An inscribed stone reportedly excavated by the Smithsonian Institution from a burial mound in eastern Tennessee has been heralded by cult archaeologists as incontrovertible evidence of pre-Columbian Old World contracts. A134902-0 in the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. In a Hopewell burial mound in eastern Tennessee. 1979 Indian Social Dynamics in the Period of European Contact. According to Emmert's field notes, the Bat Creek Stone was found in Mound3. 1896 Stone Art. 1968 The Kensington Rune Stone: New Light on an Old Riddle. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin No. on the second Bat Creek letter, www.rense.com/general28/weks.htm, dated 8/28/02. 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? Up Bat Creek (Without a Paddle): Mormon Assessment of the Bat Creek Stone. East Lansing. plowed flat, and only its approximate location One of the arguments against the authenticity of these stones is the supposed lack of corroborating evidence for Hebrew language. noticed that the inscription, when The Bat Creek Stone was discovered in 1889, supposedly in a Native American burial mound. Bat Creek instead correctly and subsequent American archaeologists failed to see Accessed 12/28/05. report. The first letters of the two words The proposed time period is of relevance because the forms of Paleo-Hebrew letters evolved over time. University of Pennsylvania Press. Mazar, Eilat, "Did I Find King David's Palace?," Biblical Archaeology 1910 Cyrus Thomas Obituary. Thames & Hudson, London, 1968. First, the inscription is not a legitimate Paleo-Hebrew inscription, despite the resemblances of several signs to Paleo-Hebrew characters. More conclusive evidence regarding the stone's authenticity comes from two additional sources. American Antiquity 51(2):365-369. [1] This specific volume was "extensively reprinted during the latter half of the nineteenth century", and would have been available to the forger. Robert Clarke, Cincinnati. as well as a pleasant destination for hikers and boaters. Independent scientific verification of an archaeologically excavated stone with ancient Hebrew inscribed into its surface has been completed in the Americas. McCulloch, J. Huston (1993b). Publications of the Museum, Michigan State University, Anthropological Series, Vol. The inscribed stone was found in an undisturbed Hopewell burial mound along the Little Tennessee River near the mouth of Bat Creek. The 131. of the Norse settlement at L'anse Meadows (Ingstad 1964), no convincing evidence for such occurrences has ever been found or recognized by professional researchers. From August 2002 to November 2013, it was on loan to the Frank H. McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. abilities per se. sign iv) or he_ (cf. SATANIC MEDIA EXPOSED, Uvalde TX Shooting LIES! the first letter must be something different, and the tell-tale string -YHW again, in the name of Yehucal's father, A Reply to Mainfort and Kwas in, http://druidry.org/obod/lore/coelbren/coelbren.html, http://www.ampetrographic.com/files/BatCreekStone.pdf. Lacking the critical standard of most scholars, rogue professors "have the opportunity to rogue or defraud the public" (Williams 1988a:20). uses a word divider. Serenwen, "Coelbren Ar Beirdd," undated webpage at 1988a Fantastic Archaeology: Fakes and Rogue Professors. 1-16, rejoinder by M&K, TA Fall 137.Washington. 30. The stone was found placed behind the head of one of the bodies in the mounds. 1988b Fantastic Messages From the Past. Dexter passed away Dec. 4, 2007, at 96. http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/AmerAntiq.pdf, "John Emmert, Demon Rum, and At the base of the mound "nine skeletons were found lying on the original surface of the ground, surrounded by dark colored earth." I am having the bone and the wood found in the tomb dated by the Smithsonian Institution by the carbon-14 process; fortunately, these items were present with the stone, for stone cannot be dated this way; the material has to be organic for carbon-14. [5] McCarter concluded, "It seems probable that we are dealing here not with a coincidental similarity but with a fraud". in this alphabet, or what Welsh words they find there. orientation, and although several of the letters are not perfect as Paleo-Hebrew, He noted that the broken letter on the far left is consistent 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). Shetrone, Henry C. Masonic artist's impression of Biblical phrase (QDSh LYHWH) in paleo-Hebrew script (Macoy 1868: 134), compared with the inscribed stone. Cultivating trust, producing knowledge: The management of archaeological labour and the making of a discipline. however, reflect on the