Iron-age Civilization Hidden a Few Feet Underground

[Rajah Manchou]

One of the main arguments against Book of Mormon historicity is that if there was a massive iron-producing civilization dating back to the 6th century BC, we would surely be able to find evidence of it. As an example of why that is not always immediately true, here is a massive iron-producing civilization dating back to the 6th century that was only recently discovered:

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GEORGE TOWN, June 9 — Tucked between plantations along a quiet country road near Merbok, Kedah, a team of archaeologists and students are busily excavating at a site that is known as South-east Asia's oldest civilisation. This is Kedah Tua in Sungai Batu, an ancient civilisation that dates back to 535 BC, earlier even than Borobudur in Java (9th century AD) and Angkor Wat, Cambodia (12th century AD). That's not all... this kingdom was a major iron exporter at the time, complete with mines, a smelting factory, a port and administrative buildings to support the industry.

What is missing are remnants of a palace, its thriving city and the burial sites of its people. Since 2009, archaeologists and archaeology students from Universiti Sains Malaysia’s (USM) Centre for Global Archaeological Research (CGAR) have been excavating the site to find these remnants and piece together the rise and fall of this ancient advanced civilisation in Kedah.

“In 535 BC, Kedah Tua was already exporting iron and this means its social hierarchy in the world was very high, they must have had a raja but so far, we have yet to uncover evidence of one,” said CGAR director Datuk Mokhtar Saidin.

“We call it Kedah Tua because we are still not sure about what type of kingdom there was during that period,” he added.

Kedah Tua was known as kedaram, kataha, kalaha or cheh-cha previously and this is directly linked to its iron industry because those words mean iron in different languages

He said it was not just any ancient civilisation but an advanced one with geologists to detect and mine iron and the technology to smelt it.

Iron needs 1600 degrees Celsius to smelt and in that period, the Kedah Tua kingdom already had that technology.

“The technology must be from somewhere else, from the migration of people from the west to the east, the knowledge flows to China,” Mokhtar said.

When the site was discovered back in 2009, Mokhtar said they didn't know the significance of it.

“There was no mention of this site in the history books, no mention of a thriving iron industry in Malaya or an advanced civilisation in the area… we didn't know civilisations existed here back in 535 BC so we didn't know what we had found until we pieced everything together,” he said.

The discovery of 12 jetties to form a major port off Sungai Batu was a sure sign that this was not just any small iron smelting plant but evidence of a thriving civilisation that was a major iron exporter to the world.

“It preceded Borobudur, it preceded Angkor Wat, it is history we never knew and discovering it as a civilisation meant history has to be changed… the oldest civilisation in South-east Asia is here in Malaysia, in Kedah Tua, not Borobudur,” he said.

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/archaeologists-search-for-a-king-in-sungai-batu#vQmqlem3jBivQE2K.97 

 

The civilization lies in the direct path of the Lehites and Mulekites, and takes hold within a few decades of their departure from the west. My position is that by looking at the history of this 6th century BC kingdom, we can demonstrate the plausibility of the Book of Mormon. 

[The Nehor]

22 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

The civilization lies in the direct path of the Lehites and Mulekites, and takes hold within a few decades of their departure from the west. My position is that by looking at the history of this 6th century BC kingdom, we can demonstrate the plausibility of the Book of Mormon. 

It does not lie in the direct path of the Lehites and it definitely is not in the direct path of the Mulekites (who probably got to the Americas through the Med and the Atlantic). The only way you can try to tie a Malaysian civilization to the Book of Mormon is if you argue that Lehi's party stopped in Malaysia on the way over and did not just resupply; they stopped long enough and had enough interaction to pass on metalworking to a civilization. That is a bit far-fetched. I am guessing they landed in a few places along the way to get water and maybe food but founding a civilization? Unlikely.

Unless you just meant that the civilization was not found suggesting the Book of Mormon civilizations are in a similar state? That makes sense but then why mention that it was in their path?

[Rajah Manchou]

38 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It does not lie in the direct path of the Lehites

Most proposed routes I have seen have the Lehites passing through the Strait of Malacca. The first point any ship reaches on this path is the civilization mentioned above.

38 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The only way you can try to tie a Malaysian civilization to the Book of Mormon is if you argue that Lehi's party stopped in Malaysia on the way over and did not just resupply; they stopped long enough and had enough interaction to pass on metalworking to a civilization. That is a bit far-fetched

Then who passed western technologies like metalworking on to that civilization? Another boat full of westerners leaving in the same decade? That seems more far-fetched to me. You don't have to call them Lehites, but it seems someone sailed from the Middle East through the Straits of Malacca in the 6th Century BC. 

38 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Unless you just meant that the civilization was not found suggesting the Book of Mormon civilizations are in a similar state? That makes sense but then why mention that it was in their path?

That is what I am suggesting, along with the addition that this unknown iron-age civilization was in the same time and place as the Lehites. The discovery of an iron-age civilization dating back to the 6th century BC, in roughly the same place the Lehites were at the same time does help establish the plausibility of the Book of Mormon account. It positions a Lehite-like group moving from Point A to Point B, I don't yet know how to get them to Point C in America. But this seems like a decent start.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[cdowis]

7 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

One of the main arguments against Book of Mormon historicity is that if there was a massive iron-producing civilization

This is another example of antiMormon mythology.  In fact, iron became so scarce that by 200BCE it was considered a precious metal along with gold and silver (Mosiah 11:8)   And, after 2500 years, steel swords will rust, especially in a tropical forest.

Their source of iron was apparently meteoric iron.  This "main argument" falls flat on its face in the light of the actual BOM text.

