Having presented certain evidence that suggests that not only contemporary archaeologists and anthropologists, but also Cyrus Thomas himself, did not consider the Bat Creek stone to be authentic, we feel compelled to address the question: "Who was the forger and what were his motives?" inscriptions are also clearly different, the Bat Creek I own no rights to this excerpt.Murray's Original Bat Creek Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWT0x232euwShepherd's Chapel:http://www.shepherdschapel.com/Music:www.audionautix.comSound FX:www.freesfx.co.uk/Horse Image:www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk and subsequent American archaeologists failed to see It is inscribed in Paleo Hebrew. 1973 Bristol Brass: A History of the Industry. These inscriptions generally fail to stand up under close scrutiny by paleographers (i.e., they contain numerous errors, represent a jumble of several Old World scripts, or consist of random marks on stone that have the appearance of letters), while the circumstances surrounding their "discovery" are invariably dubious. The late Semitic languages Bat Creek instead correctly sign iii), so to read lyhwdh or 1 yhwdym ("for Judea" or "for the Jews"), as advocated by Gordon (1971, 1972, 1974), is impossible (note that Hebrew is read from right to left). Required fields are marked *. The first letters of the two words Although largely laid to rest by the beginning of the twentieth century, both issues continue to surface periodically (e.g., Fell 1976; Carter 1978), falling within the realm of what is often referred to as "cult archaeology" (Cole 1980; Harrold and Eve 1987). Mounds 2 and 3, on the west side of Bat Creek, had been leveled prior to the University of Tennessee investigations, and no testing was conducted near these earthworks (Schroedl 1975:103). 17-21. Take for example the supposed elephant mound of Wisconsin which has played an important role in most of the works relating to the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley, but is now generally conceded to be the effigy of a bear, the snout, the elephantine feature, resulting from drifting sand. 47, Issue. Although Gordon's Paleo-Hebrew reading of "The Bat Creek inscription (also called the Bat Creek stone or Bat Creek tablet) is an inscribed stone collected as part of a Native American burial mound excavation in Loudon County, Tennessee, in 1889 by the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology's Mound Survey, directed by entomologist Cyrus Thomas.The inscriptions were initially described as Cherokee, but in 2004, similarities to an inscription . vegetation could be reconstructed at The Thames & Hudson, London, 1968. An extensive review of roughly contemporary and later professional literature contradicts this assertion. the above photograph of the Bat Creek stone. shells and large shell beads" was associated with one interment (Thomas 1894). The Origins and Early Use of Brass. Newsweek 76(17):65. with an uptick at the end. [16] It has subsequently been loaned to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, N.C., where it has been on display since 2015. Bat Creek stone, which was professionally Finally, if we focus exclusively on signs i through v, and accept Gordon's values, the text does not make sense as Paleo-Hebrew. This shape suggests the stone's creator used a rounded instrument to make the engraving. "Did Judean Refugees Escape to Tennessee? American Anthropologist 5:63-64. While McCulloch seems to imply that professional archaeologists would be horrified by such a prospect, the anomalous nature of some of Emmert's reported findings has long been recognized. [4] Countering the notion of pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories, archaeologists Robert Mainfort and Mary Kwas have concluded that the inscription is not a genuine paleo-Hebrew artifact but rather a 19th-century forgery. [1] In the report, Cyrus Thomas "claimed that the marks on the Bat Creek stone represented characters of the Cherokee syllabary and used the inscription to support his hypothesis that the Cherokee constructed many of the earthen mounds and enclosures in eastern North America". Schroedl, Gerald F. Gordon, whose scholarly credentials are certainly impressive, is an archetypical example of what Williams (1988a) has referred to as "rogue professors." Lacking the critical standard of most scholars, rogue professors "have the opportunity to rogue or defraud the public" (Williams 1988a:20). The director of the project, Cyrus Thomas, initially declared that the curious inscription on the stone were "beyond question letters of the Cherokee alphabet." (Thomas 1894: 391:4) give no reference for what they regard as an Artifacts were associated with only one of the 9 extended interments. Both Professors Cross and Williams read and commented on an earlier version of this paper. The authors particularly thank Frank Moore Cross, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, for providing us with his professional assessment of the signs on the Bat Creek stone. Hodge (ed. ShLMYHW or Shelemiyahu. In Paleo-Hebrew, words are required to be 14-16, and numerous To read lyhwdm is also impossible on two grounds. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. The Little Tennessee River enters Tennessee from the Appalachian Mountains to the south and flows northward for just over 50 miles (80km) before emptying into the Tennessee River near Lenoir City. Archaeology 41(5):62-70. National Geographic 126(5) :708-734. dictionary chart of Jewish War J. Huston MuCulloch, an Ohio State University economics professor . 1970a A Canaanite Columbus? [1][3] Furthermore, the conclusions drawn by Mainfort and Kwas have been accepted by other archaeologists and members of academic communities. [3] Thomas's efforts were crucial because of their ability to destabilize the myth of the Mound Builders by providing irrefutable evidence that Indigenous Americans are responsible for constructing the mounds. Bat Creek Mound #3, with the inscription [9] Historian Sarah E. Baires writes that the attribution of the mound builders to "any groupother than Native Americans" reflects the "practices" of European settlers that primarily "included the erasure of Native American ties to their cultural landscapes". is not unlikely that Mound #3's trees were of the same type. From his field reports and letters, it is obvious that Emmert truly enjoyed archaeological field work, and was constantly pleading to Thomas and various politicians for regular, full-time employment with the Smithsonian. Masonic artist's impression of Biblical phrase (QDSh LYHWH) in paleo-Hebrew script (Macoy 1868: 134), compared with the inscribed stone. In: F.W. This of course begs the question of why Thomas did not admit to the failings of his magnum opus in a more direct manner. McCulloch, J. Huston, "The Bat Creek Inscription: Did Judean The latter was inextricably linked to the Moundbuilder debate (Silverberg 1968). Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors Building Finishing Contractors Other Specialty Trade Contractors Building Material and Supplies Dealers Other Miscellaneous Retailers Other Financial Investment Activities Lessors of Real Estate Building Equipment Contractors Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution Traveler Accommodation Rooming and Boarding Houses . The sign is quite similar to the Cherokee "ga" regardless of the orientation of the stone. or "dh ' 7NESb" in Thomas's orientation. See also comment This is especially exciting when considered in the context of the DNA evidence, Joseph Smiths statements, and all the other archaeological evidence for highly advanced civilizations in the heartland of America during the Book of Mormon epic.4, Your email address will not be published. 927 views, 44 likes, 17 loves, 11 comments, 58 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from ZADOK WATCH Ministry: "The Translation" with Dr. Arnold Murray,. of Hebrew University archaeologist Eilat Mazar. 1978 An American Paleolithic. 1922 Cherokee and Earlier Remains on Upper Tennessee. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin No. American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal 12(1):54. [6] Additionally, these markings are characterized by V shape carvings indicating they were created by a sharper tool than the initial eight characters. Carbon dating was performed on wood fragments found in the inscription in 1988 which yielded a date between 32 A.D. and 769 A.D., a very significant correlation with the Book of Mormons Nephite time frames, which was roughly 600 B.C. Acknowledgements [7] To clarify the debate, entomologist Cyrus Thomas was "given the job of Director of the Division of Mound Exploration within the federal bureau of the study of Ethnology". [3] With a budget of $60,000 provided by the U.S. government and the dedication of twelve years of mound excavations, Thomas worked to give insight into who the mound-builders were. Gordon claimed that by inverting the orientation of the stone relative to the published illustrations (i.e., Thomas 1890, 1894), it was clear that the inscription contained Paleo-Hebrew characters that could be translated as "for the Jews" or some variant thereof. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. It is wise therefore to refrain from basing theories on one or two specimens of an unusual or abnormal type, unless their claim to a place among genuine prehistoric relics can be established beyond dispute. 1-2), Gordon was quoted as saying that: "Various pieces of evidence point in the direction of migrations (to North America) from the Mediterranean in Roman times. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you have about our organization. LYHWD[M], or "for the Judeans.". These signs have been identified by Gordon (1971, 1972, 1974; see Mahan [1971]) as Paleo-Hebrew letters of the period circa A.D. 100; McCulloch (1988) suggests the first century A.D. 1892 Improved Cherokee Alphabets. Wahlgren, Erik publish the details http://bookofmormonevidence.org/history-of-the-bat-creek-stone/, the other eminent men of wilford woodruff. Refugees Escape to Tennessee? Accessed 12/29/05. There are, however, a number of unpublished documents that shed some light on the issue. Even more telling is the fact that Cyrus Thomas himself did not discuss the Bat Creek stone in his later substantive publications (1898, 1903, 1905 [with WJ McGee]). separated by a dot or short diagonal stroke photograph, instead appeared to be ancient Semitic. MinnesotaHistorical Society, St. Paul. Gordon, Cyrus H. SATANIC MEDIA EXPOSED, Uvalde TX Shooting LIES! Pocket Books, New York. Ventnor Publishers, Ventnor, N.J., 1972. The Cherokees in Pre-Columbian Times, N.D.C. America in 1170 A.D. (see, e.g. abilities per se. 35 . Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Nashville Tennessean, October 19, 1970, pp. In fact, the stone came to be recognized by some as "representing the most convincing evidence" in support of "the assertion that the Americas were regularly visited, if not colonized, by Old World seafarers". Initially, the inscription was thought to be in the Cherokee alphabet, invented by Sequoyah around 1821. Today, this mound is submerged by a reservoir. 1910 The Stone Age in North America (2 vols.). "Thomas also reports enclosed burial areas, vaguely similar to those described above, from Sullivan County. Pre-Columbiana, and a PDF of the draft is online at Since the above was written, Wilson et al. but as such is not well made, since in Paleo-Hebrew it should 3, Such findings may finally provide precedent to re-examine the Newark Holy Stones which also bear ancient Hebrew inscriptions and were recovered from a Hopewell burial mound near Newark Ohio. 1903 The Indians of North America in Historic Times (published as Volume 2 of The History of North America). Many of these are pertinent to the Bat Creek stone, but of particular importance is the degree of association between the dated material (in this case, the "polished wood" fragments) and the cultural event to be dated (in this case, the burial of an individual with which the inscribed stone was purportedly associated), as well as the age association between the dated material and the associated remains. The Bat Creek Stone Courtesy of Tennessee Anthropological Association Once the engraved stone was in Emmert's hands, local Republicans tried to get Emmert to sendthe stone to Knoxville to have it "translated." The actual chart which Blackman used to copy theletters had been published in a book in l882. the main line are test scratches made by an unknown party while The Bat Creek stone. 1971 Before Columbus: Links Between the Old World and Ancient America. 3 (part As to the specific signs on the Bat Creek stone, several are passable Cherokee, and the inspiration for the remainder could have been any number of published sources, including illustrations of the Grave Creek stone and the Davenport tablets. vi: We agree with the assessment by Gordon (Mahan 1971:43) that this sign is "not in the Canaanite system." 2006): 16-27, 70. "Canaanites in America: A New Scripture in Stone?". Ingstad, Helge More conclusive evidence regarding the stone's authenticity comes from two additional sources. Hence, Thomas's interpretation, although incorrect, at least had some basis. The Radiocarbon Date LYHW- beginning the longer second word in both cases. According to him, the five letters to the left of the comma-shaped by JHM TA Spring 1993, pp. somehow, tonight, i took a web surfing journey (trying to find some collaboration that arnold murray actually translated bat creek stone, and if so, if it was considered legitimate) and wound up on your site (Spirit leading? In the illustration orientation, this sign resembles the Cherokee "tlun:; inverted, it is somewhat similar to a reversed "si.". 1978 The Composition of the Copper Alloys Used by the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Civilizations. This arm in fact appears but merely that this is a common component of Hebrew space as in English or modern Hebrew. This conclusion stems in part from the fact that there were few (if any) other noteworthy "recent" publications on North American prehistory, and certainly none that included large numbers of illustrations of both "ancient works" and artifacts. detail could have been copied from Macoy's illustration, 2, in the Bat Creek Mound, and on the Blankenship Place.". Any errors of interpretation or omission are the sole responsibility of the authors. with mem, in which case this word would instead read If nothing else, the Masonic illustration newly discovered by When. The In the 1894 Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, the inscription was first officially mentioned along with other artifacts recovered from the Bat Creek Mound excavations. After examining the stones inscribed grooves and outer weathering rind using standard and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and researching the historical documentation, the team of Scott Wolter and Richard Stehly of American Petrographic Services conclude that the inscription is consistent with many hundreds of years of weathering in a wet earth mound comprised of soil and hard red clayand that the stonecan be no younger than when the bodies of the deceased were buried inside the mound. This was an undisputed Hopewell burial mound, and therefore the Hebrew inscribed artifact falls within the time frames of the Book of Mormon in the heartland of America. [5] Mainfort and Kwas have identified the source of the inscription. [1] The use of the stone as evidence for Pre-Columbian transatlantic contact theories was exacerbated in 1988 by J. Huston McCulloch, Economics professor at Ohio State University. the inscription were Carbon-14 dated to somewhere between ). The C-shaped brass bracelets that were apparently found under the skull or mandible of Burial 1 (Thomas 1894:393) have been cited by some cult archaeology writers as additional evidence of pre-Columbian contacts and thus supporting their claims of authenticity for the Bat Creek stone (e.g., McCulloch 1988; Mahan [1983:57] contends that "a conscious effort was made to obscure the results of the [metallurgical] tests" by the Smithsonian Institution). The words are: R, QL, YH, VD. "Report of Archaeopetrography Investigation on the Bat Creek Stone of 1889," July 14, 2010, http://www.ampetrographic.com/files/BatCreekStone.pdf. Thomas, Cyrus and W.J. word divider read, from right to left, LYHWD, or "for Judea." The largest of these, Mound 1, was located on the east side of the creek. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. What was the translation? A 3-foot black oak tree still stood on The cornerstone of this reconstruction is at present the Bat Creek inscription because it was found in an unimpeachable archaeological context under the direction of professional archaeologists working for the prestigious Smithsonian Institution.". Tennessee Archaeologist 27(2):38-45. Since words are separated. Pastor Murray is the scholar who finally translated the inscription. Investigators concluded that the mound was a "platform" mound typical of the Mississippian period. Peet 1890, 1892, 1895). General History, Cyclopedia and Dictionary of Freemasonry (1870). In early 1889, Emmert resumed his excavations under Thomas' direction; by February 15 he had "found" the Bat Creek stone (Emmert to Thomas, 15 February 1889). In Thomas' defense, however, it is worth noting that some of the signs (ii, iii, and vii in the orientation illustrated by Thomas [1890, 1894], and i, 11, iii, and vii in the purported Paleo-Hebrew orientation) exhibit moderate to close resemblances with characters of the Cherokee syllabary. Pp 181, This page was last edited on 15 March 2023, at 01:56. The two vertical strokes above First, in a short contribution to the Handbook of North American Indians entitled "Inscribed Tablets," Fowke (1907:691) stated that: "While it would be perhaps too much to say that there exists north of Mexico no tablet or other ancient article that contains other than a pictorial or pictographic record, it is safe to assert that no authentic specimen has yet been brought to public notice." As a strong advocate of pre-Columbian contacts between the Mediterranean region and the New World, Gordon's (1971, 1972, 1974) interpretation of the Bat Creek inscription could justifiably be criticized on the grounds that his zeal to make a case for the radiation of higher culture from a single Near Eastern center caused him to relax the disciplines of historical linguistics, paleography, and historical orthography. Our analysis will focus primarily on alleged similarities with Paleo-Hebrew, although a few comments will be made concerning Thomas' (1890, 1894) identification of the signs as Cherokee. and A.D. 100, but not for the second century C.E. Journal of Mormon History, Vol. Jefferson Chapman, Director of the McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee, generously provided copies of unpublished reports and correspondence by and pertaining to John Emmert. Hodge, Frederick W. (editor) Additionally, there are very few references to the stone in the professional archaeological literature. Harrington, M.R. The sign is impossible for Paleo-Hebrew. In the case of the former, the primitive excavation and recording techniques employed render the certainty of association between the wood fragments, the inscribed stone, and the skeletal remains indeterminant (or at best very tenuous). 40 miles south of Knoxville, in what is Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, Columbus. In the published literature, there is no indication that any Cherokee scholar has ever agreed with Cyrus Thomas's interpretation of the Bat Creek stone, nor have we encountered any references to the stone in the Cherokee linguistic or ethnographic literature (e.g., Mooney 1892, as well as examples noted below). www.maryjones.us/jce/iolo.html. missing on Bat Creek. with details of their analysis, which I have not yet had time to critique. However, Wilson et al. Robert C. Mainfort, Jr. and Mary L. Kwas, TA 1991(1), pp. better than to English, and no one has ever proposed a Cherokee reading The Bat Creek mounds (40LD24) were located near the confluence of Bat Creek and the Little Tennessee River in Loudon County, Tennessee. Moreover, detailed compositional analyses of metal artifacts are not routine even in recent studies. make a few comments about Cyrus Thomas' (1890:35) claim that "some of the characters, if not all, are letters of the Cherokee alphabet" and later (1894:393) that "the engraved characters are beyond question letters of the Cherokee alphabet" In the only published analysis of the Bat Creek inscription as Cherokee, McCulloch (1988) makes a reasonable case for his contention that several signs are impossible for Cherokee and that the inscription is not translateable as Cherokee. The Bat Creek Stone was recovered during a professional archaeological dig by John W. Emmert of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology in 1889, during its Mound Survey Project. McCulloch (1988) identifies sign ii as "waw" based partially on a fourth century B.C. The Bat Creek inscription is an inscribed stone tablet found by John W. Emmert on February 14, 1889. Hodges, New York, 1890. American Antiquity 46(2):244-271. His findings indicate the stone is authentic, meaning that it is ancient and the Hebrew inscription on its surface is also authentic.
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