Mound Survey's data-collecting Journal of Archaeological Science 5(1):1-16. Anthropologist 13(2) :79-123. The latter was inextricably linked to the Moundbuilder debate (Silverberg 1968). Lambert, W.G. from Jersualem's City of David under the supervision Bat Creek inscription Bat Creek Stone! - Friends N Christ inscription, in Old Hebrew letters closely related to those in he was in fact a brother of King Arthur II, and sailed in 562 A.D. In: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin No. Two additional parallel lines near the widest part of the stone do not appear on the original Smithsonian Institution illustration (Thomas 1894:394) and seem to have been produced by a recent researcher testing the depth of the patina. [8] The reasons are complicated for the popularity of this obfuscation of the facts of Native American societies, but it is clear that it reflects the sentiments of European settler colonialism. and A.D. 100, but not for the second century C.E. dictionary chart of Jewish War Murray was the first to completly make sense (properly translate) of all inscriptions on this stone (with simplicity in its simple form). Antiquity 43(170):150-51. was obtained on fragments of preserved wood that were recovered during the removal of the burial with which the inscribed stone was allegedly associated (McCulloch 1988). and 9 burials, was "of small size, measuring but 28 feet 1988). found the new bulla cribbed it from Macoy's book, In his Archaeological History of Ohio, Gerald Fowke (1902:458-459) cited the Bat Creek stone in the context of criticizing Cyrus Thomas for claiming a relatively recent age for various mounds, and Stephen Peet (1891:146) briefly mentioned the object. 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. Gordon's claim resulted in a national newspaper wire story, as well as articles in Newsweek and Argosy. "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 . and other considerations, was George Barrie and Sons, Philadelphia. McCulloch, J. Huston, "John Emmert, Demon Rum, and any competent student of antiquities. While it is possible that the wood fragments represent the remains of an object placed with the deceased individual, they might also have derived from the "dark soil" (possibly a midden deposit) at the base of the mound on which the 9 skeletons were located (Thomas 1894). 1946 The Indians of the Southeastern United States. That Thomas identified the metal as copper is hardly surprising, considering that substantial numbers of native copper artifacts had been recovered from mounds throughout the eastern United States. Unlike the Davenport frauds and the Kennsington runestone, the Bat Creek stone generated little interest, and consequently there is no "paper trail" to follow. It also seems worth mentioning that Cyrus Thomas was neither the first nor the last archaeologist to be taken in by a questionable artifact. Although the conclusions reached in this paper may not prove convincing to cult archaeology proponents, we hope that our comments will prove helpful to our colleagues in responding to the Bat Creek controversy and other claims made by cult archaeologists. This would reconcile their reading of the inscription with McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr. "Let's be Serious About the Bat Creek Stone". is less common than the dot, but appears both Gab builds Freedom Of Speech Software. The late Semitic languages [1] 5th Annual Report - authors) and I certainly agree with you that the Cherokees were Mound Builders, in fact there is not a doubt in my mind about it.". 1993 and Jan./Feb. W-like shin of the Biblical QDSh (Qedosh) is entirely "had been covered by a cluster of [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". We believe that the "best recent work" alluded to by Thomas is his own final report on mound explorations (1894), and that the "articles whose history is fully known" is a reference to the alleged discovery of the Bat Creek stone. Mainfort, Robert C., and Mary L. Kwas, "The Bat Creek Stone Revisited: A Fraud letters, esp. The inscriptions were initially described as Cherokee, but aformentioned Dr. Gordon correctly identified them as Hebrew. Academic Press, Inc., New York. 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. words are separated. undoubtedly working from a newly-available "the priests the Levites, the sons of ZADOK, that kept the charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me" Ezekiel 44:15. been copied from Macoy. John Emmert excavated Bat Creek Mound 3, doing so "alone and in isolation". Since the above was written, Wilson et al. presumably mem, that is completely absent from Macoy's - A.D. 1500: The Historical Testimony of Pre-Columbian Artists. to 400 AD.2. 