metallurgy

“Joseph ascertained that the remaining articles were a gold hilt and a chain, and a gold ball with two pointers.  The hilt and chain had once been part of a sword of unusual size; but the blade had rusted away and become useless.  Joseph then turned the rock back, took the article in the pillow-case, and returned to the wagon; the devils, with more hideous yells than before, followed him to the fence; as he was getting over the fence, one of the devils struck him with a blow on his side, where a black and blue spot remained three or four days; but Joseph persevered and brought the article safely home.  “I weighed it, “ said Mr. Smith, Senior, “and it weighed thirty pounds. 

In answer to our question, as to what it was that Joseph had thus obtained, he said it consisted of a set of gold plates, about six inches wide, and nine or ten inches long.  They were in the form of a book, but were held together by several gold rings, in such a way that the plates could be opened similar to a book.  Under the first plate, or lid, he found a pair of spectacles, about one and a half inches longer than those used at the present day, the eyes not of glass, but of diamond.“
Joseph Smith Sr.’s 1830 interview with Fayette Lapham (Early Mormon Documents I, p 462) 

“Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor, and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kib.”
Ether 7, verse 10, The Book of Mormon

The anachronistic use of advanced metallurgy in the Book of Mormon, combined with the frequent mention of gold and silver as important items in the Nephite world, present one of the greatest challenges to Book of Mormon scholars.  As explained in the previous section, some Book of Mormon scholars avail themselves of the idea of translation errors, or translation artifacts, to justify the presence of other anachronisms. However, given the fact that Joseph Smith and others testified as to the actual existence of Nephite artifacts that could only have been crafted with the skills of advanced metallurgy, that recourse is not an option in this discussion.  Hence, Book of Mormon scholars are left with little choice but to do their best to demonstrate that, despite the consensus of Mesoamerican scholars, ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica did, in fact, possess the art of metallurgy as early as the Jaredite era.  This article will address some of those attempts, as well as present the basic view of Mesoamerican scholars on the subject.  Once again, I will use the “if…then” technique to try to center certain claims within a contextual framework. 

The overall consensus of Mesoamerican scholars is that advanced metallurgy, including smelting, did not exist in ancient Mesoamerica until the Late Postclassic period, or around 800 AD.  However, ancient Mesoamericans were well aware of native metals that occur either in natural outcrops, or in meteoric rocks, and made some use of that metal.  Evidence of this can be found as early as the Olmec period.  A distinction must be made between these two issues, and Book of Mormon scholars sometimes fail to make that distinction.  

In her essay Does the Shoe Fit?  A Critique of the Limited Tehuantepec Geographcy from New Approaches to the Book of Mormon, Deanne Matheny makes this distinction, on page 283: 

“In discussing metals, it is important to distinguish between metalworking, the “the act or process of shaping things out of metal,” and metallurgy, the “science and technology of metals,” which may involve such processes as smelting, casting, and alloying.  Many groups in both the Old World and the New developed the art of cold-hammering naturally occurring nuggets of copper, gold, and meteoric iron.  This art did not require the smelting of ores.  The discovery of the properties of metal and their ores in the Old World was likely a gradual one.  People first recognized native metals, especially gold, copper, and meteoric iron, then learned that certain ores contained metals, and finally discovered how to smelt the metals (Raymond 1986, 9-10).  The reference to metals in the Book of Mormon strongly imply an advanced knowledge of metallurgy including the casting and alloying of metals.” 

Do the references in the Book of Mormon strongly imply an advanced knowledge of metallurgy? Along with the aforementioned Ether reference, the following verses not only imply, but explicitly state the use of metallurgy, or processes related to it. 

Ether 10
23 And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore, they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. 

1 Nephi 17
8 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters. 
9 And I said: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?
10 And it came to pass that the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools.
11 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make a bellows wherewith to blow the fire, of the skins of beasts; and after I had made a bellows, that I might have wherewith to blow the fire, I did smite two stones together that I might make fire.
12 For the Lord had not hitherto suffered that we should make much fire, as we journeyed in the wilderness; for he said: I will make thy food become sweet, that ye cook it not;
13 And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led.
14 Yea, and the Lord said also that: After ye have arrived in the promised land, ye shall know that I, the Lord, am God; and that I, the Lord, did deliver you from destruction; yea, that I did bring you out of the land of Jerusalem.
15 Wherefore, I, Nephi, did strive to keep the commandments of the Lord, and I did exhort my brethren to faithfulness and diligence.
16 And it came to pass that I did make tools of the ore which I did molten out of the rock. 

Additionally, several verses in the Book of Mormon explicitly mention metals that can only be created through advanced metallurgy, such as steel.  Other verses mention dross, which is the result of advanced metallurgy, as well. 

2 Nephi 5
14 And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I knew their hatred towards me and my children and those who were called my people.
15 And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. 

Jarom 1
8 And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war. 

Alma 32
1 AND it came to pass that they did go forth, and began to preach the word of God unto the people, entering into their synagogues, and into their houses; yea, and even they did preach the word in their streets.
2 And it came to pass that after much labor among them, they began to have success among the poor class of people; for behold, they were cast out of the synagogues because of the coarseness of their apparel--
3 Therefore they were not permitted to enter into their synagogues to worship God, being esteemed as filthiness; therefore they were poor; yea, they were esteemed by their brethren as dross; therefore they were poor as to things of the world; and also they were poor in heart. 

Alma 34
28 And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.
29 Therefore, if ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under foot of men. 

The art of advanced metallurgy is an example, like the horse, of a technology that has the power to reshape history.  This is particularly true in warfare, which is a constant theme in both the Book of Mormon, and ancient Mesoamerica.  Deanne Matheny makes the case that the frequent mention of swords, along with the statement of how the swords were made, strongly implies that the swords were made of a metal substance. Certainly the aforementioned scripture in Ether 7:10 explicitly states as much, and Nephi strongly implies it as well: 

2 Nephi 5
14 And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I knew their hatred towards me and my children and those who were called my people.
15 And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. 

He had previously described the sword of Laban:

1 Nephi 4
9    And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was pure gold, and the worksmanship thereof was exceeding fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel. 

We already know from 1 Nephi 17 that Nephi knew the art of smelting and metallurgy from the Old World:

10 And it came to pass that the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools.
11 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make a bellows wherewith to blow the fire, of the skins of beasts; and after I had made a bellows, that I might have wherewith to blow the fire, I did smite two stones together that I might make fire.

Certainly Nephi was from a culture that took advantage of the skill of metallurgy in general, and in warfare in particular. 

 He had the ability to smelt metal, and to craft tools to build a ship.  Why not a sword, just like Laban’s?  It is only due to the fact that Book of Mormon scholars with a background in ancient Mesoamerica know that there is no evidence of such technology or weaponry in the specified time and area that leads them to speculate that the swords mentioned in the Book of Mormon were actually Mesoamerican weaponry, like the atlatl or the macuahuitl.  Matheny discusses Hamblin and Merrill’s attempts to connect the Book of Mormon sword to the macuahuitl, and notes that the very few early Preclassic examples they cite are types of clubs, not swords, and that there is no evidence for the existence of a sword-like macuahuitl during the specified Book of Mormon time period. 

atlatl

From The Aztecs, by Richard Townsend, page 13:

“The basic units of the Spanish forces were infantry and cavalry to which were added separate units of arquebusiers (musketeers) and cross-bowmen, as well as the crews that manned the small cannon.  The principal use of firearms was to break down the enemy charges, before the warriors could effectively launch their darts, slingstones, and arrows.  Cavalry was used to break the enemy lines by charging and following up with swords, after which the infantry moved in, wielding swords and long pikes tipped with steel blades.  These weapons were more effective than the obsidian-bladed clubs carried by the Indians, for not only was more time required to lift and swing a club than to thrust and jab with a sword, but more space was needed, meaning the Indians tended to advance in loose formations.  By contrast the Spanish pikemen advanced shoulder to shoulder in deep file formations, with the projecting lines of pikes offering an almost impregnable barrier.” 

 In regards to the atlalt, once again, this dates from the wrong time period, as noted in the Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, page 145:

“The atlatl, or spear-thrower, was a wooden stick about a half meter (almost 2 feet) long.  One end was notched for a javelin or dart, the opposite end had two holes.  Placing his index and middle fingers through the holes, a warrior launched the chert- or obsidian-pointed weapon at his target about 45 meters (almost 150 feet) away with more than twice as much force and more accuracy than could be accomplished by using his arm alone.  The atlatl, introduced into the Maya region by Teotihuacan around the fourth century, represented thunderbolts hurled by Tlaloc, the central Mexican god of storm and war." 

Although weaponry is not the main focal point of this section, I offer the next paragraph, as well, since it pertains to the Book of Mormon claim that bows and arrows were in use in ancient Mesoamerica during the specified time period. 

"Blowguns were used by commoners in both hunting and war.  In the Late Postclassic Period, the bow and arrow was introduced; reed arrows, pointed with flints or sharp fish teeth, were carried in quivers, and the bows, relatively straight, were strung with hemp cord.  For hand-to-hand combat, there were razor-sharp obsidian-spiked clubs and spears, axes, and knives with flint or obsidian blades.  Even though copper blades were used by the time of the Spanish contact, the Maya did not stop using stone and obsidian.  In 1502, Christopher Columbus’s ship encountered a Maya trading canoe and reported that their wooden swords had flint blades that cut like steel.”

Again, wrong time period for the Book of Mormon.

It is beyond dispute that, according to the Book of Mormon, Nephi crafted some sort of “sword” for his people.  This verse from the book of Mosiah seems to support Matheny’s contention that the swords were likely crafted of metal, since other swords were metal:

Mosiah 8
6 Now, as soon as Ammon had read the record, the king inquired of him to know if he could interpret languages, and Ammon told him that he could not.
7 And the king said unto him: Being grieved for the afflictions of my people, I caused that forty and three of my people should take a journey into the wilderness, that thereby they might find the land of Zarahemla, that we might appeal unto our brethren to deliver us out of bondage.
8 And they were lost in the wilderness for the space of many days, yet they were diligent, and found not the land of Zarahemla but returned to this land, having traveled in a land among many waters, having discovered a land which was covered with bones of men, and of beasts, and was also covered with ruins of buildings of every kind, having discovered a land which had been peopled with a people who were as numerous as the hosts of Israel.
9 And for a testimony that the things that they had said are true they have brought twenty-four plates which are filled with engravings, and they are of pure gold.
10 And behold, also, they have brought breastplates, which are large, and they are of brass and of copper, and are perfectly sound.
11 And again, they have brought swords, the hilts thereof have perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust; and there is no one in the land that is able to interpret the language or the engravings that are on the plates. Therefore I said unto thee: Canst thou translate?

If Nephi crafted swords in the manner with which he was familiar in the Old World to arm his people, then there is zero evidence of such swords or advanced metallurgy in the Mesoamerican time period, despite the fact that he was the leader of a socially advanced group, relative to the time period.

Or…. 

If Nephi actually crafted swords in the fashion of native Mesoamerica, then he was using his knowledge to “show” the pre-existing Mesoamerican others how to make either weaponry with which they were already familiar, and would have to show to HIM, or he was showing them how to make weaponry for which there is no trace until the Postclassic period. 

However, that is a side issue.  The primary topic I wish to address in this section is the advanced metallurgy, in specific.  Tools are specifically mentioned in conjunction with metallurgy:

Jarom 1
8 And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war. 

