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Comedic Tension over the Fraudulent Hebrew "Mound Builder" Artifacts of the Late 1800's

10/29/2016

5 Comments

 
I've spent the last several hours doing my prep for Monday's Forbidden Archaeology class. Following an introduction to the topic of pre-Columbian transoceanic contact last week (mostly an overview of the historic, political, social, and scientific debate about the "mound builders"), we'll be jumping in by discussing two classic cases of inscribed stones: the Newark Holy Stones (1860) and the Bat Creek Stone (1889).

It's been fun reviewing these two cases. In my opinion, neither is strong evidence for anything "real" other than late 1800's hoaxery. Their historic contexts are interesting, as are the differences in the motivations of the hoaxers. Both the Newark Holy Stones and the Bat Creek Stone still have their share of fans, but apparently there's some tension over what exactly the stones mean. ​
PictureThe Keystone (image source: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs116/1103480314797/archive/1110560269463.html).
Brad Lepper and Jeff Gill have written extensively about the Newark Holy Stones, a pair of stone artifacts inscribed with Hebrew lettering purportedly "discovered" in southern Ohio earthen mounds. Lepper argues that the stones were created in attempt to show that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were related to Old World peoples as known in the Bible, thereby undermining the polygenist framework that was being used to justify slavery. After the first stone (the Keystone) "found" by David Wyrick didn't pass the sniff test of those who examined it, he miraculously found another soon after (the Decalogue Stone).Thousands of person-hours of careful excavation on Ohio Mound by people other than Wyrick has failed to produce any more ancient Hebrew artifacts. Brad Lepper, however, did succeed in finding an illustration that may have been the source of design that Wyrick used for the Decalogue Stone. 

To me, the most interesting thing about the Newark case is that the hoaxer (presumably Wyrick) was apparently attempted to "humanize" Native American populations by bringing them into a Biblical framework, rather than de-legitimize them by providing evidence that others built the mounds.​

PictureThe Bat Creek Stone.
The tale of the Bat Creek Stone is, in some ways, even stranger. The Tennessee stone, described as engraved with "letters of the Cherokee alphabet) appeared in the famed Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1894). Cyrus Thomas argued that the Cherokee were responsible for building the mounds of Tennessee and North Carolina, and Robert Mainfort and Mary Kwas argue in this 2004 paper that the man who "found" the stone was probably trying to make his boss happy. Mainfort and Kwas suggest that Thomas realized the stone was a fake after it had been published, explaining why no-one really talked about it for the next 70 years. The Bat Creek Stone was resurrected from obscurity when Henriette Mertz realized the engraving looked like a Semetic alphabet if you turned it over. In the early 1970's, Cyrus Gordon confirmed that the engraving was Paleo-Hebrew, and the Bat Creek Stone was back. Mainfort and Kwas found an 1870 illustration that likely served as a source for the inscription, but, of course, that hasn't convinced everyone. 
 
The original contexts of these two cases appear to be quite different. In one, the artifacts were apparently planted to produce evidence that Native Americans were tied to the history of the Old World. In the other, the artifact was apparently produced to attempt to tie the construction of mounds to a specific Native American group.

Both cases were discussed in the (2010) documentary Lost Civilizations of North America (you can watch the tralier here and read a 2011 critique by Brad Lepper et al. here). Conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, and Mormon Glenn Beck took up the cause of the Newark Holy Stones and the Bat Creek Stone in this 2010 rant. The stones were taken up on America Unearthed in 2013 and 2014 and, not surprisingly, accepted as authentic with no reservations. That garnered some high fives in 2012 from various Mormon organizations searching for evidence of ancient Israelite migrations to the New World. Apparently, however, America Unearthed left the Mormons hanging by not embracing the authority of The Book of Mormon or even acknowledging it exists. This 2015 "America Revealed" spoof video is worth watching for several reasons.