Edited October 28, 2017 by cdowis

[Rajah Manchou]

55 minutes ago, cdowis said:

This is another example of antiMormon mythology.  In fact, iron became so scarce that by 200BCE it was considered a precious metal along with gold and silver (Mosiah 11:8)   And, after 2500 years, steel swords will rust, especially in a tropical forest.

Their source of iron was apparently meteoric iron.  This "main argument" falls flat on its face in the light of the actual BOM text.

From this real world example in the tropical forests of Malaysia, it does seem clear that the iron artifacts have disintegrated, or were removed. However, the iron furnaces, clay pipes (bellows) and iron slag is found in abundance, numbering in the millions.

But the point of this post is to demonstrate that evidence of an entire iron-age civilization, likely from the Middle East, can be right under foot, undiscovered for centuries.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

One of the main arguments against Book of Mormon historicity is that if there was a massive iron-producing civilization dating back to the 6th century BC, we would surely be able to find evidence of it. As an example of why that is not always immediately true, here is a massive iron-producing civilization dating back to the 6th century that was only recently discovered:

The civilization lies in the direct path of the Lehites and Mulekites, and takes hold within a few decades of their departure from the west. My position is that by looking at the history of this 6th century BC kingdom, we can demonstrate the plausibility of the Book of Mormon. 

Very interesting, teaching us yet again that there is much left to discover about the past.  One thing, though: the Olmec were already producing tons of iron objects of various kinds (beads, mirrors, etc.) a millennium before Kedah Tua, even though we do not have evidence of any iron smelting in Mesoamerica. 

[cdowis]

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

From this real world example in the tropical forests of Malaysia, it does seem clear that the iron artifacts have disintegrated, or were removed. However, the iron furnaces, clay pipes (bellows) and iron slag is found in abundance, numbering in the millions.
 

OK, let's look at the real world.

1. You need to demonstrate that iron making was not simply a small craft industry in the BOM.  Again, there are no iron ore mines to supply such a large industry as you describe.  When Nephi made "many" swords to arm his people, how many were there of fighting age -- now many was "many"?

2. Is there any evidence that n Malaysia iron was considered a precious metal like gold and silver ??????

3. Are you aware how little excavation has been done in the pre-classic period in Mesoamerica?

The argument is still face down on the floor.  Your valiant, desperate attempt at CPR has failed to revive it.

Edited October 28, 2017 by cdowis

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, cdowis said:

OK, let's look at the real world.

1. You need to demonstrate that iron making was not simply a small craft industry in the BOM.  Again, there are no iron ore mines to supply such a large industry as you describe.  When Nephi made "many" swords to arm his people, how many were there of fighting age -- now many was "many"?

2. Is there any evidence that n Malaysia iron was considered a precious metal like gold and silver ??????

3. Are you aware how little excavation has been done in the pre-classic period in Mesoamerica?

The argument is still face down on the floor.  Your valiant, desperate attempt at CPR has failed to revive it.

I think you have misread the intention of my post. I am saying that it is possible that an iron-producing civilization like the ones found in the Book of Mormon can go undiscovered for centuries. I have cited one example in the OP.

[Tacenda]

15 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

One of the main arguments against Book of Mormon historicity is that if there was a massive iron-producing civilization dating back to the 6th century BC, we would surely be able to find evidence of it. As an example of why that is not always immediately true, here is a massive iron-producing civilization dating back to the 6th century that was only recently discovered:

The civilization lies in the direct path of the Lehites and Mulekites, and takes hold within a few decades of their departure from the west. My position is that by looking at the history of this 6th century BC kingdom, we can demonstrate the plausibility of the Book of Mormon. 

 Derail removed

Start your own topic if you want to talk about something else.

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

How can you account for all the anachronisms like elephants, horses, bees, the list goes on and on? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronisms_in_the_Book_of_Mormon

 

"anachronism" -- this is an antiMormon myth, perpetuated by the writer of the wiki article.

There are bees in mesoamerica, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingless_bee

horses were in North America,  and possible evidence that they were in Yucatan
"n 1895, Henry Mercer explored 29 caves in the Yucatán looking for evidence of prehistoric habitation. In the Loltún Cave and others he found the bones of many ancient animals, but no fossils. Between this dig and 1977, ancient horse bones have been found in the Huechil Grotto at Loltún . Exactly how they got there is unknown, but it is probable that they were brought there by ancient inhabitants, since it is believed that early man hunted native horses. Because these bones are not fossilized, there is a limit to how old they might be. A tantalizing (but rarely mentioned) sidenote is that the horse remains in some caves were found alongside potsherds and other man-made artifacts." 
http://www.bmaf.org/articles/ancient_horses__johnson

and elephants (mammoth) fossils found in Yucatan  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loltun_Cave

While the fossils pre-date the Book of Mormon, recent fossils of many animals which obviously live in the Americas have have not been discovered.  
These animals did exist in the Americas. 

"Not found, not exist" is a logical fallacy so "anachronism" is an antiMorrmon myth.

Edited October 28, 2017 by cdowis

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

How can you account for all the anachronisms like elephants, horses, bees, the list goes on and on? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronisms_in_the_Book_of_Mormon

There were domesticated elephants in 2500 BC. There were domesticated horses in 2500 BC. There were domesticated bees in 2500 BC.

There were also cows, goats, swine, barley, wheat, chariots, silk, steel, iron, cimeters, and that list in the link you provided goes on and on. 

For xample, these things are all present in the civilization described in the OP, dating to the correct time period. How could they possibly be anachronisms? The only way they become anachronisms is if you claim you know where the Book of Mormon took place, and that is something we don't know yet.

By looking at the history of this recently identified 6th century BC kingdom, we can demonstrate the plausibility of the Book of Mormon and can also demonstrate that there are no anachronisms in the Book of Mormon.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Rajah Manchou