Again, this is an area of uniform agreement among scholars.  Ancient Mesoamericans did not possess the skill of smelting in general, during the specified Book of Mormon time frame, and most certainly did not make tools of metal.  From Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, page 5:

“Maya civilization developed as part of a broader and older cultural area called Mesoamerica.  Mesoamerica encompassed much of Mexico and extended south, at times all the way into parts of Nicaragua and Cost Rica.  The first pottery, the first cities, and even the first known instances of heiroglyphic writing had their origin in Mesoamerica in the millennium before the rise of Maya civilization.  Although the Maya region accounted for one-third of the territory, Mesoamerica included other important cultures, such as the Olmec and the Aztec, and Maya civilization developed through constant interaction with these other Mesoamerican cultures.  All these cultures traded with each other and shared mythologies and a sacred calendar.  Also, they all built massive cities and created exceptional art with an astonishingly limited technology.  They had no wheel for pottery, no pack animals or carts for transport, and no metal tools until the last centuries before the Spanish Conquest – even then, the tools were only copper blades and fishing hooks, not bronze or steel hatchets.”

And page 314:

“Artisans and artists were the workers in the preindustrial Maya economy.  Many of them were exceptionally skilled, such as vase painters, weavers, stonecutters, and jade carvers, and in the Classic Period, a period of exceptional artistry, some were members of the nobility.  The crafts produced ranged from ceramic spindle whorls numbering in the thousands to jewels for royalty; some were produced for local consumption, and others for long-distance trade and probably even tribute.  The technology employed was Paleolithic until metallurgy was introduced in the Late Postclassic Period, when a few copper tools were introduced.  The Maya understood the rotation principle of the wheel – they used it in spinning thread and drilling stone – and they actually made wheeled toys.  They rolled quarried stone over logs and used rope and wooden levers to lift heavy objects.  But the Maya never built wheeled transport or employed pulleys.” 

From Linda Schele’s Forest of Kings, page 60:

“There are certain things about the Maya landscape, about life in the tropics, and about the kind of “technology” available to the ancient Maya that help people of the twentieth century to understand a little better what their lives were really like.  They were, first of all, a stone age people, without metal of any kind until several centuries before the Conquest.  All they accomplished was done by means of stone tools, utilizing human beings as their beasts of burden: No animals large enough to carry cargo lived in Mesoamerica before the coming of the Spanish.  Although the Maya built wide roads to link parts of their kingdom together, they did not build highway systems.  Within the jungle and the rugged mountain landscape, where the wheel was not used, highways did not make a lot of sense.  The ancient Maya traveled along paths winding through the deep forests and cultivated areas, but the major arteries of their transportation were the many rivers and swamps that crisscrossed the landscape.  Until very recently, the canoe was the most important form of travel into the interior of the Maya region.”

In addition to the cited scriptures that strongly indicate advanced metallurgy, there is the factor of the artifacts witnessed and handled by Joseph Smith and others to consider.  Of course, the most commonly mentioned item was the gold plates.  As the aforementioned sword and the golden ball reference the sword of Laban and the Liahona, they are not of primary interest to us in a discussion of artifacts likely manufactured in the New World.  Aside from the gold plates, what is of additional interest is the breastplate and the Urim and Thummim.

The following citations come from Dan Vogel’s first two Early Mormon Documents series.

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Early Documents 1

P 64, Joseph Smith Jr. 1839 History
He also said that the fullness of the everlasting Gospel was con=tained in it as delivered by the Saviour to the ancient inhabitants.  Also that there were two stones in silver bows and these (put <stones fastened. into a breast plate) which constituted what is called the Urim & Thummin deposited with the plates 

P 67, con’t Joseph Smith Jr. 1839 History
Under a stound stone of considerable size, lay the plates deposited in a stone box.  This stone was thick and rounding in the mid=dle on the upper side, and thinner towards the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all round was covered with earth.  Having removed the earth off the edge of the stone, and obtained a lever which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up, I looked in and there indeed I did behold the plates, the Urim and Thummin and the Breastplate as stated by the messenger.   

P 148, Orson Pratt Account, Circa 1839
A hole of sufficient depth had been dug, and a flat stone laid in the bot=tom;  then there were fore set erect, at the outer edges of the bottom stone, joined together by some kind of Cement, so as to form a Box[.] on the Bottom stone was laid a Shield or Breastplate, from that ar=ose three pillars formed of Cement, on the top of these pillars laid the Record, together with the “Urim and Thummim[.]”  The whole not extending quite even with the top of the side stones, over the whole was placed a crowning stone, a small part of which was visible when he first visited the spot.  Each plate was about six by eight inch=es, and as thick as common tin, and in each side beautifully engraved and filled with black cement, the whole being about six inches in thickness, and put together with three rings, running through the whole a part of which was sealed.


P 220 Lucy Smith interview, 1842
The angel of the Lord appeared to him fifteen years since, and shewed him the cave where the [p. 26] original golden plates of the book of Mormon were deposited. He shewed him also the Urim and Thummim, by which he might understand the meaning of the inscription on the plates, and he shewed him the golden breastplate of the high priesthood.  My son received these precious gifts, he interpreted the holy record, and now the believers in that revelation are more than a hundred thousand in number.  I have myself seen and handled the gold plates; they are about eight inches long, and six wide; some of them are sealed together and are not to be opened, and some of them are loose. They are all connected by a ring which passes through a hole at the end of each plate, and are covered with letters beautifully engraved.  I have seen and felt also the Urim and Thummim.  They resemble two large bright diamonds set in a bow like a pair of spectacles.  My son puts these over his eyes when he reads unknown languages, and they enable him to interpret them in English.  I have likewise carried in my hands the sacred breastplate.  It is composed of pure gold, and is made to fit the breast very exactly.  
(footnote 2:  perhaps Caswall misunderstood Lucy on this account, since she may have handled the plates while covered by a cloth, as well as the “Urim and Thummim” or “spectacles” or breastplate.  She never otherwise claimed to have seen these artifacts uncovered.) 

(footnote 3 In her History published in 1853, Lucy described the breastplate in detail, although she had not seen it herself.)
P 339, Lucy Smith History,  1845
That of which I spoke, which Joseph termed a key, was indeed, nothing more nor less than the Urim and Thummim, and it was by this that the angel showed him many things which he saw in vision; by which he could also ascertain, at any time, the approach of danger, either to himself or the Record, and on account of which he always kept the Urim and Thummim about his person.  [p. 106]

 After bringing home the plates, Joseph commenced working with his father and brothers on the farm, in order to be as near as possible to the treasure which was confided to his care.

 Soon after this, he came in from work, one afternoon, and after remaining a short time, he put on his great coat, and left the house.  I was engaged at the time, in an upper room, in preparing some oil-cloths for painting.  When he returned, he requested me to come down stairs.  I told him, that I could not leave my work just then, yet, upon his urgent request, I finally concluded to go down, and see what he wanted, upon which he handed me the breast-plate spoken of in his history.

It was wrapped in a thin muslim handerkerchief, so thin that I could see the glistening metal, and ascertain its proportions without any difficulty.

It was concave on one side, and convex on the other, and extended from the neck downwards, as far as the center of the stomach of a man of extraordinary size.  It had four straps of the same material, for the purpose of fastening it to the breast, two of which ran back to go over the shoulders, and the other two were designed to fasten to the hips.  They were just the width of two of my fingers, (for I measured them) and they had holes in the end of them, to be convenient in fastening. 

The whole plate was worth at least five hundred dollars; after I had examined it, Joseph placed it in the chest with the Urim and Thummim.   

(footnote 150: Dale Morgan stated:  “She [Lucy] is the only one who ever claims to have handled this breastplate, and I am inclined to doubt that her memory is substantive.” (J. P. Walker 1986, 384, n. 53) 

Orson Pratt Account, 1840 p 157
These records were engraved on plates, which had the [p. 12] appearance of gold.  Each plate was not far from seven by eight inches in width and length, being not quite as thick as common tin.  They were filled on both sides with engravings, in Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book, fastened at one edge with three rings running through the whole.  This volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed.  The characters or letters upon the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved.   

William Smith Interview with James Murdock, 18 April 1841, p. 479
After this, he had other similar visions, in one of which the existence of certain metallic plates was revealed to him and their location described – about three miles off, in a pasture ground.  The next day he went alone to the spot, and by digging discovered the plates in a sort of rude stone box.  They were eight or ten inches long, less in width, about the thickness of panes of glass: and together, made a pile about five or six inches high.  They were in a good state of preservation, and had the appearance of gold, and bore inscriptions in strange characters on both sides.   

Emma Smith Bidamon Interview with Joseph Smith III, February 1879  p 539
The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at con=cealment, wrapped in a small linen  <table> cloth, which I had given him to fold them in.  I have felt of the plates, as they lay on the table, tracing their outline [p. 8] and shape.  They seemed to be pliable like st thick paper, and would rustle <with a mettalic sound> when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book. 

Joseph Smith III to Mrs. E. Horton, 7 March 1900
“My mother [Emma Smith] told me that she saw the plates in the sack, for they lay on a small table in their living room in their cabin on her father’s farm, and she would lift and move them when she swept and dusted the room and furniture. She even thumbed the leaves as one does the leaves of a book, and they rustled with a metalic sound.   

Early Mormon Documents II 

Martin Harris with William Pilkington (to Vern Poulter, 1930) p 351
I lived with him nearly one year prior to his death, which too place [p. 2] in Clarkston, Cache County, Utah, on the 10th day of July 1875, 92 years of age.  I testify to the World, that I held up his right arm while he bore his dying Testimony that he with the Prophet Joseph Smith did stand in the presence of an angel of God, while he held the Gold Plates in his hands, and turned the leaves over one by one and that he saw the Engravings on the Plates, he also saw the Urim and Thummim, the Breast Plate and the Sword of Laban, and after the angel assended into Heaven [,] the Heavens were opened and he heard to voice of God declare that all the angel had told him was verily true 

Oliver Cowdery to W. W. Phelps, October 1835  p 456
First, a hole of sufficient depth, (how deep I know not) was dug.  At the bottom of this was laid a stone of suitable size, the upper surface being smooth.  At each edge was placed a large quantity of cement, and into this cement, at the four edges of this stone, were placed, erect, four others, their bottom edges resting in the cement at the outer edges of the first stone.  The four last named, when placed erect, formed a box, the corners, where the edges of the four came in contact, were also cemented so firmly that the moisture from without was prevented from entering.  It is to be observed, also, that the inner surface of the four erect, or side stones was smooth.  This box was sufficiently large to admit a breast-plate, such as was used by the ancients to defend the chest, &c. from the arrows and weapons of their enemy.  From the bottom of the box, or from the breast-place, arose three small pillars composed of the same description of cement used on the edges; and upon these three pillars was placed the record of the children of Joseph, and of a people who left the tower far, far before the days of Joseph, or a sketch of each, which had it not be[e]n for this, and the never failing goodness of God, we might have perished in our sins, having been left to bow down before the altars of the Gentiles and to have paid homage to the priests of Baal!  I must [p. 196] not forget to say that this box, containing the record was covered with another stone, the bottom surface being flat and the upper, crowning.  But those three pillars were not so lengthy as to cause the plates and the crowning stone to come in contact.   

Martin Harris interview with Joel Tiffany 1859 p. 305
Joseph did not dig for these plates.  They were placed in this way; four stones were set up and covered with a flat stone, oval on the upper side and flat on the bottom.  Beneath this was a little platform upon which the plates were laid; and the two stones set in a bow of silver by means of which the plates were translated, were found underneath the plates.

These plates were seven inches wide by eight inches in length, and were of the thickness of plates of tin; and when piled one above the other, they were altogether about four inches thick; they were put together on the back by three silver rings, so they would open like a book.