5 Comments
Phillip
10/30/2016 06:30:39 am

Andy, thank you for the video of America Revealed, best Sunday morning coffee laugh I've had in a while!
Cheers to the LDS for the clever sense of humor

Reply
Brad Lepper
10/30/2016 07:21:16 am

Hi Andy, I am pleased to see that you're featuring my work on the Newark Holy Stones, but I would have liked to see you give equal credit to my colleague Jeff Gill. Jeff is an avocational archaeologist and the guy who figured out that the errors in Hebrew on the Decalogue Stone proved the archaic-looking letters were actually based on the modern Hebrew alphabet. The mistakes were a result of errors made by the engraver in transcribing from a modern Hebrew text to the faux ancient Hebrew inscription. Definitively establishing that the Decalogue Stone was a fraud allowed us to move on to a consideration of the motives of the forgers, which, as you suggest, appear to justify the "Holy" Stones moniker.

Thanks again for including a discussion of the Holy Stones in the curriculum of your Forbidden Archaeology class!

Reply
Andy White
10/30/2016 07:23:31 am

Thanks Brad. I'm on the road back from SEAC now but will make an addition to the post when I'm at a computer again.

Reply
ArtVandelay
11/8/2016 07:51:13 pm

Who made this video? It's crazy good, there seriously are not enough of these out there to debunk the rediculous programs that are being pumped out now to harvest souls. As legitimate archaeologists you and your peers must find this excruciating!

I am not naive enough to think that programs shouldn't be jazzed up a little but it really looks like any sense of responsibility has gone out the window. Anyways thanks for the great video and I really enjoy your blog as well. Reading about dedunked pseudoscientific con men is becoming a pretty fun pass time for me

Reply
Ed Tillman
9/3/2022 08:58:55 pm

This makes since, but I not sure if Iowa is the right place. Not all that far away in Minnesota they found the Kensington rune stone KRS. Now there is a few items on this stone that may be mentsion in the book of Mormons.
Lets look at the number of people there is.Eight Gotlanders and twenty-two Norwegians thats 30. Ten dead thats 40 and 10 looking out for the boat thats 50.
2 Nephi 13:3 "The captain of fifty and the honorable man and couselor and the cunning artificer and eloquent orator.
Possibly Paul Knuttson from Norway,cunning artifcer carver of words and eloquent orator the master of words
Now the date 1362. On this year an the 1st month March 5th a spectacular comet filled the heaves.
1362 is the date on the KRS,In Omni 1:12 we have the date 130 BC. and it says,"And it came to pass in the days of Mosiah,there was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it, and he did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God.
That comet that came in 1362 we know it as Swift-Tuttle Comet it have an orbet of about 130 yrs plus or minus of about 15 yrs. So 130 BC before what? 1362+130=1492 Before the Comet it returned in 1492 and the full Venus Cycle was also compleated when Venus past in front of the sun each 104 years.and there was an eclipse.
The last time these two events happent together, the walls of Solomons Temple was pulled down in 587BC. The next time that it showed up after 1492 was in 1607 Jamestown!!! Haley's showed up that same year. These two comets come in pairs from time to time and once in the night shy together that would be a show.Both of these comets are sacred to the Jews but Swift-Tuttle more so. Check out my comet chart on pg 286.Amazon has it in paper and in E-book.Its called Heaven Holds the Answer.
Another verse I find interesting is Omni 1:28 it says ,"And the leader being a strong and mighty man,and a stiff necked man,wherefore he caused a contention among them;(and they was all slain ,save fifty) How did this come to pass? May be there was two crews one crew was to set the KRS and the other was to set the V'erendry Rune Stone VRS under the lite and view of God's all seeing eye at the same time while the Narrigansett Rune Stone NRS is also carved. The KRS and the VRS was not carved on site and they was carved for 1362 not in 1362. The KRS says they lost 10 so that means that only 10 returned from the VRS trip both grews had 50. They lost the total of one grew of 50 all slain,save 50 returned.
Its also my believe that the entire 3rd and 4th books of Nephi carries the stories of the 1187 AD departure of Jerusalem with the birth of their king in 1192 AD here in the west as their 1AD but its not the only 1 AD.
This will give you something to think about.

Reply



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