bird has been found in connection with them, here with the quetzal glyphs there is no instance where a drawing of the bird occurs with them. A curious human figure  fig. 19), with a head decoration similar to the frontal curve and markings on the quetzal glyphs (fig. 14-16), may possibly represent this bird in some relation
Mayan+Animal+Hieroglyphs+Blue+macaw.png
.
Blue Macaw (Ara militaris). A large macaw (Maya, mox or ṭuṭ) is undoubtedly pictured in the figures in . The least conventionalized drawing found is that shown in Dresden 16c  fig. 2), a bird characterized by long narrow tail feathers, a heavy bill, and a series of scale-like markings on the face and about the eye. Further conventionalized drawings are found in , figs. 3, 10, 13, and , fig. 1. In all these the tail is less characteristic, though composed of long, narrow feathers, and the facial markings are reduced to a ring of circular marks about the eye. These last undoubtedly represent, as supposed by Stempell, the bare space about the eye found in certain of these large parrots. In addition, the space between the eye and the base of the bill is partially bare with small patches of feathers scattered at somewhat regular intervals in rows. It is probable that this appearance is represented by the additional round marks about the base of the bill in , figs. 1, 2, 5, 8, the last two of which show the head only. There has hitherto been some question as to the identity of certain stone carvings, similar to that on Stela B from Copan, of which a portion is shown in , fig. 8. This has even been interpreted as the trunk of an elephant or a mastodon, but is unquestionably a macaw’s beak. In addition to the ornamental crosshatching on the beak, which is also seen on the glyph from the same stela ( fig. 5), there is an ornamental scroll beneath the eye which likewise is crosshatched and surrounded by a ring of subcircular marks that continue to the base of the beak. The nostril is the large oval marking directly in front of the eye.
The animal in Dresden 40b , fig. 1) has always[344] been considered to be a tortoise (Schellhas, 1904, p. 44, and Förstemann, 1904). This animal, together with the dog, is found beneath the constellation signs carrying firebrands; both are regarded as lightning beasts. By comparing the head of the figure shown in , fig. 1, with figs. 2, 4, 5, of the same plate, the reasonableness of the identification of this head as that of a macaw and not that of a tortoise appears clear. The same figure occurs in Tro-Cortesianus 12a , fig. 3) carrying a torch.
In order to make this point clearer, we will take up the consideration of the glyphs at this place, rather than at the end of the section as usual. As the macaw in , fig. 1, has been hitherto identified as a turtle, so the glyph found in connection with it  has been considered to stand for the turtle. , fig. 7, is another drawing of the same glyph. By comparing the markings on the face of fig. 1, it is seen that a similar ring surrounds the eye shown on the glyph. The second glyph , fig. 7) is better drawn and shows, in addition to the eye ring, the slightly erectile feathers at the back of the head. Comparison with the glyphs representing turtles hitherto confused with these macaw glyphs shows differences, the most important of which are of course the eye ring and the feathers at the back of the head.
Various other glyphs occur which undoubtedly represent the heads either of macaws or smaller parrots. They are, for the most part, glyphs from the stone inscriptions. A crest, resembling that depicted on the head of the quetzal, is found on a glyph on Altar Q from Copan  fig. 10). The eye ring, however, seems to indicate the macaw which also has slightly erectile feathers on the head. Much doubt is attached to the identification of the glyph of the month Kayae from Stela A, Quirigua , fig. 9). It resembles closely the glyphs of the turtle ( figs. 7-9) and especially that on , fig. 10. The Quirigua glyph has a prominent fleshy tongue, however, like the parrot. From the fact that the glyph is certainly that for the month Kayab and the[345] Kayab glyphs in the codices , fig. 10) resemble the sign for a, in the Landa alphabet which seems to stand for ak (turtle), we are led to identify this as a turtle rather than a parrot.

Pogi hope this helps. I was in your shoes years ago and would fight to the death that they were elephants, but then I studied. Call up, email a Mayan glyph expert. Ask Mark Wright of BYU. Anyway take care.

Posted

I would like to add there is Mayan ceramics that some of the images also look like elephants and some stone cutting as well, these are bats or the rain god.

Posted (edited)

And there is nothing parrot-like those carvings, so I guess we are at a draw.

Again, not to be argumentative but looking at the glyph Zakuska posted (the one that looks like an elephant), we can make many similar comparisons to the macaw glyph and see there are plenty "parrot-like" similarities.

 

edited to add:  I lack the puter skills to make these images smaller. Begging forgiveness....

Edited by Anijen
Posted (edited)

nun-rain72.jpg                                                                                                                                                            These are stone carvings of Chac the rain god. You can see the elephant like trunk, but it is actually the nose of Chac

Edited by Anijen
Posted

They are slowly coming around:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth

 

  •  "Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)". The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  • Jump up to:a b Dale Guthrie, R. (2004). "Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island". Nature 429

No... They're really not coming around:

"They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,500 years ago[1][2] in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America."