The two stones set in a bow of silver were about two inches in diameter, perfectly round, and about five-eighths of an inch thick at the centre; but not so thick at the edges where they [p. 165] came into the bow.  They were joined by a round bar of silver, about three eighths of an inch in diameter, and about four inches long, which, with the two stones, would make eight inches. 

Martin Harris interview with David B. Dille, 1853  p. 298
And as many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands, plate after plate. 

[“] Then describing their dimensions, he pointed with one of the fingers of his left hand to the back of his right hand and said, “I should think they were so long, or about eight inches, and about so thick, or about four inches; and each of the plates was thicker than the thickest tin.” 

From Cameron Packer’s FARMs essay Cumorah’s Cave, regarding one of ten different accounts of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery walking into a cave in Hill Cumorah: 

“Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 17 June 1877
Oliver Cowdery went with the Prophet Joseph when he deposited these plates. Joseph did not translate all of the plates; there was a portion of them sealed, which you can learn from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room. He says he did not think, at the time, whether they had the light of the sun or artificial light; but that it was just as light as day. They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls. The first time they went there the sword of Laban hung upon the wall; but when they went again it had been taken down and laid upon the table across the gold plates; it was unsheathed, and on it was written these words: "This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ." I tell you this as coming not only from Oliver Cowdery, but others who were familiar with it, and who understood it just as well as we understand coming to this meeting. . . . [Don] Carlos Smith was a young man of as much veracity as any young man we had, and he was a witness to these things. Samuel Smith saw some things, Hyrum saw a good many things, but Joseph was the leader.”

Plates and Artifacts

There are a couple of points that need to be made about these citations. The first is that the descriptions of the plates by Emma Smith versus every other witness are contradictory.  The other witnesses state that the gold plates were about the thickness of tin, or about as thick as a pane of glass.  Indeed, the plate would have to be at least this thick in order to have engraving on both sides.  However, Emma states that the leaves “rustled” when she moved the plates to dust.  Gold plates of the thickness of tin or a pane of glass would not rustle like leaves of a book.  

In addition, although there is some doubt as to whether Lucy Smith actually saw the breastplate, or simply felt it through a linen cloth, there does not seem to be any doubt as to the fact that she did claim at least to feel the breastplate.  Certainly she would have recognized whether or not it was made of metal, even aside from the fact that she saw the metal glistening through the thin cloth.  So while we may not actually know if the breastplate was made of gold, it was clearly made of some sort of metal.   Again, the book of Mosiah supports this assumption:

Mosiah 8
9 And for a testimony that the things that they had said are true they have brought twenty-four plates which are filled with engravings, and they are of pure gold.
10 And behold, also, they have brought breastplates, which are large, and they are of brass and of copper, and are perfectly sound. 

Ancient Mesoamericans did wear a sort of armor, although it was not fashioned of metal.  Again, from the Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, page 146:

“The ritual war costume with symbolic elements borrowed from the formerly powerful central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in the fourth century may have been too unwieldy to wear in combat.  Much like today’s generals wear their dress uniforms and medals only for ceremonial display, the ruler may have donned this costume for war dances, processions, and displays of war captives in the sacred center of the city.  It is documented, however, that the Aztec emperor dressed in full regalia on the battlefield in order to be recognized by his troops and to inspire them.  Perhaps the Maya king did the same.  The long apron and layers of clothing would have provided the ruler with some protection against injury.  The few surviving sculptures that depict rulers actively capturing prisoners, however, show them wearing lighter clothing more sensible for battle; sometimes they wear a quilted cotton vest for armor and jaguar-pelt leggings for protection.  They often wore elaborate jaguar headdresses, and their shields sometimes carried the symbol of the jaguar sun god, a Maya deity of war and the Underworld. 

Warriors went into battle with shields.  In the Usumacinta River region, flexible shields, folded and carried over the shoulder, were made out of woven mats.  Others were shaped of wood and covered with deerskin; they were painted with emblems of lineages or war deities and decorated with feathers.  Quilted cotton jackets, sometimes extending to the knees, served as armor.  Even the Spanish eventually replaced their own heavy, and unduly hot, metal armor with quilted cotton, which was effective against Mesoamerican weapons. 

A few Maya, perhaps war captains, wore helmets with various emblems on them; at Chichen Itza, pillbox helmets with bird insignia were popular.  The Classic Period Maya wore more elaborate wooden and cloth headdresses, many of which were animal effigies that might have represented the animal spirit, or way, of the warrior.  Rulers, for example, often claimed jaguars as their way.  Many Classic Period warriors, however, were depicted with jaguar headdresses, perhaps indicating a specific warrior lineage or even that they were members of a military order.  The Aztecs had two such orders: the Jaguar and the Eagles; admission was gained by the number of prisoners a warrior captured.  The Late Postclassic highland Maya had an avian military order, and some native documents describe the great warriors as eagles; the Cakchiquel Maya described Qhiche warriors as covered with feathers and wearing metal crowns with precious stones.  While some warriors may have been resplendent on the battlefield, the common Maya soldier fought with little clothing other than loincloth and body paint, based on battle scenes in the few Maya murals that remain.”

Reconstruction of Aztec Quilted Armor

So, in addition to the fact that there is no evidence in ancient Mesoamerica of metal breastplates, such armor would have been impractical for the area, as well. It is unreasonable to even pretend that the breastplate mentioned by Lucy Smith and others was actually quilted cotton. Not only would she have known the difference between the feel of cotton and metal, but the cotton would have disintegrated long before being discovered by Joseph Smith.

 If the ancient Mesoamericans wore metal breastplates, then they disappeared without a trace, and were not practical to begin with.   

More witnesses testified to seeing the silver bow attaching the stones of the Urim and Thummim, as well as, of course, the gold plates.  As I mentioned earlier, ancient Mesoamericans did know what “metal” was, in the form of natural outcrops or meteoric remains, and worked with it from the Olmec time period onward.  However, none of this evidence can be reasonably interpreted to mean they had the technology to fashion an entire book made of thick gold plates, or a silver bow holding stones.  The majority of the early metalworking was in the form of iron mirrors, which were likely used in ritual ceremonies.  From The Olmecs, by Richard Diehl, page 44:

(1200-1000 BC)
“El Manati was not the only shrine where Olmecs buried ritual offerings.  At least three separate offerings were placed in standing or slowly moving water at nearby La Merced, including one that contained more than 600 roughly carved limestone celts, in an area 30 m (98 ft) on a side.  Although not as finely made as the El Manati celts, they were accompanied by hematite and pyrite mirrors, a beautifully carved 72-cm (30 in) high stela-like stone with a classic Olmec face, and a carved greenstone celt depicting a squalling infant nicknamed “El Bebe”. 

And page 93:
“Although the Olmecs had a Stone Age technology, they did work the iron ores magnetite, hematite, and ilmenite into beads, mirrors, and at least one marvelous little human figurine – nicknamed “Oddjob” for his uncanny resemblance to the James Bond villain.  Ilmenite may have been quarried somewhere near San Lorenzo, where Ann Cyphers and her colleagues uncovered two workshops containing tons of small rectangular “beads” perforated with conical holes. The holes suggest they were strung on cords or threads, and one San Lorenzo Colossal Head (Monument 17) wears a netlike head covering held together by what appear to be actual beads.  Furthermore, the soil around the head contained seven of these enigmatic cubes.  However, the sheer quantity of objects turned up by Cyphers suggests they must have had some other use as well.  She proposes that they functioned as drilling platforms used in the manufacture of something else, and were discarded after being perforated.  Other writers have suggested they served as a form of currency. The most spectacular Olmec iron ore creations are large, beautifully polished, parabolic concave “mirrors” made from magnetite and ilmenite.  Seven were uncovered in Complex A at La Venta.  While their backs are roughly shaped, the concavity on the front is as carefully ground as many modern optical lenses, and the optical qualities of some allow them to be used to ignite fires and project “camera lucida” images on flat surfaces.  The grinding was apparently done by hand with a substance similar to jewelers’ rouge.  They will have suspension holes drilled at the edges and many Olmec figurines show people wearing such mirrors on their chests.  Similar mirrors have been found at San Lorenzo and a few are attributed to Rio Pesquero and even distant Guerrero.  Olmec lapidaries also constructed mosaic mirrors out of small polished iron ore plaques, perhaps placed on wooden backs.  Tests have shown that a workshop at San Jose Mogote in the Valley of Oaxaca produced some and perhaps all of the plaques recovered at San Lorenzo.  Did the workshops also produce the large single-piece mirrors as well?  That question remains to be answered.”

Largest mosaic pyrite mirror

Also mentioned in Arthur Demarest’s book Ideology and Precolumbian Civilizations, page 22:

“Iron-Ore Mirrors.  During the time span of the Early and Middle Formative periods, polished iron-ore mirrors, both flat and concave, became increasingly important as indicated by their numbers, geographic distribution, and social contexts.  The use of mirrors as status markers began as early as the Barra phase (ca. 1500 B.C.) on the Pacific coast of Chiapas (Clark, 1987a:6; Clark et al. 1987: 17) Although concave mirrors are usually thought to be “Olmec” in origin, Carlson’s (1981: 130) characterization of a “pan-Mesoamerican mirror tradition” is more appropriate.  The only good evidence for mirror production is found in the Valley of Oaxaca, where mirrors were manufactured at San Jose Mogote during the Early Formative period with ores obtained from nearby sources (PiresMixteca region, in the state of Morelos, and at the site of  San Lorenzo, Veracruz (Pires-Ferreira 1975:60-62, 1976b; Grove 1987d: 380) and thus help to document Oaxacan-related exchange networks.  The restrictions in access to sources, manufacture, and exchange demonstrated by Pires-Ferreira strongly suggest that the process was under chiefly control.  How that control was effected remains to be seen.” 

Although iron mirrors were fairly common, gold was not, at least in the specified Book of Mormon time period.  From Linda Schele’s The Code of Kings, page 158:

“The Substella Offering (Copan)

Hard-packed earth and tree roots completely filled the cruciform vault under this stela.  Nevertheless, archaeologists found many fragments of beads made of jade and other material, bits of jade plaques, two shells, and most important, a pair of gold legs, one broken below and the other above the knee.  Analysis of the gold suggests its origin was Panamanian or Colombian.  This find in the substela cache at Copan represents the earliest known appearance of gold in the Maya area, and implies the trade connections with lower Central America were in place by AD 750.”

From Michael Coe’s The Maya, page 29:
“From the time of their initial contact with the Maya, the Spaniards learned to their bitter disappointment that there were no sources of gold and silver in the Maya lowlands, and the foreign colonizers soon came to look upon the region as a hardship post.  Yet the native inhabitants, to whom the yellow metal was of little value and in fact unknown until about AD 800, had abundant resources which were of far greater importance to them in their daily life, in their rituals, and in their trade.”

Guatemala - Maya Gold Eagle Knight Earrings - Cast Gold - Postclassic Highland Maya

The fact that ancient Mesoamericans were aware of and utilized simple metalworking with natural outcrops and meteoric material, long before they had the skill of advanced metallurgy, is not surprising given the overall development of metallurgy throughout the world.  From Robert Raymond’s Out of the Fiery Furnace, page viii: 

“In fact, although the origins of metallurgy are still obscure, we know that it evolved not by a linear progression of individual inspirations, but rather advance in technology generally.  Whether or not an idea took root in any particular area seems to have depended upon whether society was ready to receive it, and economically capable of developing it.  Important discoveries about the use of metals were undoubtedly made independently in many parts of the world, but only in some did they lead on to higher levels of technology.  (In South America, for example, the Andean peoples discovered how to obtain sufficiently high temperatures with blowpipes to smelt copper but they never developed bellows, and therefore were never able to smelt iron.)” 

and from page 9:
“It seems unlikely that we will ever know where or when metals were first used deliberately, but it is possible to speculate about how early man first became aware of metals as a particular class of substances.  In all probability it was a gradual process, incidental to his continuing use of other materials.  To begin with, it may have been simply the observation that some stones or pebbles behaved differently from others, in that they seemed ‘heavier’, did not crack or chip when hammered, and in some cases could be beaten into any desired shape. 

