Every once in a while, we run
across an individual in the scriptural record that can be described in more
than one basic way—and that is the case with Amalickiah.
We first meet
Amalickiah, “who was a Nephite by birth” (Alma 49:25), when he shows up wanting
to be king over the Nephite people and return the government to a kingdom.
Following Alma’s
death (Alma 45:19), in the 19th year of the reign of the judges,
Helaman began preaching among the people, “For
behold, because of their wars with the Lamanites and the many little
dissensions and disturbances which had been among the people, it became
expedient that the word of God should be declared among them, yea, and that a
regulation should be made throughout the church” (Alma 45:21).
As Helaman and his
brethren traveled across the land, establishing churches again in all the land,
in every city possessed by the Nephites (Alma 45:22), appointing priests and
teachers among them, “there arose a dissension among them,” so much so, that
the people would not listen to Helaman and his brethren (Alma 45:23), because
of their great riches and their pride in believing they did not need God
because they were so rich.
The leader of these
rich dissenters was Amalickiah (left) who had an ability to draw people to him
through his flatteries. He told those who would follow him that “if they would support him and establish him
to be their king that he would make them rulers over the people” (Alma
46:5)
It should be of note
that “there were many in the church who believed in the
flattering words of Amalickiah, therefore they dissented even from the church;
and thus were the affairs of the people of Nephi exceedingly precarious and
dangerous, notwithstanding their great victory which they had had over the
Lamanites, and their great rejoicings which they had had because of their
deliverance by the hand of the Lord. Thus we see how quick the children of men
do forget the Lord their God, yea, how quick to do iniquity, and to be led away
by the evil one” (Alma 46:7-8).
Obviously, Amalickiah was a very
persuasive and powerful individual who understood how to manipulate people and
their thinking, through appealing to their self-interests and personal avarice,
and we see that “because he was a man
of cunning device and a man of many flattering words, that he led away the
hearts of many people to do wickedly; yea, and to seek to destroy the church of
God, and to destroy the foundation of liberty which God had granted unto them,
or which blessing God had sent upon the face of the land for the righteous'
sake” (Alma 46:10).
At this point in
time, Moroni (left) steps forward with his great speech and prayer regarding
the title of liberty he wrote upon his torn coat and hung upon a pole. His
fervor and righteousness brought Nephites from all over to his standard in
defense of their country, their Church and their government. In the end,
Amalickiah, seeing he was outnumbered and could not gain sufficient strength to
achieve his goal to become king, he “fled with a small number of his men, and
the remainder were delivered up into the hands of Moroni and were taken back
into the land of Zarahemla” (Alma 46:33).
Meanwhile,
Amalickiah, still desirous to be a king, fled with his small band to the land
of Nephi and stirred up the Lamanites against the Nephites, and the king of the
Lamanites sent a proclamation throughout all the land among all his people, to
gather together to war with the Nephites (Alma 47:1).
However, the majority
of the Lamanites would not obey their king, not wanting to go battle against
the Nephites and get killed. So the king appointed Amalickiah head of that part
of the Lamanites who obeyed with the intention of compelling the remainder to
also join in and obey their king. All of this worked right into Amalickiah’s
plans, for he was “a very subtle man to do evil therefore he laid the plan in
his heart to dethrone the king of the Lamanites” (Alma 47: 4).
Through an ingenious
plan, Amalikiah overcomes the defecting half of the Lamanite army, gains
control over both and eventually becomes the leader of the entire Lamanite
armies. Continuing with his plan, Amalickiah then has the king killed, and by
his fraud, gained control over all of the Lamanites, married the queen, and
became king over the Lamanites throughout all the land (Alma 47:35).
Thus, Amalickiah, and
his followers (dissenters) “became more hardened and impenitent, and more wild,
wicked and ferocious than the Lamanites—drinking in with the traditions of the
Lamanites; giving way to indolence, and all manner of lasciviousness; yea,
entirely forgetting the Lord their God” (Alma 47:36).
However, though he
was now king of the Lamanites, Amalickiah was not satisfied. He wanted to
conquer and rule as king over the Nephites (Alma 48:2).
Because the
Zoramites, his dissenters, were the most familiar with the Nephites, having
themselves been Nephites, he appointed them “he did appoint chief captains of
the Zoramites, they being the most acquainted with the strength of the
Nephites, and their places of resort, and the weakest parts of their cities;
therefore he appointed them to be chief captains over his armies” (Alma 48:5).
