The Foundation for Apologet ic Information & Research

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE:QUESTIONABLE ARCHAEOLOGY AND

THE BOOK OF MORMONBy Brant Gardner

In recent years, two very different books have appearedthat discuss the place of the Book of Mormon in thereal world. Although they differ widely in the locationswhere they place the Book of Mormon action, they areremarkably similar in one sadly coincidental detail. Bothbooks use artifacts in support of the Book of Mormonthat are known or regarded by experts to be forgeries.Even more coincidentally, both authors know of the con-troversies, and respond to the debunking of their fa-vored artifacts in similar ways.

The first book is This Land: Zarahemla and the NephiteNation, and the second is The Lives and Travels of Mor-mon and Moroni. The first book places the Book of Mor-mon lands in North America, with Cumorah in NewYork and the Mississippi as the Sidon. The second placesthe Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica. While the geog-raphies are diverse, and the archaeological artifactsmust necessarily differ, they both include major sectionson artifacts that are tantalizingly representative of ex-actly what the Book of Mormon states happens. In thefirst case, there is a representation of early Christiansin the Americas, and in the second, examples of the veryscript of the Anthon transcript! Both of the examplesare so remarkable that they would appear to be conclu-sive proof of the Book of Mormon. They seem almosttoo good to be true. Unfortunately, they really are toogood to be true.

THIS LAND: Z ARAHEMLA ANDTHE NEPHITE NATIONThe book This Land: Zarahemla and the NephiteNation is heavily illustrated with artifacts col-lectively known as the Michigan artifacts. Asintroduction to these pieces, This Land tells us:

Public awareness of the Michigan MoundsArtifacts began in 1874, in Crystal, Michi-gan, where a farmer, clearing some land,

uncovered the large replica of a shuttle groundblack slate and highly polished. One surfacedisplayed the incised drawing of a mans headwearing a helmet and the obverse showed twolines of writing; a group of cuneiform and a lineof an unknown script. Over that 19th Centurysummer, more pieces were found in the sur-rounding countryside, including a copper dag-ger, a clay box, and some slate tablets, each itemshowing an unknown grouping of script but eachon bearing on it the grouping of cuneiform, thesame as that on the slate shuttle.1

A representative slate tablet is shown in Figure 1. Inthe circle is the cuneiform grouping and in the rect-angle the unknown script. Figure 2 shows clay tabletsfrom the Michigan collection, again highlighting thecuneiform grouping in the circles.

Even without a physical examination of the artifacts,there are features represented that are red flags to any-one with a background in art history. One of the firstshould be the presence of the cuneiform grouping ona slate tablet. Cuneiform writing was created for usewith clay tablets. In the soft medium, a stylus waspressed into groupings that represented the languagerecorded. The shape of the stylus would leave the mark-ings seen in these Michigan artifacts. Take a look at theclay tablets, and notice that the formation of the char-acters would be a very simple task. The stylus is simplypressed into the clay, which retains the shape and group-

ing of the marks. Now note the same markings onthe slate. In order to gain the shape that is char-

acteristic of cuneiform, the maker of the slatetext has to draw the shape. The head of themarking has a triangular shape that must bedrawn rather than punched. When comparedwith the rest of the unknown script the differ-ences are obvious. The rest of the script can becreated by an engraving motion. In the cunei-form grouping, the text has to be created as

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though it were a picture, not a letter. Thus we have twodifferent types of script on a single artifact, and scriptsthat were designed to be created with two different typesof tools, and on two different media. The difficulty ofreproducing the cuneiform grouping on a non-claysurface is illustrated in Figure 3 where the author ofthe tablet simply gives up and uses a simpler T shaperather than the correct cuneiform style for the char-acters in the grouping. The omnipresence of this par-ticular grouping led one proponent of the artifacts tolabel it the Mystic Symbol,2 though a critic of the arti-facts labeled it the sign-manual of the forger.3

For their part, the authors are quite clear that theyunderstand that the artifacts are not only controver-sial, but have been proclaimed as forgeries from thebeginning. From an LDS perspective, no less an LDSscientist that James E. Talmage examined the artifactsand declared them forgeries. Against such evidence, theauthors reply:

We are quite careful in the way we treat contro-versial artifacts. The Journal of Book of Mor-mon Studies makes mention from James E.Talmages journal the story about the step-daughter of Scotford (the discoverer of some ofthe Michigan relics), who stated that he hadfraudulently manufactured many of the relics.They call this critical evidence. The fact is ei-ther the girl is fabricating the story, or she wastelling the truth. It can go one way or the other,especially if she had something against him. In

Figure 2: Clay tablets from the Michigan collection.