Such would have been examples of the so-called ‘native’ metal – that is, metals not combined with other elements in mineral ores but exiting in more or less a pure state, lying about on the ground or exposed in mineral outcrops.  Those most obvious to early man would have been gold, copper, and iron; platinum and silver also occur as native metals, but much more rarely. 

Gold is the outstanding example of a native metal, because of its natural reluctance to combine with other elements.  Gold always exists in a virtually pure state, no matter what its physical form – veins in quartz rock, nuggets on the surface, or fine grains in alluvial sands.  It may therefore have been the first metal to catch man’s eye and invite his attention.  We cannot be sure of this, because no examples of worked gold have survived from Neolithic times.  But such a gap in the archaeological record is not surprising.  Gold, because of its special properties, has probably always had a high value, and this would ensure that anything made from it would never be discarded, but passed on from generation to generation, until eventually re-worked.  Where gold objects were buried in tombs, they would be the first items sought by grave robbers and melted down. 

No examples of worked iron have survived from Neolithic times, either, but for a different reason.  Unlike gold and other precious metals, iron combines easily with other elements, especially the oxygen in the atmosphere.  In the familiar process of rusting, pure iron is rapidly reduced to iron oxide dust.  The earliest iron objects we know date back only to the fourth millennium BC, and all of them are very badly corroded.  The fact that they have survived as long as they have is due to their surprising origin: the iron they are made from is not native at all, at least as far as this planet is concerned.  It came from space, in the form of meteorites.”

Gold Outcrop

So when Book of Mormon scholars, like Dr. Sorenson, refer to the linguistic evidence supporting the existence of metals in early Mesoamerica, my response is that it makes sense that they would have words for the substance with which they worked from natural outcrops or meteorites for so long.  But did they have words that described a smelting process, or advanced metallurgy?  Not to my knowledge. In his rebuttal essay, Viva Zapato! Hurray for the Shoe! Dr. Sorenson claims the following: 

“In her treatment of metals (pp. 283-84), she gives no hint of recognition that words for "metal" existed in nearly all the Mesoamerican languages which linguists reconstruct as going back to Book of Mormon times. In An Ancient American Setting I had said, "comparative linguistics shows that metals must have been known, and presumably used, at least as early as 1286 B.C. That date extends back to the time of the Jaredites, for which so far we have not a single specimen of actual metal. Does it not seem likely that specimens are going to be found someday?"45 Instead of acknowledging this significant information, she gets hung up with a narrow view of archaeology, insisting that, "No evidence has been found that metallurgy was practiced by the Olmec civilization" (p. 288). By "evidence" she means physical remains, ignoring the names for metals. 

She goes on, "[If metals were used by Book of Mormon peoples in Mesoamerica] somewhere there should be the mining localities and their associated tools, processing localities and the remains of the metal objects that were produced" (p. 288). Indeed there should be. Meanwhile, until archaeologists figure out how to find and identify those remains, there is the undeniable presence of a term for metal in the language widely considered that of the Olmecs, Proto-Mixe-Zoquean,46 as well as in all other major proto-languages of early Mesoamerica. Is linguistic evidence to be excluded from the study of archaeology when it is inconvenient? Shouldn't we be trying to shed maximum light instead of defend status quo interpretations?” 

Dr. Sorenson does disservice to Mesoamerican scholars, if he is insinuating that words describing advanced metallurgy exist in various Mesoamerican languages, and yet have gone ignored.  I would like to see hard evidence supporting that contention.  However, since he uses the word “metal” in his essay, I suspect that he really is just talking about words for just that: metal.  As in, say, iron mirrors?  That is hardly ignored, and evidence of such basic metalworking abounds. 

While Matheny may not have specifically addressed his linguistic claims, Stan Larson, in Quest for the Gold Plates, did address the issue, on page 197: 

“Historical and comparative linguistics of various Mesoamerican languages sometimes suggests the existence of a word for metal during the period from ca. 2500 B.C. to A.D. 400.   Citing a study which proposed a word for metal in the reconstructed Proto-Mixtecan language, Sorenson said that “the researchers were puzzled by the fact that a word for ‘metal’ seemed to have existed in the protolanguage at about 1000 B.C.”  Sorenson misrepresented his source, since the linguists, Robert E. Longacre and Rene Millon, actually said: 

The linguistic evaluation of a set provides the framework for its cultural    evaluation, but however strong it may be linguistically this does not provide proof that the specific aspect of Proto-Mixtecan or Proto-Amuzgo-Mixtecan life it represents actually existed on that horizon…For example, one set, linguistically evaluated as solid, reconstructs in Proto-Mixtecan with the meaning of bell or perhaps metal…The existence of metal or metal bells at this early date is highly improbable on the basis of existing archaeological evidence.  Examination of the set suggest that the original meaning may have been rattle but it is impossible to be certain of this. 

Longacre and Millon explained that greater certainty is obtained when a group of related vocabulary terms describing a specific cultural practice is reconstructed for the protolanguage.  The likelihood of the same “semantic shifts” having occurred in all of the words associated with such a practice is highly improbable.  Longacre and Millon discussed six strong complexes of related terms: the Maize Complex, the Maguey Complex, the Agricultural Complex, the Masa Preparation Complex, the Weaving Complex, and the Palm Complex, but they referred again to the conjectured word for ‘metal’ in a list of six terms excluded for various reasons.  This effort to determine vocabulary items in the Proto-Mixtecan language brought forth merely a conjectured word for either metal, or a bell, or a rattle, and not a group of related metallurgic terms.  This certainly does not reveal names for many different kinds of metal, such as the numerous metals required by the Book of Mormon – (1) gold, (2) silver, (3) iron, (4) steel, (5) copper, (6) brass, and (7) an unknown substance named “ziff”.” 

So, once again, what is needed is not a word that may mean “metal”, but rather a group of related words that would describe the advanced metallurgy contained in the Book of Mormon.   

Dr. Sorenson, like other Book of Mormon scholars, attempts to make an argument based on the idea that the absence of evidence does not equate evidence of absence.  Again, from his rebuttal essay: 

“She makes much of the fact that metal processing sites are known in the civilized portions of the Old World (p. 284). But as recently as fifty years ago the same lack of narrowly "archaeological" evidences for metal processing prevailed in the eastern hemisphere as for Mesoamerica now. But vastly more archaeology has been done in the central portions of the Old World—probably more in a single year than gets done in a decade in Mesoamerica. Experts have looked more, and they have found more (there was no doubt more to be found anyhow). Eventually many more "traces of such ancient metallurgy" will be found in Mesoamerica, for, as the names witness, some metal obviously was in early use.47

We may not need to find "new" specimens or sites as much as we need to reassess old ones, few of which have received more than limited attention by qualified experts. E. J. Neiburger recently applied xeroradiography to artifacts of the Old Copper Complex of Minnesota, where it has always been supposed that only cold-hammering of nuggets was used in making the more than 20,000 copper artifacts known from around the Great Lakes area. His study found, to the surprise of nearly all archaeologists, that some of the artifacts appear to have been cast, and at least one "provides firm evidence of casting."48 "Excavated," if it is clear, does not mean "studied properly"—in Minnesota or in Mesoamerica. 

All this is no more a problem for the Book of Mormon than for ancient Mesoamerica and, indeed, the Americas generally. The West Indies area—where the Spanish conquistadors laid hands on so much "gold" that their appetite for it became insatiable and led them to the mainland—had yielded a total of only nine archaeological specimens of any kind of metal as of two decades ago.49 Daniel Rubín de la Borbolla made the same point about the weak representation in museums of what the Spanish records emphasize was a great deal of Tarascan "gold."50 Bray emphasizes for the Americas generally "how inadequately the archaeological discoveries reflect the actual [ancient] situation" regarding metalworking. But he puts the onus of clarification on the archaeologists rather than casting doubt on the accuracy of historical traditions: "If we are ever to get an accurate picture of aboriginal metal technology, archaeologists must be persuaded to look for foundry sites."51 Unfortunately Spanish eyewitness accounts show that such craft sites were small, unobvious and apparently rarely located within the types of settlements routinely investigated by archaeologists. Compare the statement by Earle R. Caley and Dudley T. Easby, Jr.: "Direct archaeological evidence of smelting operations is rare in pre-Conquest Peru and unknown in Mexico for all practical purposes."52 That does not mean there were no smelting operations—quite surely there were—but that their locations have yet to be discovered due to inadequacies of archaeological strategy and technique.

Matheny also states that "complex technological processes generally leave traces in the archaeological record" (p. 284). While logically that is true, in reality little useful information has been recovered so far by Mesoamerican archaeologists about most "complex processes," not just metals. Obsidian working is an example—though not particularly "complex"—where archaeologists, by minute examination of the artifacts and waste fragments produced by ancient and experimental flint-knappers, have achieved considerable knowledge of the methods used. But how stone monument carving, textile manufacturing and dyeing, wood carving, jewelry crafting and many other processes were conceived and performed is known only imperfectly, and that virtually never by the discovery or excavation of workshop sites. Thus Matheny's rhetorical expectation that archaeology should reveal direct evidence of technical methods is out of touch with the realities of today's archaeology. Again, this is not a "Book of Mormon problem" but one for professional archaeologists broadly.” 

The problem for this argument is that archaeological evidence for both advanced metallurgy and the metals they produce have, indeed, been discovered in ancient Mesoamerica.  They are just in the wrong time period.  For example, the report concerning the Excavations at the Copper Smelting Site of El Manchon, Guerrero, México can be found here: http://www.famsi.org/reports/01058/section01.htm 

And, of course, there are metal artifacts, as well, but again, from the wrong time period.  From The Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, page 314: 

“Artisans and artists were the workers in the preindustrial Maya economy.  Many of them were exceptionally skilled, such as vase painters, weavers, stonecutters, and jade carvers, and in the Classic Period, a period of exceptional artistry, some were members of the nobility.  The crafts produced ranged from ceramic spindle whorls numbering in the thousands to jewels for royalty; some were produced for local consumption, and others for long-distance trade and probably even tribute.  The technology employed was Paleolithic until metallurgy was introduced in the Late Postclassic Period, when a few copper tools were introduced.  The Maya understood the rotation principle of the wheel – they used it in spinning thread and drilling stone – and they actually made wheeled toys.  They rolled quarried stone over logs and used rope and wooden levers to lift heavy objects.  But the Maya never built wheeled transport or employed pulleys.”   

And page 318:
“The Maya region was not an important area of metallurgy.  Although gold was panned in the Guatemala highlands, it was not produced in great quantity.  For the most part, the Maya traded for their copper, gold, tumbago (a copper-gold alloy), and silver.  The largest cache of precious metals found in the Maya region was dredged from the sacred well at Chichen Itza; dating to the ninth century, this cache may also represent the first significant trade in gold in Mesoamerica. (Only a few gold figurines have been found in earlier Maya burials.)  The gold in the sacred well contained hammered discs with mythohistoric scenes of warfare and human sacrifice, done in the art style of the local Maya.  Perhaps the Maya themselves created the repousse, or raised designs hammered into the gold, or perhaps they directed more experienced goldsmiths from Central America to make them.  Other metal pieces from the well, mostly figurines cast in the lost wax process, were clearly imports, not just in their composition but also in the manner and style in which they were made; they came from various areas of Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and probably Columbia.  A cache of copper bells discovered at Quirigua may date from the same period; the copper was imported, but there is reason to believe the bells were locally cast.”

Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza

Other evidences of smelting have been discovered in the New World, but, once again, do not fit within the Book of Mormon time frame and area.  From Robert Raymond’s Out of the Fiery Furnace, page 193: 

“The coming of man to the American continent, once thought to have been fairly firmly dated to the end of the last Ice Age, has in recent decades become the subject of much debate among anthropologists. According to the long-held view, Siberian hunters moved across the Bering Strait from Asia into Alaska at the height of the Ice Age, some thirty thousand years ago, when sea levels were at their lowest and the Bering Strait was dry land.  For a long time, it was thought, they were penned into the glacier-free Alaskan region by the vast ice sheet which covered Canada. Then the climate began to warm up.  The ice retreated far enough to open up a clear corridor to the south, east of the Rockies, and about twelve thousand years ago the Siberian hunters poured through on to the open game lands of the American plains, teeming with wildlife.  Within the fifteen hundred years man had penetrated to the very tip of South America, and populated the entire continent. 

Recent archaeological finds in various parts of the United States and Mexico have challenged this view, by identifying occupation sites which are claimed to be datable to at least thirty thousand years ago.  The implication that man somehow got into the North American heartland before the opening up of the Canadian ice corridor is the subject of increasing debate. 

What is beyond argument, however, is that the Americas were settled long before metals came into use anywhere in the world.  The likelihood of such technology reaching into North America after the rise in sea level between nine and six thousand years ago is extremely small.  The conclusion must be that the inhabitants of North America made their own independent discovery of metals, and that one of the earliest places where this occurred was around the Great Lakes.  Here again there is dispute over dates, but they range from 1000 BC to as early as 5000 BC.  

Those first metal workers were assisted by an unusual combination of geological and chemical conditions, which had caused copper to be concentrated in the rocks of the Keweenaw Peninsula and nearby islands in virtually pure metallic form.  The copper had originally been deposited from solution in holes and pockets in the porous rock, created by steam and gases during the outpouring of lava which formed the landscape.  Unlike the normal sequence of chemical transformation which takes place in mineral deposits, the copper here did not oxidize or join with other elements such as sulphur, but remained in its pure metallic state, contaminated only by traces of silver.  The metal lay in veins between layers of rock, and in places had formed massive nuggets, some weighing hundreds of kilograms.   

The ancient miners recovered the copper either by pounding the veins with stone hammers until pieces of metal broke off, or by lighting fires against the rock and dashing it with cold water from the lake to crack it.  The copper had been hammered into all kinds of tools and implements, including knives, arrow heads, axes, chisel and hooks.  There are charcoal remains and evidence of some heating of the metal to make it easier to work, but no suggestion that temperatures sufficient to melt copper were ever reached. 

What is more astonishing is the scale of these ancient mining operations.  More than ten thousand separate mines have been identified in the copper country around Lake Superior.  Some of the trenches in hard rock are twenty metres long and five to ten metres deep.  Engineers at the Michigan Technological University at Houghton, near Keweenaw, estimate that it would have taken a thousand miners more than a thousand years to have carried out the work already discovered, and that as much as two thousand tones of copper may have been recovered before the arrival of the white prospectors.   

Despite the removal and dispersal of untold quantities of stone tools by later mining operations, enough items remained to make an overwhelming impression on the archaeologists who began to study the area towards the end of the nineteenth century.  From one set of ancient workings, at McCargoe Cove, they collected more than one thousand tones of stone hammers.  These mining tools weighed from two to five kilograms and consisted of smooth, wave-washed stones from the lake-shore.  Some were grooved to take a handle, while others were simply hand-held. 

The questions which arise are intriguing.  Who were the people responsible for this immense effort?  What did they do with all that copper?  And why did they apparently abandon the mines long before the present tribes arrived on the scene?  The Chippewa Indians, when first encountered by the French, said that they knew nothing of the copper mines. 

The identity of the early copper miners is a complete mystery because no burials, habitations, identifiable pottery or other cultural clues have ever been found in the area – nothing but mining tools and worked copper articles.  The inference is that they came from somewhere else to mine the copper, perhaps during the summer, because in the winter the land is deep in snow. There is a possibility that they were connected with the ‘mound-builders’ – the people who created large earthen burial mounds all across North America in the first millennium BC.  Many copper articles have been found among artifacts in these mounds, but they might well have been obtained by trade. 

The apparently abrupt cessation of mining on the Keweenaw Penisula is equally puzzling.  The manner in which tools, baskets of copper and half-finished artifacts were left in and near the mines suggests that those responsible intended to return.  But they never did.  This abandonment appears to have taken place at least five hundred years before the coming of the first Europeans, a theory which is based on the age of trees found growing in mine trenches in the 1840s.”

From the same book, a passage explains the evolution of metalworking in South and Central America, which followed a far different trajectory.  From page 117: 

“One intriguing finding is that, contrary to the direction of human occupation of the Americas, knowledge of gold working spread from south to north.  The earliest use of beaten gold has been dated to about 2000 BC, in southern Peru.  After that, for perhaps two thousand years, there were purely local developments in Peru, involving other metals, including silver, copper and platinum.  Then, around the time of Christ, advanced gold technology, including lost wax casting, appeared in Colombia, on the northern coast of South America.  Gold working reached Panama in the fifth century AD, and by about the eighth century it was flourishing in Mexico. 

In Peru, before the Spanish conquest, copper was possibly the most common metal in use, but the next most abundant was gold, followed by silver.  Meteoric iron was rare, and iron smelting was unknown.  Nearly all the gold was alluvial, recovered from placer deposits in rivers.  Before the grains of gold could be used they had to be melted together in clay crucibles.  The Peruvians had no bellows, but used blow pipes to raise their furnace temperatures.  The most widely used technique of gold working was the beating of gold and gold alloys into sheets, which were cut and shaped to make the desired objects.  Casting was little used.   

Indian metal-working technology reached its pinnacle in Colombia.  In this part of South America gold was more plentiful than any other metal.  Copper existed in limited distribution, and silver was generally found only as a natural ingredient of gold.  Platinum was fairly easy to recover, from river sands, but because of its very high melting point – 1775 C – it was difficult to use.  Tin was almost totally absent from this area, so the Colombians were never able to develop a bronze tradition.  Instead, they adopted as their utilitarian metal the alloy of gold, and copper, often with traces of silver, called ‘tumbaga’. 

This alloy of thirty per cent gold and seventy per cent copper had several advantages.  It melted at 800 C, compared to 1064 C for pure gold and 1084 C for pure copper.  It was easier to cast than either of its constituents, and reproduced fine decorative detail with more accuracy.  Finally, tumbaga was harder than either gold or copper, and could be cold-hammered to produce tools almost as tough as bronze. 

One of the great arts of the Colombian gold workers was in making objects of tumbaga look like pure gold.  They did this by the sophisticated process of depletion gilding.  Unlike the more familiar form of gilding used in the Old World, which consisted of adding or depositing a thin sheet of gold on the surface, depletion gilding created a pure gold skin from the gold already in the tumbaga.  The gold workers did this by soaking the object in various substances obtained from plants and minerals, whose chemical constituents etched away the copper and silver molecules from the surface layer, but left the gold molecules untouched.  After several such treatments there formed a thin coating of pure gold over the tumbaga base.”

Tumbaga Artifact

So the problem does not seem to be a lack of archaeological information about metallurgy and metalworking in general.  The problem is that while there exists archaeological information about metallurgy and metalworking, it is all from the wrong time period or wrong place to fit the Book of Mormon. 

Moreover, it is possible to identify an extensive craft in ancient Mesoamerica, such as was practiced with obsidian.  From Demarest’s The Ancient Maya, page 156: 

“Obsidian (fine volcanic glass) was valued in the pre-Columbian world as the sharpest, finest edge for cutting tools of any kind, including knives and dart points, and for edges for wooden swords and other weapons.  Because of its fine cryptocrystalline structure, obsidian could be chipped into complex forms – “eccentrics” for decorative or ceremonial use.  Some eccentrics were hafted and used as weapons, scepters, or bloodletters for autosacrifice.  

The fact that obsidian can be easily traced to its source has led to its frequent use, arguably its overuse, to reconstruct ancient long-distance trade systems.  Unlike chert and other commodities, there were relatively few source areas for this igneous rock, all of them volcanic outcrops in the highlands.  Obsidian in the Maya lowlands has most often been traced to the El Chayal outcrop near the highland center of Kaminaljuyu or to the Ixtepecque source in the Motagua Valley on the edge of the southeastern corner of the lowlands.  Some obsidian came from other sources, such as the San Martin Jilotepeque source farther to the west in the southern highlands (Braswell 2002).  Small quantities of prized Pachuca green obsidian derived from the distant Valley of Mexico appear in the Maya area in caches, burials, or other contexts, sometimes indicative of contact with the central Mexican state of Teotihuacan. 

Through the sourcing of the obsidian used in lowland tools, archaeologists are able to trace patterns of trade.  Elites of some major centers may have redistributed obsidian through patronage networks (Rathje 1977:  Hammond 1972, 1973;  Aoyama 1996, 19999, 2001;  Santley 1983, 1984;  Sidrys 1976).  Certainly, obsidian from specific sources is found in great quantities at some sites, such as Tikal, whose elites may have had special political and/or commercial ties with highland centers (Coggins 1975; W. Coe 1965b;  Santley 1983; Moholy-Nagy et al. 1984).  At Tikal, Dos Pilas, Copan, and other Classic centers, the quantity and diversity of obsidian artifacts in household groups was associated with other markers of status and wealth, such as fine masonry architecture, the quantity of polychrome ceramics, and the presence of other imported exotic goods (Palka 1995, 1997;  Haviland and Moholy_nagy 1992;  Havinalnd 1982;  Aoyama 1999, 2001).  Indeed at Tikal, Dos Pilas, Tamarindito, and other centers ruled by the Tikal Late Classic dynastic lineage, royal tombs were coated with a clay that was filled with flakes, chips, and nodules of obsidian – a dramatic display of conspicuous consumption and royal wealth (Haviland 1992;  Demarest, Esobedo et al. 1991;  Valdes 1997b). 

At other centers, obsidian may not be as clearly associated with status, and it appears to have been more widely distributed toward the end of the Classic period (P. Rice 1987a; P. Rice at al. 1985; A Chase 1992).  The evidence for elite control of obsidian is circumstantial at best.  The concept that royal or elite control of obsidian was critical to political authority and foreign alliances (eg Rathje 1975; Santley 1983) exaggerates the importance of this useful resource and the ability of a few centers to control its distribution.  Recall that chert, available through the lowlands, can also be worked into fine-edged tools – better for most purposes than obsidian tools because chert edges are less brittle and do not leave glass bits in processed foods!  Indeed, obsidian would have been most clearly superior for weapons and for bloodletting rituals, which were an important aspect of Maya religious life at all levels.  The fine, razor-sharp edge of obsidian blades would be effective in the cutting of genitals, ears, cheeks, and other tender flesh that was subjected to autosacrifice.  If, as many scholars believe, autosacrifice was practiced at all levels of Maya society, this may have been one of its major functions.”

Obsidian

Of course, not every square inch of Mesoamerica has been excavated, and it is always possible a new discovery is around the corner.  However, some areas have been heavily excavated, such as Kaminaljuyu, which is the suggested location of the City of Nephi. 