Posted (edited)

It's interesting mostly because I wonder what you find compelling about this. Ingram was an illiterate British sailor who had been on voyages around Africa and South America. In 1567, he was marooned in northern Mexico and was picked up by the French nearly a year later in Nova Scotia. 13 years later he told a rather fantastical story to Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary to Queen Elizabeth. The account was published in 1589 in Richard Hakluyt's Principall navigations, but when Hakluyt published his second printing, he omitted Ingram's account, having concluded it was mostly fabrication,

Following are some highlights.

 

Some animals he saw:

 

Item what kinde of beastes and cattell he sawe there. / He hath confessed, y* he sawe a beast in all pointes like unto a horse, savinge he had two longe tuskes, of which beast he was put in great dawnger of his lyfe, but he escaped by clyminge a tree Also that there be wyld horses of goodly shape, but the people of the country have not the use of them Further that there, be shepe, which beareth redde woole, sume thinge course. / there flesh good to eat, but is very redde. / ...

He hath confessed that there be in that country great aboundaunce of a kinde of beast almost as bigge agayne as an oxe, in shape of body not much differinge from an oxe, savinge that he

hath eares of a great bignes, that are in fashone much like unto the eares of a bloudhound having there on very longe heare, and lykwyse on his breast, and other partes of his bodye longe

heare. /

Here is his description of Norumbega, a city that he places in present-day Bangor, Maine:

 

He hath confessed yt farre into the land there be many pleople [sic], and that he sawe a towne halfe a myle longe, and hath many streates farre broader then any streat in London. / Further yt the men gooe naked savinge only the myddell part of them covered, with skynnes of beastes, and with leaves, And that genirallye all men weare about there armes dyvers hoopes of gold and silver which are of good thicknes. / and lykwyse they weare the lyke about the samle [sic] of there legges. / which hoopes are garnished with pearle, dyvers of them as bigge as ones thume. / That the womenne of the countrye, gooe aparyled, with plates of gold over there body much lyke unto an armor, about the myddest of there bodye they weare, leafes, which hath growinge there one very long much lyke unto heare. / and lykwyse a bout there armes and the smale of there legges they 

weare hoppes of gold and sylver, garnyshed with fayer pearle. / ...

He hath confessed y1 they buyld there howses round lyke a dowhouse and hath in like manner a lover on the toppes of there howses / and that there be many pillors that upholdeth many

thinges, of gold and silver very massye and great, and lykewise many pyllors of Cristall / ... their houses are made round like Dove houses, and they doe dwell together in Townes and Villages. And some of them have banqueting houses on the top of them made like the loover of a hall, builded with pillars of massie silver, and chrystall, framed square:whereof many of them are as big as a boyes leg of fifteene yeeres of age, and some lesse. ...

The Kings in those Countries are clothed with painted or precious colloured garments, and thereby you may know them, and they stones. weare great precious stones, which commonly are Rubies, being 4 inches long and two inches broad. And if the same bee taken from them, either by force or Sleight, they are presently deprived of their kingdomes. The Kings When they meane to speake with any person publikely, they in their are alwaies carried by men in a sumptuous chaire of Silver or Christal, garnished with divers sortes of precious stones.

Ingram describes a heavily populated country filled with large, organized cities full of silver and gold and pearls (he says most people have "quarts" of pearls in their homes (the ones that are built on pillars of crystal, silver, and gold). The natives, he tells us, wear heavy gold and silver jewelry, and the women wear gold plating like armor all over their bodies. But let's get to the part about elephants:

 

Hee did also see in that Countrey both Elephants and Ounces. Hee did also see one other strange Beaste bigger then a Beare, he had neither head nor necke: his eyes and mouth were in his breast. This beast is very ugly to beholde, and cowardly shapen of kinde. It beareth a very fine skin like a Rat, full of silver Beast' haires.

Remember that Ingram had traveled around Africa with British merchant shipping, so he would have known about elephants. In fact, he names them as such. The way your citation couches it, Ingram's accurate drawing of an elephant means he must have seen it in the Americas, the unwritten suggestion being that he couldn't have seen it elsewhere.

The problem with all of this is the one that Hakluyt recognized long ago: there is so much that is obviously exaggerated and fantastical that it overshadows the accurate bits. If we are to take Ingram's accounts at face value, these massive, incredibly wealthy cities, kingdoms, flora, and fauna all disappeared within 75 years of his wanderings. How is it that, when those portions of North America were settled within 50-75 years, no one saw these silver and gold pillared houses, kings on silver and jeweled litters, great horses with two tusks, red sheep, animals with eyes and mouth in its torso, and everything else he describes?