Figure 1: Michigan artifact on slate.

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our own families, we have seen false accusationsmade, and it is certainly not out of the ques-tion.4

In other words, Goble and May state that the declara-tion of a daughter of one of the forgers is insufficientproof, as is any of the reasoning by any of the experts.At one point, the authors decry Talmage for going withthe intent to repudiate the artifacts because such a pre-conception would flavor his response. 5 Nevertheless,they approve of a proponent who was believing fromthe outset that the Michigan artifacts were genuine.6

The impassioned plea of the authors is simply:

We have shown things that are controversialand have not been redeemed by science yet. Werecognize that these cannot be regarded as evi-dence yet.

In spite of that, these artifacts still demand fur-ther research and cannot be dismissed out ofhand, as they have a high probability of beingreal. Just test them is all we ask.7

Somehow in their rather self-serving dismissal ofTalmages probe, they missed the fact that Talmage hadsent samples of one of the artifacts that he participatedin retrieving for scientific analysis, and the results werethat it was factory-smelted copper, hardly the type ofmaterial that could have been used by an ancient pre-industrial population.8

Unfortunately for the publication of the text, the au-thors were apparently also unaware that exactly thistype of scientific testing for which they plead has al-

ready been done, the year before they published theirbook. Richard B. Stamps wrote a devastating article inBYU Studies. 9 Stamps ran several types of close ex-aminations on various types of Michigan artifacts. Whenexamining the clay artifacts he found that the type ofclay and temper was not representative of that foundin Michigan. In addition, several of the clay pieces havethe IH/ symbol on one side, and marks of saw-cut woodon the other. As Stamps notes:

Because modern tools leave modern marks, itis logical, with these additional examples, toagree with Kelsey and Spooner that the clayartifacts having the IH/ symbol on one sideand historic period woodprints on the other dateto the historic period.10

Further evidence of the impossibility of the clay objectsantiquity is that they dissolve in water, and thus couldnot survive in Michigan ground,

with its rainy springs, humid summers, and cold,snowy winters. The winter frost action, com-bined with the day thaw-night freeze sequencein early spring destroys low-fired prehistoricceramics from the Woodland period. Water pen-etrates the porous pottery and, when the tem-perature drops low enough, it freezes, formingcrystals that split the pottery. Many of theunfired Michigan Relic clay pieces have survivedfor more than one hundred years only becausethey have been stored in museums or collectorscabinets, protected from the harsh Michiganweather. If placed in the ground, they would notsurvive ten let alone hundreds of years.11

Figure 3: An incorrect representation of the cuneiform

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Stamps also examined some of the copper pieces, yield-ing the same microscopical conclusion as the report toDr. Talmage. The pieces are modern smelted copper.12In addition:

In cross-section, I observed that the tempera-ture difference on the surface differes slightlyfrom the temperature at the center. This differ-ence is another evidence that the piece wasmade from smelted ingots that had been hot-rolled. Additionally, the piece I studied was tooflat to have been built up by the cold-hammer,folding, laminating process that we see in Na-tive American artifacts. This piece clearly hasno folds or forgin laps. It is also extremely regu-lar in thickness, with a range of .187 to .192inches. A measurement of .1875 equals 3/16 ofan inch a Standard English unit of measure-ment and common thickness for commerciallyproduced rolled stock. Event he edges have beenpeaned (hammered to remove the straightedges), the sides are parallel, and the cornersare right angles. The cross-section is rectangu-lar, whereas most traditional pieces are diamondshaped with a strong ridge running down thecenter of the blade or point. The blank piece ofcopper from which this artifact was made ap-pears to have been cut from a larger piece witha guillotine-style table shear or bench shear.13