In the book Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, Rosemary Joyce and David Grove state, page 2: 

“Our purpose in organizing the conference for which the papers in this volume were prepared as to go beyond the terms set by the existing Olmec debate and ask new questions about the Pre-Classic.  We begin with the assumption that repeated behaviors should be recognizable in the now abundant and well-documented material remains from good context in Pre-Classic sites.” 

To this point, there is simply no evidence supporting the theory that ancient Mesoamericans possessed the advanced skills of metallurgy prior to the Late Postclassic period, around 800 A.D. It seems specious to use yet unfound, yet hoped-for, evidence to support a theory.   

Aside from advanced metallurgy, the Book of Mormon presents a culture that was heavily invested in precious metals, such as gold and silver.   

Ether 10
6 And he did erect him an exceedingly beautiful throne; and he did build many prisons, and whoso would not be subject unto taxes he did cast into prison; and whoso was not able to pay taxes he did cast into prison; and he did cause that they should labor continually for their support; and whoso refused to labor he did cause to be put to death.
7 Wherefore he did obtain all his fine work, yea, even his fine gold he did cause to be refined in prison; and all manner of fine workmanship he did cause to be wrought in prison. And it came to pass that he did afflict the people with his whoredoms and abominations. 

1 Nephi 18
25 And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper. 

Jacob 2
10 And now behold, my brethren, this is the word which I declare unto you, that many of you have begun to search for gold, and for silver, and for all manner of precious ores, in the which this land, which is a land of promise unto you and to your seed, doth abound most plentifully.

Helaman 6
9 And it came to pass that they became exceedingly rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites; and they did have an exceeding plenty of gold, and of silver, and of all manner of precious metals, both in the land south and in the land north.
10 Now the land south was called Lehi, and the land north was called Mulek, which was after the son of Zedekiah; for the Lord did bring Mulek into the land north, and Lehi into the land south.
11And behold, there was all manner of gold in both these lands, and of silver, and of precious ore of every kind; and there were also curious workmen, who did work all kinds of ore and did refine it; and thus they did become rich. 

Mosiah 19
15 Therefore the Lamanites did spare their lives, and took them captives and carried them back to the land of Nephi, and granted unto them that they might possess the land, under the conditions that they would deliver up king Noah into the hands of the Lamanites, and deliver up their property, even one half of all they possessed, one half of their gold, and their silver, and all their precious things, and thus they should pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites from year to year. 

Mosiah 22
11 And it came to pass that the people of king Limhi did depart by night into the wilderness with their flocks and their herds, and they went round about the land of Shilom in the wilderness, and bent their course towards the land of Zarahemla, being led by Ammon and his brethren.
12 And they had taken all their gold, and silver, and their precious things, which they could carry, and also their provisions with them, into the wilderness; and they pursued their journey.
13And after being many days in the wilderness they arrived in the land of Zarahemla, and joined Mosiah’s people, and became his subjects. 

Alma 1
29 And now, because of the steadiness of the church they began to be exceedingly rich, having abundance of all things whatsoever they stood in need—an abundance of flocks and herds, and fatlings of every kind, and also abundance of grain, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things, and abundance of silk and fine-twined linen, and all manner of good homely cloth. 

Alma 4
6 And it came to pass in the *eighth year of the reign of the judges, that the people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen, and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by their industry; and in all these things were they lifted up in the pride of their eyes, for they began to wear very costly apparel. 

Alma 17
14 And assuredly it was great, for they had undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and a hardened and a ferocious people; a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites, and robbing and plundering them; and their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and silver, and precious stones; yet they sought to obtain these things by murdering and plundering, that they might not labor for them with their own hands. 

Alma 31
24 Now when Alma saw this his heart was grieved; for he saw that they were a wicked and a perverse people; yea, he saw that their hearts were set upon gold, and upon silver, and upon all manner of fine goods. 

Helaman 12
2 Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity. 

3 Nephi 6
2 And it came to pass that they had not eaten up all their provisions; therefore they did take with them all that they had not devoured, of all their grain of every kind, and their gold, and their silver, and all their precious things, and they did return to their own lands and their possessions, both on the north and on the south, both on the land northward and on the land southward. 

Helaman 6
31 And now behold, he had got great hold upon the hearts of the Nephites; yea, insomuch that they had become exceedingly wicked; yea, the more part of them had turned out of the way of righteousness, and did trample under their feet the commandments of God, and did turn unto their own ways, and did build up unto themselves idols of their gold and their silver. 

All these scriptures plainly imply that gold and silver, at the very least, were important items to the Nephites in general, and important to their economy.  Even more, the next verses from Alma demonstrate that gold and silver were so important they formed the basis for their standardized monetary system: 

Alma 11
1 NOW it was in the law of Mosiah that every man who was a judge of the law, or those who were appointed to be judges, should receive wages according to the time which they labored to judge those who were brought before them to be judged.
2 Now if a man owed another, and he would not pay that which he did owe, he was complained of to the judge; and the judge executed authority, and sent forth officers that the man should be brought before him; and he judged the man according to the law and the evidences which were brought against him, and thus the man was compelled to pay that which he owed, or be stripped, or be cast out from among the people as a thief and a robber.
3 And the judge received for his wages according to his time—a senine of gold for a day, or a senum of silver, which is equal to a senine of gold; and this is according to the law which was given.
4 Now these are the names of the different pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value. And the names are given by the Nephites, for they did not reckon after the manner of the Jews who were at Jerusalem; neither did they measure after the manner of the Jews; but they altered their reckoning and their measure, according to the minds and the circumstances of the people, in every generation, until the reign of the judges, they having been established by king Mosiah.
5 Now the reckoning is thus—a senine of gold, a seon of gold, a shum of gold, and a limnah of gold.
6 A senum of silver, an amnor of silver, an ezrom of silver, and an onti of silver.
7 A senum of silver was equal to a senine of gold, and either for a measure of barley, and also for a measure of every kind of grain.
8 Now the amount of a seon of gold was twice the value of a senine.
9 And a shum of gold was twice the value of a seon.
10 And a limnah of gold was the value of them all.
11 And an amnor of silver was as great as two senums.
12 And an ezrom of silver was as great as four senums.
13 And an onti was as great as them all.
14 Now this is the value of the lesser numbers of their reckoning--
15 A shiblon is half of a senum; therefore, a shiblon for half a measure of barley.
16 And a shiblum is a half of a shiblon.
17 And a leah is the half of a shiblum.
18 Now this is their number, according to their reckoning.
19 Now an antion of gold is equal to three shiblons. 

Deanne Matheny pointed out that this apparent abundance of gold and silver was problematic for the given area in Mesoamerica, page 287:

“The Book of Mormon indicates that there was an abundance of gold, silver, and precious metals in both he land north and the land south.  Such metals should then be discoverable in the areas chosen as Book of Mormon lands by Sorenson and Hauck.  Some areas of Latin America are rich in precious minerals and other ores, but the areas chosen by Sorenson as the scene of the Book of Mormon are not among those areas.  Mineralogical maps of Mexico show no deposits of gold, silver, copper, or other ores in the states of Veracruz, Tabasco, or Chiapas (see de Miranor and de Gyves 1986, 140;  Arbingast 1975, 135).  A major source of gold and silver exists in Oaxaca located in the north central portion of the state near its border with Veracruz.  A few scattered deposits of copper, silver, gold, and other ores can be found in the highlands of Guatemala, although the most significant are located near the present frontiers with Honduras and El Salvador (Arbingast et al. 1979, 11, 27, 35).  If current assessment of these resources reflects what was available in the past, it does not appear to have had the great wealth of metallic ores described by the Book of Mormon.” 

Dr. Sorenson is very critical of this passage in his rebuttal: 

“Matheny discusses Mesoamerican ore sources but inexplicably refers to "mineralogical maps of Mexico" based on present-day commercial exploitation of minerals (pp. 287-88). I would have thought she would follow her training in the documents from the period around the Spanish Conquest to find out where the peoples of Mesoamerica then obtained metals. The location of modern mines is irrelevant. Contrary to the geographical picture she offers, placering, the commonest pre-Columbian method employed, was used in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Chiapas states in Mexico and in Belize, El Salvador, and Guatemala.61 Furthermore, Clair Patterson argues that ores in ancient times were easier to locate and exploit than in late pre-Spanish times, by which time many surface sources were likely to have been exhausted.62 Hence even the ore locations known to the Indians at the time of the Conquest might not reflect fully the wider sources accessible in the Book of Mormon era.” 

However, Matheny’s speculation that this modern lack of ores may be indicative of a related lack of ores in the specified Book of Mormon period is born out.  Again, the previously mentioned passage on page 318 of Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World: 

“The Maya region was not an important area of metallurgy. Although gold was panned in the Guatemala highlands, it was not produced in great quantity.  For the most part, the Maya traded for their copper, gold, tumbago (a copper-gold alloy), and silver.  The largest cache of precious metals found in the Maya region was dredged from the sacred well at Chichen Itza;  dating to the ninth century, this cache may also represent the first significant trade in gold in Mesoamerica. (Only a few gold figurines have been found in earlier Maya burials.)  The gold in the sacred well contained hammered discs with mythohistoric scenes of warfare and human sacrifice, done in the art style of the local Maya.  Perhaps the Maya themselves created the repousse, or raised designs hammered into the gold, or perhaps they directed more experienced goldsmiths from Central America to make them.  Other metal pieces from the well, mostly figurines cast in the lost wax process, were clearly imports, not just in their composition but also in the manner and style in which they were made; they came from various areas of Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and probably Columbia.  A cache of copper bells discovered at Quirigua may date from the same period; the copper was imported, but there is reason to believe the bells were locally cast.” 

And page 83:
“Maya traditions survived in both settled regions and remote ones.  Although many Maya were enslaved and assimilated, significant numbers of Maya were basically left alone as long as they paid their tribute.  The Maya often lived in their own settlements surrounded by their own lands and governed by their traditional leaders on matters of village concern.  This was possible for centuries after the conquest because the Maya region never had the rich gold mines to attract large numbers of Europeans.  Guatemala and the Yucatan remained sparsely settled.” 

Dr. Sorenson does offer specific pieces of evidence that he believes supports the theory that advanced metallurgy existed in ancient Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon time period.  Matheny dealt with two of these assertions in her essay, and Sorenson did not refute this information in his rebuttal. 

“What may be the oldest piece of metal from Mesoamerica (from the site of Cuicuilco in the Valley of Mexico) noted by Sorenson may date as early as about the first century B.C.E. (1985, 278).  However, I know of no confirmation of a date that early.  In fact it has been suggested by Emil Haury, one of the project archaeologists although not the one who excavated the piece, that the metal was from an Aztec reuse of a Preclassic mound (1975, 199).  Additionally there is no evidence that the artifact singled out by Sorenson was produced in Mesoamerica.  Even if this piece should prove to have been produced in the proper time (Late Preclassic period0 and place, we would still be left with 2,900 years of Nephite and Jaredite metallurgy unaccounted for in the archaeological record.” 

And later:
"The question that has again not been considered is whether the specimens were of local manufacture or represent trade pieces from lower Central America. The majority of the specimens date to Late Classic times falling outside of the Book of Mormon period.  The few that are genuinely Early Classic or slightly earlier seem to be trade pieces not produced in the area.  We are still left with virtually the entire span of time covered by the Book of Mormon events with no metallurgy in the area chosen by Sorenson. 