It's difficult to say how Ingram got from Mexico to Nova Scotia in 11 months. That timetable is plausible, except Ingram says it took 8 months for him to get from Tampico, Mexico, to Northern Florida, which means he traveled the length of the east coast of North America from Northern Florida to Nova Scotia, in 3 months. That isn't particularly plausible.

In the end, these kinds of "hits" fall apart rather quickly upon examination. As with the "elephant" Mayan glyphs, one must look at the bigger picture rather than looking at these admittedly intriguing tidbits in isolation.

Edited by jkwilliams
Posted

I've tracked down the "long, thin arms" reference.

Dice Torquemada que en un baile dado por los Toltecas, se les apareció el diablo en figura de gigante, y abrazándolos con sus desmesurados brazos, los iba ahogando en medio de la fiesta: despues se dejó ver bajo el aspecto de un muchacho, con la cabeza podrida, y les comunicó la pestilencia; y que, finalmente, a persuasión del mismo diablo abandonaron el país de Tula.

Roughly translated, this reads:

"Torquemada says that in a dance given by the Toltecs, the devil appeared before them in the form of a giant, and embracing them with its disproportionate arms, it began suffocating them in the midst of the party: after that, they saw beneath it the appearance of a child, with a rotten face, and it brought them pestilence; and that, finally, being persuaded by this same devil they abandoned the land of Tula."

Essentially, then, Roper and Brown--and apparently Adrienne Mayor--are conflating two different stories involving giants:

1. A Tlaxcaltecan legend about outsmarting "giant" chichimecas (refers to any number of nomadic, hunter-gather tribes).

2. A Toltec legend about the devil appearing during a dance and bringing pestilence to the land.

I can see how combining the story of breaking off tree branches and the mention of disproportionate arms might suggest something vaguely elephantine. But these stories are not related, neither is remotely suggestive of elephants, and there is no reason to conflate the stories, except to make them more suggestive of elephants.

To put it mildly, I am completely unimpressed with this FairMormon article.

Posted (edited)

Anijen, thanks for the references.  I can see how those particular glyphs could be considered macaws or bats, but I don't see it in the glyphs that I have posted in post 800 and 811.  There is no possible way those could be macaws in my view.  

 

Does anybody have an explanation for the Father Crespi glyphs here?

Edited by pogi
Posted

Anijen, thanks for the references.  I can see how those particular glyphs could be considered macaws or bats, but I don't see it in the glyphs that I have posted in post 800 and 811.  There is no possible way those could be macaws.  

 

Does anybody have an explanation for the Father Crespi glyphs here?

It's difficult to reach any conclusions because even Crespi himself did not know the provenance of these artifacts, they haven't been seen in more than 30 years, and no one has ever even attempted to verify and date them.

Although I did learn from one web site that Carlo Crespi was actually Adolf Hitler in disguise after he fled Germany following the war. Good to know. :)

Posted (edited)

jkwilliams,

 

The animal with two tusk sounds like a Gomphotherium angustidens To me.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Gomphotherium_angustidens.jpg

 

The're found all over north and south America. They could easily be called a close cousin to the Elephant and infact are. How did this "illiterate British sailor" see them in the 1500s on his walk through North America unless they really where there?

Edited by Zakuska
Posted (edited)

The animal with two tusk sounds like a Gomphotherium angustidens To me.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Gomphotherium_angustidens.jpg

 

There found all over north and south America. They could easily be called a close cousin to the Elephant.

Except your source knew what an elephant looked like, having traveled through Africa, and knew it by name. As far as the animal you're talking about, Ingram said it was "in all pointes like unto a horse," which aside from the tusks, doesn't seem like a close cousin to the elephant.

ETA: And of course we have no reason to take anything Ingram said at face value, as he clearly made up stories about houses with silver, gold, crystal pillars (topped by dining halls); a land littered with pearls and huge rubies; and women who wore gold plating from head to toe.

He's simply not a reliable source, and even if he were, he was clear it was in all points like a horse, except it had two tusks. How do you get "elephant" from that?

I think you know how silly this all is.

Edited by jkwilliams
Posted (edited)

Except your source knew what an elephant looked like, having traveled through Africa, and knew it by name. As far as the animal you're talking about, Ingram said it was "in all pointes like unto a horse," which aside from the tusks, doesn't seem like a close cousin to the elephant.

ETA: And of course we have no reason to take anything Ingram said at face value, as he clearly made up stories about houses with silver, gold, crystal pillars (topped by dining halls); a land littered with pearls and huge rubies; and women who wore gold plating from head to toe.

He's simply not a reliable source, and even if he were, he was clear it was in all points like a horse, except it had two tusks. How do you get "elephant" from that?

I think you know how silly this all is.

Ah but:

 

1) Gomphotherium are cousins to the Elephant the're on the same family tree.

2) Even Exagerations have a seed of truth.

3) Herds of wild horses how many years after Columbus? 1567 - 1492 = 75

Edited by Zakuska
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