Stamps notes that early criticism of the metal artifactscentered on the need for files and chisels to produce theartifacts, tools not in evidence in prehistoric NorthAmerica. After the criticisms were leveled, exactly suchartifacts were produced. Stamps examined a file andsome chisels. He notes that the file is somethingthat looks like a file but has no cutting capability.14Similarly, the chisels have the mushroomed-out endthat one expects of a chisel that has been hit with ahammer, but the chisel end itself could not cut, andshows no sign of the wear that would have caused themushrooming of the blunt end of the chisel.15

Many of the artifacts are on slate, such as those in fig-ures 1 and 2. Talmage saw clear evidence of modernsaw cuts on a slate artifact, an observation Stamps con-firms.16 Michigan does not have slate quarries, but therewas a large business importing slate roofing tiles dur-ing the appearance of the Michigan relics. Many of therelics clearly demonstrate the markings of commer-cially cut and milled slate.17

Finally, Stamps notes the problematic nature of theimages on the artifacts themselves:

Byzantine domes, pyramids, buildings, doorswith windows on the sides, and double-hung,framed windows suggest Masonic Hall archi-tecture. The use of perspective in drawings is aconcept that did not appear in Europe until thefifteenth centurymuch too late to have cometo Michigan with the lost ten tribes or even thefifth-century Coptic Christianstwo of the theo-ries concerning the artifacts origins.18

Clearly the authors did not know of this information, orelse willingly ignored it. The statement in the text aboutthe scientific study of the artifacts is limited to a re-sponse to the FARMS article, which they claim:

[FARMS] dogmatically reject the Michigan Rel-ics based on an extremely flawed methodology.A careful examination of that article reveals thatFARMS scholars continue to dismiss the Michi-gan Relics based not on any evidence, but onthe claims, allegations and hearsay of the peoplethat dismissed the tablets in the first place al-most 100 years ago.19

It should be noted that at least one of the authors wastruly unaware of the conflicting evidence. Ed Goble be-came aware of the scientific evidence after the publica-tion of the book. To his great credit, he accepts the sci-entific evidence, but notes the inability of others to doso:

Speaking as one who has thoroughly embar-rassed myself publicly by ever having been con-nected to the Michigan Tablets, I can now saythat a bad taste has been left in my mouth. Ican say with complete certainty on my part thatthey are frauds. I had a gut feeling that theywere from the beginning, but I ignored it, be-cause I wanted my book published so bad. Itwasnt until after the book had already hitDeseret Book that [the information on] thesefacts from BYU studies [was posted] on theInternet. So, I am personally very sorry I everhad anything to do with those artifacts. A sym-posium was held in Logan, UT at USU on Tues-day. I spoke at it. Others spoke as well. One thingbecame clear to me on Tuesday that they be-lieve in them so much, and they have so muchinvested in them that they will never let go ofthem, even when facts are presented so convinc-ing that there is no denying the facts. They stillwill not let go, and still try to find ways aroundit to argue that they are genuine. Even thoughI put a disclaimer in my book calling for thetesting of the artifacts, and saying that they are

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not yet authenticated, at this point, I am justplain embarrassed, and admit I made a big er-ror. But that error is now in print, and cannotbe changed.

The fraud continues to this day from the so-called Burrows Cave in Illinois. Artifacts arefound on demand with the Mystic Symbol onthem. Oh how convenient. This is not an accu-sation against the integrity of those who sin-cerely believe in these things. For example, Iknow Wayne May of Ancient American Maga-zine quite well, who is the co-author of my book.He sincerely believes in them. I am one of theauthors of THIS LAND: Zarahemla and theNephite Nation, a book that is now available.Other parts of the book are still quite worth-while, but I cant say much for the parts deal-ing with the Michigan Tablets and BurrowsCave artifacts. Now someone is claiming to havefound a cuneiform tablet in Utah, of all places.And now the Mystic Symbol is showing up inUtah. Will it never end?

Anyway, I am going to do the best I can do toundo my error of associating myself with thesethings.20

The other author of This Land is Wayne N. May, pub-lisher of Ancient American magazine and a long-timeproponent of the Michigan artifacts. It would appearthat even after the results of the scientific study pro-viding just the proof of forgery that was called for, Mr.May will continue to promote them as authentic.