1969 Review of "Forgotten Scripts: The Story of Their Decipherment." 32 no. [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". that this affinity should have been recognized already in 1889 by it was exacavated. Above the vault, an intrusive Historic burial containing 2 brass (probably silver plated) trade brooches, a metal button, and fragments of preserved buckskin were encountered. disguise his or her source. "belonging to Yehucal" (Mazar 2006: 26). The clay canoe-shaped coffin containing an extended burial and surrounded by four seated burials, which also came from Long Island, remains a unique occurrence. This possibility is certainly suggested by the following: "Another fact that should be borne in mind by the student is the danger of basing conclusions on abnormal objects, or on one or two unusual types. of the Serenwen alphabet to the Bat Creek letters. approximate site, possibly making a complete loop a plausible spot. is known. Thanks to the late Warren W. Dexter, author with Donna Martin of Masonic Publishing Co., New York, 3rd ed., 1868, p. 134. Gordon, Cyrus, Before Columbus (New York, Crown, 1971b), Appendix. text. A Translation of "Inscription" - L'Encyclopdie of Diderot and d'Alembert. This of course begs the question of why Thomas did not admit to the failings of his magnum opus in a more direct manner. Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-'91. the inscription matches Hebrew much better than Cherokee. be abandoned. J. Huston MuCulloch, an Ohio State University economics professor . Stones bearing inscriptions in Hebrew or other Old World characters have at last been banished from the list of prehistoric relics. Before exploring this issue, we will state that we have no unequivocal data to present. 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. The Bat Creek stone is a relatively flat, thin piece of ferruginous siltstone, approximately 11.4 cm long and 5.1 cm wide. viii: Again we concur with the initial assessment by Gordon (Mahan 1971:43) that this sign is "not in the Canaanite system." In Macoy's illustration, this is clearly meant to be a qoph, However, Thomas (1890, 1894) never offered a translation of the inscription. Thomas did not excavate the mounds himself, but delegated field work to assistants. the stone was at the Smithsonian, sometime between 1894 and 1971. that looks nothing like the second Bat Creek letter. Furthermore, if the Judah or Yehud (YHWD in the 169-413. 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". First European Americans?," undated website at American Anthropologist 12:337-343. "Canaanites in America: A New Scripture in Stone?". Knoxville. The inscription was assumed to be Paleo-Cherokee, and was subsequently published by the Smithsonian in theirAnnual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1890-1891 on page 392. 1. because they seemed to provide conclusive proof not only of the contemporaneity of man and mammoth in the New World, but also of the existence of a highly civilized "lost race" of moundbuilders. Dalton claims that the Sacred Stone is a revealed translation of the Rosetta Stone, even though the actual Egyptian translation of the stone into English is well known. Robert Mainfort and Mary Kwas concluded the inscription is not genuine paleo-Hebrew but rather a 19th-century forgery, and other respected archaeologists such as Kenneth Feder have supported the claim that the tablet is a fraud. 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. In context, Gordon is saying here that mainsteam researchers who disagree with his contention that all "advanced" cultures are directly traceable to the Near East do so out of fear and peer pressure, rather than the fact that much of the evidence that he presents is of a very dubious nature (see also Chadwick 1969 and Lambert 1984). 207-225. America's Ancient Stone Relics , Academy Books, LYHWD[M], or "for the Judeans.". 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. 47-178. both contain the string LYHW-. 1890 Historic and Prehistoric Relics. of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Despite the impeccable detail of this lithograph, History of the Human Sciences, Vol. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. This belief was influential and "adopted by many Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries". 391-4. McKusick, Marshall standard Square Hebrew into the older alphabet, erroneously Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. Bat Creek: Excavations in the Smithsonian Archives,", "The Bat Creek Inscription: Did Judean It was from the smaller Mound 3 that the inscribed stone was allegedly recovered. 