Among the specimens in Sorenson’s “I” category are some copper finger rings from the site of La Libertad in Chiapas, Mexico.  Sorenson (1992b, 46, 75) notes that Donald E. Miller (1977, 19) one of the principal investigators at the site, reported two Classic period burials from near the surface of a mound and a Postclassic burial containing the rings from near the surface of another mound top.  Sorenson suggests that the presence of the metal alone is not enough to make it Postclassic and states that there is no other evidence at the site for a Postclassic presence.  He reassigns it to the Late Classic period at C.E. 600-900.  La Libertad is a particularly interesting site because it not only falls within the area of Sorenson’s model but has been advanced as a candidate for the city of Manti from the Book of Mormon.  Several seasons of investigations were carried out at La Libertad by the New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF) in the mid-1970s as a part of an extensive project in the Upper Grijalva Basin.  While several preliminary papers have been produced concerning the site and one publication about the lithic artifacts (Clark 1988), information about most of the excavations is currently under preparation for publication.  As a part of the NWAF team that mapped and excavated at La Libertad in 1975, I participated in the excavation of a burial near the surface of a low mound which contained a large copper bell as an offering.  Miller, who is currently preparing material from La Libertad for publication, provided the following information (Miller 1992).  During the 1976 season many more burials were located including Burial 26 which contained the copper rings mentioned by Sorenson.  There is no reason to suppose that these burials pertain to the Classic period.  Explorations in the immediate area of La Libertad revealed the presence of a Postclassic site, within a few hundred meters of the ceremonial precinct, with a considerable quantity of pottery fragments on the surface.  Other burials at La Libertad included complex Late Preclassic burials and Late Classic burials, none of which contained any metal artifacts.  Upon comparing the grave types, orientation and furniture of those burials assigned to the Classic and Postclassic periods, there are obvious differences.  As far as the excavators are concerned, there is no reason to assign the metal specimens from La Libertad to any period earlier than the Postclassic period.” 

I tracked down two of his other references on my own, with equally problematic results.  The following quote is from Ancient American Setting, page 284: 

“The possibility that smelted iron either has been or may yet be found is enhanced by a find at Teotihuacan.  A pottery vessel dating to about AD 300, and apparently used for smelting, contained a “metallic-looking” mass.  Analyzed chemically, it proved to contain copper and iron.  Linee, the same Swedish archaeologist who made that find, accepted a piece of iron found in a tomb at Mitla, Oaxaca, as probably refined.” 

The footnotes Dr. Sorenson attaches to this information are:
“Sigvald Linne, Mexican Highland Cultures, Ethnographical Museum of Sweden, Publication 7, ns (Stockholm, 1942), p. 132
Sigvald Linne, Zapotecan Antiquities, Ehthnographical Museum of Sweden, Publication 4, ns (Stockholm, 1938), p. 75” 

I obtained Linne’s Mexican Highland Cultures text. This particular section was a dig of the Tlamimilolpa House Ruin in Teotihuacan.  At the beginning of the section, Linne spends some time describing the actual site and how they proceeded.  Then he lists the objects excavated therein.  13 graves were discovered below the floors of different rooms, and the object in question was discovered in Burial site 1, the earliest of said graves.  He first lists approximately sixteen different types of pottery vessels, bowls, dishes, jars, lids, miniature vessels.  He then lists beads and figurine fragments.  Next he lists obsidian knives and tools.  Then he moves into listing the mineral type objects.  This is the area of the list wherein this item occurs. From page 132: 

“1 object of pyrite, rounded and highly polished, fig. 236.  Analysis reveals a high percentage of iron and sulphur:  specific gravity 4.88
1 piece of pyrite, of rectangular shape and with one side slightly convex and polished;  1.3 x 0.9x 0.1 cm.  Was no doubt originally set in the eye of a mask of the typeshown in pls. 3-5.
Metallic-resembling substance, small, irregular shaped pieces.  Analysis has shown them to contain copper and iron, but no zinc, tin, or antimony.
2 bone implements, short and tapering, though not sharp-pointed.  Have possibly been used for flaking off knives from obsidian blocks.  Figs. 248, 254.
1 thin, flat bone object with a blunt point and a hole pierced for a suspension cord or the like, fig. 249” 

He then proceeds to list teeth and shells.

After listing all the objects, he writes some notes and draws some conclusions.  Under the heading “Tools and ornaments of obsidian, stone, and mica”, he states: 

“Of peculiar character are a rounded object, fig. 236, and fragments of a circular plate, both from Burial 1.  The latter, which has the appearance of rusty iron, may have been a mirror.  Analysis has shown both of them to contain a large proportion of sulphur and iron, and they are undoubtedly iron pyrite.  There can be no doubt that certain pre-Spanish objects described as being of iron are nothing but pyrite.  Weathering has made them look rusty.  The diameter of the flat disc is 6 cm, which roughly corresponds to the average size of the Mexican pyrite mirrors included in Nordenskiold’s study of convex and concave mirrors in America.  Unfortunately the surface is so badly weathered that it is impossible to determine the way in which it is ground.  Nordenskiold has, however, found that the majority of pre-Spanish mirrors – all of them from Mexico, Ecuador, and the Peruvian coast – are convex and consist of pyrite. In Musee de l’Homme, Paris, there is one which forms part of Charnay’s collection and is stated to have come from Teotihuacan.  Nordenskiold further adduces a Mexican picture-writing in which among other things is seen a man using a mirror.  The picture-writing in question is said to originate from Cholula.  Mirrors were naturally in great demand as an article of trade and even formed part of the barter goods with which the great raft that Bartolome Ruiz in 1526 encountered off the coast of Ecuador was loaded.” 

Under the pottery section, this is listed: 

“6 bowls with flat bottom, curving sides and exceedingly rudimentary feet, fig. 203.  They are black, polished, and with a surface of almost metallic luster.  One of them is ornamented with incised curved lines, fig. 217” 

As should be obvious, nothing in this passage supports Dr. Sorenson’s reference to a vessel used for smelting, with an analyzed residue at the bottom.

I attempted to reach Dr. Sorenson about this problem, and he answered me via Dan Peterson on the FAIR site.  Due to FAIR’s copyright restrictions, I cannot copy his response, but will paraphrase it.  Interested readers should be able to find the thread in the archives through the search function, under “Sorenson’s footnote”. (note:  it is possible that this thread was deleted at some point by the administrators of the site.)  Dr. Sorenson admitted that the referenced footnote was incorrect, and that he obtained the information through a private correspondence that he no longer has.  He dismissed the concern over such a misuse of a source by saying it was a “tempest in a teapot”, and there were plenty of other references to support his assertions. 

I was not able to personally obtain the second reference, but a friend accessed it at her library and kindly copied the pertinent section for me.

“Page 53 (first reference):
"In a grave-chamber situated in the present village were among other things found 20 bells and a number of tweezers of copper, part of a small, circular iron plate, a necklace consisting of small, perforated shells, and a rasping bone. The iron plate is no doubt to be counted among the most remarkable objects that have at any time been discovered in Mexico seeing there is nothing to indicate that it is of post-Columbian origin (cf. p. 75). Hitherto it has always been held as an axiom that iron was unknown to the Indians of ancient America. A clay vessel found in this grave was of Mixtecan type. In a neighbouring grave-chamber were, among other things, found a "metate" (grinding stone) with its "mano" (muller), and a large number of clay vessels referable to Period V."

Page 75-76:
"At the researches that were carried out in the excavation season 1934 - 35 at Mitla there was, as already mentioned, discovered a grave (No. 5) in which, among other things, was found a small iron plate.[28] The grave in question no doubt dates from the time when the Mixtecs were in possession. The chemist, connected with the Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional de Mexico, that analysed this object reports on it as follows:

Insolube .......................................... poquisimo
Fierro ............................................... bastante
Aluminio ......................................... poco
Azufre ............................................. bastante
Carbón ............................................ muy poco

"Unfortunately the above analysis cannot, however, be considered satisfactory. To the metallurgist, a quantitative analysis would have revealed the metod by which the iron was produced. The statement that the iron contained a considerable percentage of sulphur is not by itself of any very great value as it merely indicates that the metal was extracted by a primitive method."
_______

[28] Caso, Alfonso y Rubin de la Borbolla, D.F. (1936) Exploraciones en Mitla 1934-1935 (Instituto Panamericano de Geografia e Historia, publicación no. 21, Mexico 1936).”

This source seems to actually give support to his assertion, except for one minor problem.  Mitla was occupied by the Mixtecs in the wrong time period to fit the Book of Mormon.

“The word Mitla comes from the Náhuatl word Mictlan, meaning place of the dead or underworld.In the Zapotec language this place is called Lyobaa, meaning place of rest or burial place.

The Mitla archaeological site is located within the town of Mitla, officially San Pablo Villa de Mitla, at the northern end of town. The site is located in the Tlacolula Valley which is one of the three valleys that intersect at the archaeological site of Monte Albán to the west. Mitla is 48km east of Oaxaca, at an elevation of 4855' (1480 meters). From Oaxaca city, travel east of Hwy 190 and follow the signs to Mitla.

Mitla was inhabited in the Classic Period (100-650 AD), and possibly as early as 900 BC. It appears to have been at its peak occupation in the Post Classic Period (750-1521 AD). It was inhabited by the Zapotec people although it was under the control of the Mixtecs from about 1000 AD to 1200 AD and then fell to the Aztecs in 1494.”

Mitla 

This is already well after the accepted time period for the introduction of metallurgy in Mesoamerica.  

Stan Larson, in Quest for Gold Plates, made an additional observation about Dr. Sorenson’s list of evidence suggestive of early metallurgy, on page 198:

“In his annotated bibliography on Book of Mormon metals Sorenson classified each instance of metal in one of five groups as to the certainty of the identification, analysis, and dating.  These range from “A” category, in which the item was uncovered by a professional archaeologist in a datable context, successively down to the fifth category, in which incomplete information made a reliable assessment difficult.  Only two examples in Sorenson’s “A” category fall within Book of Mormon times.  The first find, which contains iron and copper, is described as “a metal resembling substance, small, irregular shaped pieces”.  It was found at Teotihuacan and is dated from A.D. 300 to 400. The second instance is a claw-shaped bead of the gold-copper alloy known at tumbaga, which was excavated at Altun Ha in northern Belize.  David M. Pendergast, archaeologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, dated this metallic animal claw to “somewhat before A.D. 500,” which would place it after the Book of Mormon, but Sorenson initially stretched this to include the hundred year period from A.D. 400 to 500, and then lowered it further to A.D. 350 to 450.  Both of these examples were found outside the area which Sorenson has proposed as Book of Mormon lands."

Deanne Matheny remarked concerning Sorenson’s bibliographic study on metals: 

"The question that has again not been considered [by Sorenson] is whether the specimens were of local manufacture or represent trade pieces from lower Central America.  The majority of the specimens date to Late Classic times falling outside of the Book of Mormon period.  The few that are genuinely Early Classic or slightly earlier seem to be trade pieces not produced in the area.  We are still left with virtually the entire span of time covered by Book of Mormon events with no metallurgy in the area chosen by Sorenson.

When metallurgy began in Mesoamerica during the Terminal Classic Period about the ninth century A.D, the tools and techniques were borrowed from Costa Rica and the Isthmus of Panama and ultimately from Andean South America.  From the third century onwards various metal objects were imported as trade goods into Mesoamerica from this southeastern place of manufacture.  There is no evidence of pre-Columbian metallurgical production in Mesoamerica before the ninth century A.D.  Even though the use of metal is usually considered to be an important aspect in the growth of culture, all the civilizations in Mesoamerica developed without the use of metal.  By the time metal appeared the culture was beginning to decline.”

Of course, in this context, “metal” means the result of the technology of advanced metallurgy.