THE LIVES AND TRAVELS OFMORMON & MORONIThe second of these oddly parallel books is Jerry L.Ainsworths The Lives and Travels of Mormon andMoroni. Ainsworths controversial artifacts have noth-ing to do with the Michigan Relics, but rather a set ofgold plates purportedly from Mesoamerica. The plateshave become known as the Padilla plates, named forDr. Jesus Padilla Orozco, the man who found them.An example of the Padilla plates is shown in Figure 4.

Just as with the Michigan relics examined earlier, thisauthor also realizes that they are both controversial andthe subject of a negative report concerning their au-thenticity. Ainsworth notes:

While this report didnt rule out the authentic-ity of the gold plates, it nevertheless discred-ited those who believed the plates were valu-

able as evidence for the Book of Mormon. In fact,no clear-cut, convincing argument for or againstthe plates appeared in the report.21

It is absolutely remarkable that this statement shouldbe so eerily parallel to the statement in This Land. Therethe critics proclaimed that the rejection of the Michi-gan artifacts was based not on any evidence.22 Nowwe have Ainsworth claiming that different profession-als similarly cannot present clear-cut, convincing evi-dence. Both authors similarly find a way to completelydismiss the work of the professionals, rendering all ofthe scientific reasoning into a simple dismissal that itdoesnt constitute real evidence.

The similar refusal to accept the opinion of profession-als is paralleled by a fascinatingly parallel refusal tobelieve the same kind of contradicting evidence. Remem-bering that one of the problems of the Michigan cop-per artifacts was that they were rolled rather than ham-mered, we find the fascinating comment in Ainsworth:

Figure 4: Some of the Padilla Plates

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Objections that authors of the BYU report hadtoward the Padilla plates included the probabil-ity that several were made of rolled, not ham-mered, gold. No one in archaeological circlesbelieved that pre-Columbian peoples possessedthe technology to roll gold, though admittedlythey had technologies in which they were asadvanced as ourselves. Unbeknownst to theauthors of the report, however, there are on dis-play today a number of heavy, smooth stone roll-ers taken from excavations of Mayan ruins. Oneappears in the Museum of Anthropology inMexico City. Another appears in the Universityof Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia (illus-trated). 23

It is indeed fortunate that Ainsworth gives us the illus-tration of this ancient gold roller. That illustration isreproduced in Figure 5 (from his book on page 269),and is the roller he cites from the University of Penn-sylvania:

There is a very good reason why this marvelous goldroller was unbeknownst to the professional archae-ologists from BYU. It is guaranteed that they knew thisartifact (and the many just like it), but that they knewit as a metate, or a utensil for grinding corn. Metatesare quite common, and very well known. They consistof the metate, or the base on which the corn is placed,and the mano, which is held in the hands and rolled ontop of the corn against the metate. They are not known

to have been used to roll gold, and it is highly doubtfulthat they would produce anything like the Padilla plates.Notice that the metate is curved front to back, and themano (the handpiece) is curved side to side. Rememberthat the Padilla plates are quite flat. They were pro-duced with modern machinery, not ancient manual tech-niques.

The parallels of dogged assertion continue. Obviouslyunaware of the scientific examination of the Michigancopper artifacts, Ainsworth notes:

Another objection the authors of the report ex-pressed about the Padilla plates was their rect-angular shape and square corners. They felt thatthis feature of the plates constituted evidenceof modern origin and could be a powerful argu-ment against the plates authenticity. On theother hand, we know that the gold plates of theBook of Mormon were rectangular with squarecorners.24

Ainsworth is persistently ignoring the professionals whoare making the same arguments as in the scientific andmicroscopic examination of the Michigan relics. His re-buttal argument is an attempt to use the plates of theBook of Mormon as refutation. While they certainly havea general form of a page, there is absolutely no way toknow that they had the similarly perfect cuts as do thePadilla plates. The fact that artistic representationsmake them appear to have perfectly aligned pages does

Figure 5: Ainsworths gold roller.

