Sumerians in South America—the Jaredite Connection

As mentioned in the last post, critics of the Book of Mormon as well as Mesoamerican Theorists have continually criticized and belittled the idea of South America being the Land of Promise because in part, as they all claim, no writing has ever been found there and that there is no evidence anywhere in the Americas of Egyptian style writing.

However, in the last post we showed where there has been evidence of writing in the ancient Andean area of South America at least since 1958, with the discovery of the Fuente Magna vessel, and the 2001 discovery of the Pokotia stelae or monolith. Both of these artifacts and several others also found at Tiwanaku along the Bolivian-Peruvian border at a site near the shore of Lake Titicaca typically referred to as Tihuanaco (Tiwanaku), show proto-Sumerian cuneiform writing that dates far back into the beginning of the second millennium B.C.

One of the writing examples of the cuneiform writing on one of the many artifacts found at the Tiwanaku site near Lake Titicaca

All Sumerologists agree that this Sumerian writing emanates from Mesopotamia, showing that somewhere around 2000 B.C., people from the area of Sumeria (Mesopotamia) settled in the Andean area of South America. The interesting thing about it is that the Jaredites left Mesopotamia around 2100 B.C. and arrived in the Andean area about a year later. They came from where this cuneiform writing originated, and where the Fuente Magna vessel originated. Consider, “and they did also prepare a vessel, in which they did carry with them the fish of the waters” (Ether 2:2). Whether or not this was the type of vessel they brought fish with them is unknown, however, the fact that they brought vessels from Mesopotamia is important.

It may also be interesting to note the Egyptian connection, since up to the beginning of this century, the Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone, a royal inscription of a king of Moab named Mesha, 850 BC) was the earliest known alphabetic inscription. Speculation on the origin of West Semitic alphabets was based largely on the Bible, or traditional attempts to reconstruct the past. In the winter of 1904-1905, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, an English Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology, discovered the inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim that became known as Proto-Sinaitic.

Petrie reached the conclusion that the inscriptions were alphabetic but made no attempt to identify any related offshoots. An exhibition catalogue was published in 1905 and an expedition report in 1906. A major breakthrough came with the decipherment of the word b`lt, (B`alat) by Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner in 1916. Gardiner was one of the premier British Egyptologists who concluded that the Sinaitic signs were created by "reforming Egyptian Hieroglyphic signs" based upon their acrophonic value (naming of letters of an alphabetic writing system so that a letter’s name begins with the letter itself, such as A-alpha, B-beta, etc.) His reasoning has been found to be sound and his work continues to be the foundation upon which progress continues to the present. In fact, two major contributions to ancient Egyptian philology (the study of language in written historical sources) are his famous three editions of Egyptian Grammar and its correlated list of all the Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs in Gradiner’s Sign List.

(Hmmm. Doesn’t Reforming Egyptian Hieroglyphics sound familiar? Where have we heard a similar term before? Oh, yes, in Mormon 9:32.)

Proto-Sinaitic, also known as Proto-Canaanite, was the first consonantal alphabet. Even a quick and cursory glance at its inventory of signs makes it very apparent of this script's Egyptian origin. Originally it was thought that at round 1700 B.C., Sinai was conquered by Egypt, and the local West-Semitic population were influenced by Egyptian culture and adopted a small number of hieroglyphic signs (about 30) to write their own language. However, recent discoveries in Egypt itself have compounded this scenario. Inscriptions dating to 1900 B.C. written in what appears to be Proto-Sinaitic were found in Upper Egypt, and nearby Egyptian texts speak of the presence of Semitic-speaking people living in Egypt.

Dr. Winters also stated that he believed the people who developed the Fuente Magna vessel and the Pokotia stelae monument used the same language—“a Sumerian language because of the appearance of both cuneiform and proto-Sumerian symbols on these figures.”

Consequently, given this visual identification of two writing systems on these artifacts we have to look at Mesopotamian history and see who used both Proto-Sumerian writing and who used cuneiform writing at the same time? The answer is: the Sumerians—a people from the same area in Mesopotamia from which came the Jaredites!