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. have published a book The findspot was about They were typically formed by bending sections of relatively heavy brass wire into a "C" shape. [8] The Adena and Hopewell peoples constructed significant earthworks and mounds, a "widespread practice throughout the American southeast, Midwest, and northern plains". iv: Of all the characters on the Bat Creek stone this sign bears the most striking resemblance to Paleo-Hebrew script ("yod") circa 100 B.C.-A.D. 100 (but not the second century of the Christian era). The stone shows respect and praise to the God of Israel . makes most sense as an inverted (rho-wise) resh, as The Translation (Bat Creek Stone) - YouTube Freeman, San Francisco. The common prefix L- simply In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol 3., edited by Michael B. Schiffer, pp. The owner stated that he had cut trees [1][2] This is evident by the lack of the markings in the first photograph of the stone, published in the 18901891 annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology, and their appearance in photos after 1970. 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. An unknown party added two nearly parallel vertical strokes while the stone was stored in the National Museum of Natural History from 1894 and 1970. http://bookofmormonevidence.org/history-of-the-bat-creek-stone/, the other eminent men of wilford woodruff. This small, inscribed rock was reportedly excavated from a mound in 1889 by John W. Emmert, a Smithsonian Institution field assistant, during the course of the Bureau of American Ethnology Mound Survey. [7] Part of this history remains embedded in the advanced architecture of the Adena and Hopewell people. New York Graphic Society, Greenwich. 3 (part In: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin No. Harrold, Francis B. and Raymond A. Eve This shape suggests the stone's creator used a rounded instrument to make the engraving. Persian era, according to Gordon) is one such "Yahwist" name. According to him, the five letters to the left of the comma-shaped maintain that Archaic and Woodland cultural materials were also recovered from the pre-mound deposits and were also present in the adjacent occupation areas. is the modern invention of Edward Williams Pocket Books, New York. A Reply to Mainfort and Kwas in American Antiquity," The Bat Creek stone figured prominently in Gordon's (1971, 1974) major cult archaeology books, and subsequently received attention in a number of other fringe publications (e.g., Fell 1980; Mahan 1983; von Wuthenau . reply The University of Tennessee excavators didn't investigate Mound 2 or Mound 3, both of which no longer existed. Bat Creek stone, which was professionally The short McCulloch, J. Huston, "The Bat Creek Inscription -- Cherokee or Hebrew?," 1-33. originally proposed by Mertz. In the 1960s, Henriette Mertz and Corey Ayoob both 2, article 65, 1976): 1-5. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you have about our organization. Appleton and Co., New York. Phoenicians in America Dubious History - GitHub Pages The stone was discovered in 1889 in Bat Creek Mound # 3 near the mouth of Bat Creek in Loudoun County during a series of burial-mound excavations conducted under the Bureau of American Ethnology. Carried by Barnes and Noble bookstores. The sign is impossible for Paleo-Hebrew. A Coelbren alphabet is provided online by [1][6] However, this initial identification as Cherokee was later proven to be flawed. Both Professors Cross and Williams read and commented on an earlier version of this paper. Since Your email address will not be published. The Bat Creek Inscription: Cherokee or Hebrew? Nov./Dec. word divider read, from right to left, LYHWD, or "for Judea." [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. In 1988, the stone was the subject of a Tennessee Anthropologist article by J. Huston McCulloch, professor of Economics at Ohio State University, amateur paleographer, and practioner of cult archaeology. [15] And Professor in Biblical Studies and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Kyle McCarter expresses, "the Bat Creek stone has no place in the inventory of Hebrew inscriptions from the time of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome" and "belongs to the melodrama of American archaeology in the late 19th century". even if the copyist threw in a few random changes to Over the years (especially during the nineteenth century) numerous examples of such inscriptions have surfaced, virtually all of which are now recognized as fraudulent (cf. Publications of the Museum, Michigan State University, Anthropological Series 1(4):269-418.