There are other ways to detect the possibility of a smelting technology other than looking for the artifacts and smelting operations.  The ability to smelt metals is directly related to the ability to create and maintain heat at a very high temperature.  Again, in From the Fiery Furnace, page 10:  (this is a lengthy citation, but necessary to fully understand the connection between pottery and advanced metallurgy.)

The discovery by Neolithic man of how to smelt metals from their ores, where they are linked by strong chemical bonds to elements such as oxygen, sulphur, and carbon, must stand as one of the great achievements in human history.  It called for a stretch of the imagination, allied perhaps with intuition, that even now, with the clarity of scientific hindsight, we find difficult to explain. 

There were, to begin with, no obvious paths to follow from native metals to smelting.  Certainly, men learned very early – possibly as early as the time of Catal Huyuk – that native metals could be softened by heat, and even melted and cast into moulds.  But simply heating mineral ores does not release the metal they contain.  Furthermore, there would have been little incentive to apply heat to mineral ores, since they bear no resemblance to the metals they contain.  Copper ores are particularly deceptive.  The vivid green of malachite – much admired in antiquity for jewellery – gives no hint of the red metal within, combined with oxygen and carbon.  And yet malachite was almost certainly the first metallic ore to be smelted on a world-wide scale. 

The link between native copper and malachite might well have been suggested initially Neolithic man by the common association of these two forms of metal in outcrops of ore.  But the process by which he then learned how to extract copper from the malachite remains one of the most fascinating questions in all prehistory.  It is a major challenge to the new scientific discipline of archaeo-metallurgy, in which archaeologists, prehistorians, anthropologists, geologists and metallurgists are not only looking at ancient habitation sites and early metal artefacts with new insights, but are using all the tools of modern chemistry and physics to establish the origin of metal working and the methods of its founders. 

To smelt copper from malachite two conditions must be met.  One is the application of energy, in the form of intense heat – at least 1084 C, which is the melting point of pure copper.  The other is an atmosphere starved of oxygen but rich in carbon. Such an atmosphere draws off the oxygen from the heated ore and ‘reduces’ the copper to a molten metallic form.  Given time and sufficient heat, the molten copper separates form the residue of the ore, which forms a lighter molten substance called slag. 

This is an exacting process, and it is difficult to imagine it being conceived and applied by Neolithic man other than as the results of some accidental experience, or the observation of some related by haphazard event. Curiosity and intelligent experimentation might then have evolved a method of smelting which worked, even if it was not properly understood. 

(p 12)The circumstances of that accidental experience or haphazard event are not easy to identify, and there is at present no generally accepted explanation.  One obvious approach to the problem is to establish where in the ancient world copper ores might have been subjected, by accident or design, to those two critical conditions: a temperature close to 1200 C, and a ‘reducing’ atmosphere. 

One possibility, which has been strongly supported, is the camp-fire. Early man, it is suggested, must on occasion have built his cooking fire on outcrops of ores such as malachite, or perhaps used ore-bearing rocks to make a fireplace.  After a particularly hot fire, fanned by the wind, he might have found blobs of smelted copper in the ashes.  It is a persuasive idea, and in fact some recent research suggests that it might well have worked for one metal – lead.  Experiments at the Institute for Archaeo-Metallurgical Studies, associated with the Institute of Archaeology in London, have shown that lead can be smelted from its common ore, galena, in a wood or charcoal camp-fire. Such a fire burns at about 600 or 700 C, and this is well above the melting point of lead, which is only 327 C. 

(13)However, where copper is concerned this theory faces difficulties which most authorities on metallurgy find insurmountable.  To begin with, the melting point of copper is formidably high – 1084 C – and this is rarely achieved in an open fire, even with wind assistance.  A greater problem is the maintenance of a reducing atmosphere.  Burning carbon fuel does produce carbon monoxide gas, thus creating a reducing atmosphere immediately above the glowing coals, but in an open fire this is fitful and intermittent.  There seems to be little likelihood of sustaining the two necessary conditions long enough to reduce copper accidentally, or even deliberately, in a campfire.  Most archaeo-metallurgists are therefore inclined to look elsewhere for the genesis of this critical advance. 

One other possibility, which is gaining increasing credibility, derives strong support from two historical facts: both smelting and pottery making appeared in Neolithic life at about the same time, and the potter, the first specialist in the management of heat, had under his control all the materials and conditions necessary for the smelting of copper. 

The history of pottery making is concerned, like smelting, with the transformation of materials by the application of heat.  It no doubt began with the observation that clay is soft and easily shaped while wet, but dries hard in the sun; if wetted again, of course, it softens once more.  The natural progression might have been to reinforce or emphasize the drying process in a fire.  And so, by about nine or ten thousand years ago, it became known that when clay is fired to about 450 C it undergoes a chemical change and becomes irreversibly hard and water-proof.  Above about 1400 C it undergoes a second change: the silica in the clay takes on a glassy structure, and the pottery becomes even more rigid. 

At first, pots were heat-treated in open fires.  In many parts of the world, including New Guinea, they still are.  Later it was found that more predictable results could be obtained by stacking the pots on top of the fuel before lighting it, and covering the pile with earth or other material to keep in the heat and distribute it more evenly.  Eventually it was realized that a permanent cover, with a built-in flue, was more efficient than making temporary piles for each firing.   Thus, somewhere around the beginning of the sixth millennium BC, the pottery kiln came into existence. 

With its thick, heat-retaining walls and flue-assisted natural draught, the pottery kiln could maintain temperatures well in excess of 1000 C for hours.  In the enclosed space the fumes from the fire would tend to create a reducing atmosphere.  Two of the conditions necessary for the smelting of copper were present.  And so, on occasion, was the third requirement: the copper ores themselves. 

Very early in the history of pottery, metallic ores had come into use for decoration, perhaps as a direct continuation of the tribal custom of body painting with ground-up mineral ores.  The pigments were applied to the pots in liquid form, covered with a glaze – usually made with a lead oxide base – and fired.  The pigments took on bright, permanent colours, and the glaze formed a hard, transparent protective coating. 

There are many ways where pots are still decorated with metallic ores in this way, and fired in kilns whose design has hardly changed in thousands of years.  One is Jarasthan, in northern India.  The traditional brightly patterned ‘blue pottery’ produced in and around Jaipur, the capital, is derived form the Islamic style of pottery introduced into India in the sixteenth century.  Today there are scores of potter continually engaged, but one who stands out because of his technical grasp of pottery making and the behavior of metallic pigments is Kripal Singh.  His work is in demand all round the world, and is remarkable for its consistency and quality.  And yet, as he showed us, Kripal Singh still occasionally produces – quite unintentionally – smelted metal in his own kiln. 

Kripal Singh uses many different metal ores for pigments, including copper, lead, iron, antimony, and cobalt.  He makes his glaze by heating lead oxide crystals in the kiln.  They melt down into a glassy substance which is ground into a powder, mixed with a binding agent, and applied to the decorated pots before firing.  Sometimes Kripal Singh has to throw away a batch of melted-down glaze because it contains globules of pure metallic lead.  More rarely, the transformation takes place later, during the firing of the pots, and produces patches of metallic lead in the layer of glaze. 

(p 16)  We cannot be sure, of course, that this is how the smelting process was first observed or contrived, but the repetitive nature of pottery firing and the conditions involved make it an obvious possibility.  It may be more than coincidence that copper artefacts do not begin to appear in the archaeological record in any quantity until after pottery itself appears.  And two areas where high-temperature pottery firing evolved – Mesopotamia and Egypt – went on to develop a high level of copper technology. 

If it was in fact the pottery kiln which provided the first clues to smelting, it would soon have been appreciated that such a device was not ideal for the deliberate reduction of metallic ores.  In the large are space the reducing gases were not evenly distributed, and much of the heat was wasted.  So we can imagine people trying all kinds of methods of creating more effectively the conditions for smelting. 

Many directions those early experiments took remain a mystery, but we do know that somewhere along the way the metal workers turned back to, or modified, the open fire. The walls of the fireplace were brought in closer to the fire and raised in height to make a more enclosed space, in which the reducing gases could be concentrated.  The copper ore was brought closer to the source of the heat by mixing it with the burning charcoal.  Air was blown into the heart of the furnace to raise the temperature.  And, finally, other substances such as iron ore were added to the copper ore as a ‘flux’.  Fluxing assists the reduction process, and improves the separation of the molten copper from the slag.” 

By this point in this essay, it should come as no surprise that the ability to create and maintain high heat in a kiln can be detected in pottery, and was not present in Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon time frame. 

Matheny comments upon this:

“Karen Bruhns has explored the issue of early metals in southern Mesoamerica in a well-researched article and remarks that the Maya had some access to metal objects from the Early Classic period onwards.  After a review of the information available about these early metal objects, she concludes that the “only relatively certain statement that can be made is, with the possible exception of the Soconusco disks… all Classic period metal objects found in Mesoamerica are obviously southeastern in manufacture” (1989, 221).  This means that these artifacts were not made in the Maya area or in another region of Mesoamerica but in lower Central America. 

If these metal objects were available to the Maya by at least Early Classic times, then the obvious problem becomes explaining why the Maya did not begin producing their own metal artifacts given the availability of gold, silver, and copper in eastern Guatemala, western Honduras, and El Salvador.  Bruhns suggests that the southern Mesaoamericans lacked adequate pyrotechnology to make the transition to successful metallurgy (1989, 224).  Specifically they lacked the technological prowess to attain and maintain the necessary temperatures to smelt metal.  The ceramics from the area were fired in poorly controlled open fires, which often resulted in fire-clouding and incompletely oxidized areas.  Only by the Late Classic and Early Postclassic periods does evidence exist that the Maya had begun producing ceramic vessels in controlled firing situations, including kilns.  The adoption of the Central American metallurgical technology occurred in the Maya area soon after the production of Plumbate pottery began.  Plumbate pottery has a vitrified surface and, according to Bruhns, the “temperatures which produce the characteristic vitrification of Tohil Plumbate are precisely those which are appropriate for smelting.” (1986, 226)”

Depending on which theory one adopts to defend the Mesoamerican setting of the Book of Mormon, various if…then statements can be made to help us evaluate how likely each assertion is, in the context of widely accepted information about ancient Mesoamerica.   

If the Book of Mormon does not truly describe a culture that had access to advanced metallurgy, and all the references therein are translation artifacts or errors, then the nineteenth century witnesses who testified to seeing and handling actual metallic objects from the Book of Mormon era, including the gold plates, cannot be accepted as presenting factual information.  

If the Book of Mormon does not truly describe a culture that had access to advanced metallurgy, and all the references therein are translation artifacts or errors, and the nineteenth century witnesses were presenting factual information, then the Nephites only utilized their smelting technology to produce these single artifacts, and produced nothing else with this technology, which contradicts the ten accounts of Joseph and Oliver seeing wagon-loads of plates in a cave in Hill Cumorah as well as defying all common sense. 

If Nephi did not teach his people the art of smelting, then he was deliberately withholding information that would have greatly enhanced their ability to defend themselves against their enemies.

If the Book of Mormon does describe a culture that had access to advanced metallurgy, then the dilemma remains that no evidence has been found in specified period and time that supports the assertion that at least some ancient Mesoamerican cultures practiced advanced metallurgy, despite the fact that other evidence has been found to support the presence of the technology at a later time period. 

If the ancient Mesoamerican inhabitants had the technology to create and maintain heat sufficient to smelt metals, then they did not apply that technology to making pottery.  (Pottery is likely the most abundant artifact in ancient Mesoamerica, so this argument cannot be reasonably refuted on the basis of “absence of evidence”.) 

While none of these statements present impossible  situations, each presents an extraordinarily unlikely situation.












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