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not make it true. Since we cannotcompare the Gold Plates to thePadilla plates, it becomes a conve-nient argument of expectations, butnot of evidence.

Also similar to the Michigan arti-facts is the presence of artistic er-rors on the Padilla plates. The er-rors on the Michigan Relics arefairly simple to see if one knows thehistory of the development of West-ern art. Thus the professionalscould tell immediately that the useof perspective was an indicator ofmodernity, rather than antiquity.Similarly, the Padilla plates havesignificant and telling artistic er-rors that require the experience ofthe professional to see clearly. Nev-ertheless, once explained, the er-rors are just as out of place, andjust as evident.

The author of the Padilla platesmade some mistakes in iconogra-phy that are clearly undetectableto the uninitiated in Maya iconog-raphy, but which would never havebeen made by a native. Lets take acloser look at one of the plates, inFigure 6. The area in the yellowrectangle is the point of interest. Itis a Mesoamerican world tree,shown enlarged at the right.

This basic iconographic symbol isvery well known from multipleMesoamerican sources. There arethree important elements of thetree figure in authenticMesoamerican art. The first is thetree itself, represented here as across-like drawing. The other twoimportant elements are a bird atthe top of the tree, and the earthmonster at the bottom. In thePadilla plate, the bird and the monster are missing. Thustwo-thirds of the meaning of the symbol is left off. Intheir place is some squiggling that attempts to repre-sent the design, but lacking the meaning. It is as thoughsomeone attempted to draw a Moroni on a temple, andincluded a trombone instead of the trumpet. It is anerror that would be impossible for a native artist, butquite understandable for a forger who did not trulyunderstand the baroque forms of Mayan art.

In the case of this particular engraving, it is quite prob-able that we know the piece that served as the modelfor the forgerya panel from Palenque. Figure 7 showsthe whole panel that the forger likely copied onto theplate. The plate is long and skinny, so the forger had toremove the two figures at either side. However, hedoesnt remove them entirely. He takes the figure atthe right and moves the head to the top of the tree panel,and then takes the head of the figure on the left andplaces it below his tree.

Figure 6: Examining iconography on the Padilla plates.

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Figure 8 shows the authentic original, from Palenque,placed side by side with the forged copy, from the Padillaplates. It should be rather obvious that the drawing onthe right is taken from that on the left. Note however,that at the top of the tree the U-shape is retained, butthe authentic piece continues to place the stylized birdat the top of the tree. The forger stops drawing at thatposition, perhaps having run out of space through poorplanning. Nevertheless, there is an X that appears tobe the remnant of the legs of the bird. Note that thebirds right leg is in the fore, and the left leg behind.The crossing of the X makes that same arrangement ofelements, but without the essential part of the bird.

The next problem is at the bottom of the tree. For thenative Mayan artist, this is the world monster. Al-though the art form is complex, knowing that there aretwo eyes, a nose, and a bone jaw along the mouth, makesit clear to even a non-specialist that a face is being rep-resented. Compare the obvious earth monster fromPalenque to the undistinguishable sketching of theforger. In Figure 9 you can see how the copyist attemptedto represent elements of the drawing at the left in theforgery on the right. The lines that form the outline ofthe bottom of the eyes are still present, and even thecurve that forms the pupil is present in both drawings.On the forgers piece, however, the meaning never comes

Figure 7: A panel from Palenque.

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across. This is particularly telling in the loss of the bonejaw (though the curves are represented) near the bot-tom. The authentic earth monster wears ear flares inthe ears on either side of the head. The forger didntknow what they were, and so could not reproduce them.The iconography on the left can be read, but on the rightthere is simply an attempt at reproduction, but withoutunderstanding.

CONCLUSIONIt is absolutely fascinating that these two faithful at-tempts to bolster our understanding of the Book ofMormon should look to so different a geography to maketheir case, but end up relying upon similarly controver-sial forgeries as part of that process. In both cases, theforgeries certainly looked like they might give evidenceof the Book of Mormon. The Michigan Relics give theright storyline, and some characters that look a lot

Figure 8: Comparing the Palenque panel and the Padilla plates.

