Gold Copper Alloy Plates Discovered by Archeologists

I seriously doubt that these are linked directly to Smith, but they are our first serious description of plates been used in this manner. There have been reports including those of Smith claiming such copper plates.  And  yes it turns out that a copper gold alloy was manufactured during the Bronze Age in the Andes in particular.

It had the particular advantage that you could polish such an alloy with a mild plant acid which eroded out the copper and allowed the gold to be finely spread out to cover the whole surface.  Certainly an excellent way to display information.

I am surprised at the plate thickness reported.  Much thinner should be possible and even hammering should be also possible.  Yet hardness may well have been an issue when your intent is to preserve information.

So we have surprises.  Found in a drumlin also confirms the deliberate use of a longterm geological feature to preserve integrity.  Most artificial mounds all eroded away.  That also means that this cave is no natural cave but a dug in artificial cave made from stone slabs dragged to site as observed in Europe and Eastern North America.

Drumlins are formed under glaciers as river bottoms.

So far i do not have alternative confirmation of this discovery but the apparent evidence looks like it could be genuine.  I do not know if these images are related either.

 

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVER GOLDEN PLATES BELIEVED TO BE LINKED TO JOSEPH SMITH JR.

April 3rd, 2015 | by Barbara Johnson

http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/archaeologists-discover-golden-plates-believed-to-be-linked-to-joseph-smith-jr/

Manchester, NY| A team of archaeologists excavating a drumlin known as Mormon hill or the Cumorah, in western New York, have discovered a set of gold plates which they believe could be linked to the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith Jr.

The scientists, led by Professor Abraham Jones, are associated with the Brigham Young University’s faculty of archaeology. They were using advanced metal detectors, lasers and other ground-penetrating imaging technology to look for underground structures, when they noticed a small cave-like cavity.

They dug up the entrance, which was buried under a dozen feet of rocks and dirt, and explored the very exiguous cavern. The walls and ceiling were covered with ancient traces of soot, presumably from torches, suggesting the cave had been visited many times in the past. On top of a large flat stone resembling an altar, they found what looks like a book made of metal plates.

The scientists explored the mysterious cavern, but have not been able to recover any other artifact. They have found, however, a few signs of human activity like the ashes of two ancient campfires.

The “book” is made of a set of twelve metal plates, each measuring six inches (15 cm) in width, eight inches (20 cm) in length approximately half an inch (1.27 centimeter) in thickness. The plates are made of a copper-gold alloy, and are held together by three D-shaped rings, forming a sort of book. The entire volume measures a total of nearly six inches [15 cm] in thickness and weights 59 pounds (26.76 kg).

The plates are covered with mysterious symbols, very similar to the “reformed Egyptian” characters, written by Joseph Smith Jr. on the document known as the “Anthon Transcript”. Many of the symbols on the plates found by the archaeologists are identical to those drawn by the prophet, in 1928.[ has to be 1828 - arclein ]

LDS scholars have hypothesized that the reformed Egyptian writing could have developed from other modified Egyptian scripts such as hieratic, a priestly shorthand for hieroglyphics.

Joseph Smith Jr. is said to have found similar golden plates on September 22, 1823, in a hill near his home in Manchester, New York. He claimed that an angel named Moroni had directed him to a buried stone box, containing a set of gold plates, covered with strange symbols.

Smith translated the text of the Book of Mormon over the next several years by using a seer stone, which he placed in the bottom of a hat and then placed the hat over his face to view the words written within the stone. He finally published the book in 1830, which was meant to be a complement to the Bible.

This new discovery could be the most important material and historical proof ever found, to back the claims of Joseph Smith Jr. Professor Jones and the scientists from Brigham Young University will now perform an extensive series of tests and analysis to determine if the plates could indeed be linked to the prophet.