Thus, the Fuente Magna vessel remains the most important finding supporting the link between Mesopotamic and Andean cultures, establishing that Sumerian writings, or Sumerians themselves, were able to settle in the Andes of South America close to 4000 years ago. Since the Jaredites came from Mesopotamia, and did so about 4000 years ago, it seems to verify that their writing not only has been found in the Andean area, but that a form of writing has existed there anciently.

One of the problems in this not being known beyond the world of Sumerologists is that modern scientists, archaeologists and anthropologists, can find writing in the Andes dating back to Jaredite times, yet not know how to make that connection since they do not accept the Book of Mormon events, nor the Jaredite arrival. Still, the writing and stelae are mute evidence that someone from Mesopotamia arrived in the Andean area about the time the Jaredites are understood to have landed there.

In addition to finding an Egyptian connection to ancient Andean writing, we also have the fact that the ancient Peruvian writing system now known as Rongorongo, which has been found on Easter Island, is also connected to the Sumerian cuneiform. Speaking of stonework found in Oruro Bolivia called the Phaistos Disc (Phaistos/Phaestos Disk) found on Crete in the second millennium B.C., though its point of manufacture is unknown, Michael White claims: "I think the Oruro writing is similar to the script on the Phaistos disc.  I also am of the opinion that both are related to Rongorongo and the Indus script. Solving one may solve them all."

Left: The Paistos Disc (side A) 2^nd millennium B.C.; Right: The ancient village of Phaistos on Crete in the middle of the Eastern Mediterranean, 500 miles off the coast of Israel

Rongorongo, of course, is a writing found off the coast of Peru where it is believed ancient Peruvians migrated there from the mainland and took their writing with them. (See the three-part posts entitled “Painting With a Broad Brush,” on this blog site dated September 2011 for a full explanation of the Rongorongo writing connection to the Nephites)

Sacred Rongorongo writing referred to as the Santiago Tablet (tablet G) found on Easter Island, mostly on wood, but also on a few stone petroglyphs. The wood was Pacific Rosewood (called mako’I in Rapanui, which was brought to the island by the first settlers from the East

There is other support of the early presence of writing in South America dating back to ancient times. The Harvard University anthropologist Michael Edward Moseley, who wrote in his book about the Archaeology of Peru: “Knowledge about indigenous Andeans—ancient, historic, and modern—is blossoming at an ever-increasing rate. Our knowledge of native achievement is becoming ever more detailed and here I have tried to stand back and weave together broader evolutionary themes that highlight the fabric and design of indigenous accomplishment. I write most pointedly for millions of native Quechua and Aymara speakers because they are the proud inheritors of past and patrimony that rivals all Old World civilizations.” Moseley published a number of inscribed Moche bricks and a Tiwanaku portrait head. The characters on the bricks and statue are identical to the Pokotia writing. The symbols on the inscribed Moche bricks are identical to the na, I, a, mash/bi, mi, ma, po, ki, ta and su signs listed on the Pokotia sign list. The symbols on the Tiwanaku head are identical to the me and mash/bi signs found on the Pokotia statue.

Mario Montano has found startling linguistic evidence that indicates a Sumerian substratum in the Aymara and Quechua languages. These languages are spoken in Peru-Bolivia. Many Aymara terms relate to the metaphysical world. This is not surprising given this decipherment of the Pokotia statue and the Fuente Magna vessel, which indicated that the Sumerians were formerly widespread in South America, and had established many aspects of their religion in Bolivia and Peru—specifically at Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku) and Pachacamac.

Whatever connection we might want to make with the Sumerians (Jaredites) in the Andean area of South America, it cannot be denied they were present there during the nearly 1500 years of the Jaredite existence. And, too, so was their writing, which eventually made its way southward to the area of Lake Titicaca where it was widespread. Finally, that this writing is claimed to have been by a world-leading Egyptologist, "reformed Egyptian." You can call it coincidence, or you can call it another verification of the Book of Mormon. You choose.

(See the next post, “The Egyptian Connection—Reformed Egyptian Language, for more on this overall subject)