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like the Anthon transcript. The Padilla plates have evenmore text that appears very similar to the Anthon tran-script. They all really do look like evidence for the Bookof Mormon. The problem is that they only look like evi-dence for the Book of Mormon when one does not looktoo closely, or if one refuses to accept the verdict of thosewho are trained in the fields that can tell us whether ornot such artifacts are legitimate. These are not.

The Book of Mormon itself is true. These forgeries aretoo good to be true. There is so much that legitimatelycan be said to help us understand the real world con-text of the Book of Mormon. There are excellent booksthat do not stoop to misrepresenting evidence for thetext. The Book of Mormon does not need, and certainlydoes not want the kind of help that comes from con-tinuing to perpetuate old frauds. Authors who rely uponsuch obvious forgeries to make their case will ultimatelymake it more difficult for the legitimate information torise to the top of the heap. Sadder still is that there willbe many faithful members of the Church who will graspat these straws rather than found their understandingon more solid ground.

FURTHER READINGClark, John E. Review of F. Richard Hauck, Decipher-ing the Geography of the Book of Mormon. Review ofBooks on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 1. Provo, Utah:FARMS, 1989. Available online at http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?a=review/01_1989_07.inc&x=3

Palmer, David A. In Search of Cumorah. Bountiful, Utah:Horizon Publishers, 1981.

Sorenson, John L. An Ancient American Setting for theBook of Mormon. Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1985.

Sorenson, John L. The Geography of the Book of Mor-mon Events: A Source Book. Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1990.

Sorenson, John L. Mormons Map. Provo, Utah: FARMS,2000.

NO T E S1. Edwin G. Goble and Wayne N. May, This Land: Zarahemlaand the Nephite Nation, (Colfax, Wisconsin: Ancient Ameri-can Archaeology Foundation, 2002), 2122.

2. Ibid., 22.

3. Ibid., 25.

4. Ibid., 19.

5. Ibid., 25.

6. Ibid., 35.

7. Ibid., 12.

8. Mark Ashurst-McGee, Mormonisms Encounter with theMichigan Relics, BYU Studies 40:3 (2001), 193.

9. Richard B. Stamps, Tools Leave Marks: Material Analysisof the Scotford-Soper-Savage Michigan Relics, BYU Studies40:3 (2001), 210238.

10. Ibid., 217.

11. Ibid., 217218.

12. Ibid., 220.

13. Ibid., 221222.

14. Ibid., 224.

15. Ibid., 225.

16. Ibid., 226227.

17. Ibid., 228.

18. Ibid., 231.

Figure 9: Comparing the world monster in the Palenque panel and the Padilla plates.

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19. Goble and May, This Land: Zarahemla and the NephiteNation, 47.

20. Posted to bom-geography@yahoogroups.com listserv, May24, 2002.

21. Jerry L. Ainsworth, The Lives and Travels of Mormon andMoroni (City Unknown: Peacemakers Publishing, 2000), 267.

22. Goble and May, This Land: Zarahemla and the NephiteNation, 47.

23. Ainsworth, The Lives and Travels of Mormon and Moroni,268.

24. Ibid.

ABOUT THE AUTHORBrant Gardner is the Product Manager for a privatelyheld software company. His academic background in-cludes work towards a Ph.D. in MesoamericanEthnohistory as the State University of New York, Al-bany. His published works on Mesoamerica include ananalysis of classical Nahuatl kinship terminology, anethnohistoric investigation into the identification of theuse of Coxoh to designate a people and language inSouthern Mexico, and an examination of the Aztec Leg-end of the Suns.

ABOUT FAIRThe Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research(FAIR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to provid-ing well-documented answers to criticisms of LDS doc-trine, belief and practice. Seeking to assist the lay mem-ber and scholar alike to respond to intentional and well-meaning attacks on individual faith, FAIR helps pub-lish articles and books that defend the LDS church,operates a Web site that receives thousands of visitorseach day, and sponsors research projects and confer-ences that provide the LDS scholarly community anoutlet for getting information into the hands of the av-erage member. With a 501-C3 tax exempt status fromthe IRS, FAIR is funded by the generosity of its mem-bers and contributors, now grown to more than 1,000.

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