All of this took
approximately five years, for in the twenty-first year of the reign of the
judges, five years after Amalickiah first began his dissentions among the
Nephites, there was peace and a golden or “happy” period among the
Nephites. During this time, Morianton claimed a part of the city of Lehi as
part of his own city of Morianton, but in the twenty and fifth year of the
reign of the judges, Amalickiah stirred up the Lamanites once again and they
came down into the Land of Zarahemla, with Amalickiah at their head (Alma
51:12).
While Moroni was
occupied putting down the king-men who sought to return the government to a
kingdom, Amalickiah marched his Lamanite army to the city of Moroni and took possession
of the city—where Teancum (left) entered at night and killed Amalickiah.
Immediately,
the brother of Amalickiah was appointed king over the Lamanites and his name
was Ammoron. In a later exchange of letters with Moroni, Ammoron wrote:
“I am Ammoron (left), and a
descendant of Zoram, whom your fathers pressed and brought out of Jerusalem.
And behold now, I am a bold Lamanite; behold, this war hath been waged to
avenge their wrongs, and to maintain and to obtain their rights to the
government; and I close my epistle to Moroni” (Alma 54:23-24).
So we have two brothers,
Amalickiah, a Nephite, and Ammoron, claiming he was a descendants of Zoram, but
presently a “bold Lamanite.” Amalickiah, on the other hand, claimed he was a
Nephite by birth and sought to be the king of the Nephites.
Taking all three of these
lineagers, Zoram, Nephite and Lamanite, we can assume that technically, they
were both born in the lineage of Zoram,
were by the nature of the language Nephites, and later dissented and became
Lamanites.
This is borne out by the
statement during these events: “For
behold, it came to pass that the Zoramites became Lamanites; therefore, in the
commencement of the eighteenth year the people of the Nephites saw that the
Lamanites were coming upon them” (Alma 43:4).
Therefore, a year after Amalickiah’s defeat in his bid to become king of the
Nephites, he and his dissenting band of Zoramites became Lamanites. No doubt,
at this time, his brother, Ammoron was with him and became a Lamanite as well
since he later became king of the Lamanites.
And
those who joined the Lamanites and “did
mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his
seed” (Alma 3:9). And “whosoever
suffered himself to be led away by the Lamanites was called under that head,
and there was a mark set upon him” (Alma 3:10).
Thus, we need to understand that
in the lineage paths of Lehi’s descendants, those who defected over to the
Lamanites became Lamanites in not just name, but in the sharing of the curse
and mark set upon the Lamanites. They were no longer Nephites or Zoramites or
anything else—they were Lamanites. Thus a Zoramite or a Nephite becomes a
Lamanite, he is no longer a Zoramite or a Nephite, but is in full fellowship
with the Lamanites and in full accord. Amalickiah became a Lamanite, a Captain
and then Chief Captain of the Lamanite Army, and finally the king of the
Lamanites. His brother became a “bold Lamanite.”
In all reality, the difference between
Khor Rori and Khor Kharfot as an embarkation point for Nephi’s ship is rather
minute in regard to one another. That is, the distance between them and their
relationship to one another, would have had no bearing on the currents that
took a ship from either location into the Sea of Arabia and then on to the
Indian Ocean. While there are important differences, to be sure, the point is,
neither location alters the end result in any way of Nephi’s ship embarking on
the currents and with the winds that took them south and eventually southeast
and finally east down and into the Southern Ocean and to their landing location
in the Western Hemisphere.
Were it not for questions asked of us
from time to time regarding our opinion of these two areas, we probably would
not address the question at all. However, there are, as stated above,
differences, and if at some point those differences become an issue, it might
be well to understand them and recognize that one site is definitely more
aligned to the actual event than the other.
So let’s take a look at an important
issue separating the two locations.
Looking down on Khor Kharfot, the (Yellow Arrow) green wadi is really
not a harbour, but merely a khor, an inlet
1) Khor
Kharfot has no protected harbor: In 1993 specialists from BYU visited Khor
Kharfot and considered it to have been a sheltered sea inlet until it was
closed off in the last few hundred years. While the opening of Khor Kharfot is
wide and filled with shallow water, the wadi narrows rapidly and is
considerably narrower than Khor Rori and contains many large rocks. It has been
claimed that Khor Kharfot could have been a harbor anciently. This conjecture
is based on the assumption that inland from the sandbar the wadi is
significantly below sea level; Theorists tell us that 1 mile inland Wadi Sayq
is “up to 50 feet below sea level.”
While it can be debated it is a
shallow inlet, it could also be debated it was ever a harbor capable of taking
large ships and protecting them from the monsoon waves—there is simply no
record of this connected with the area; on the other hand, Roman and Arabic records
show that Khor Rori was indeed used as a protected harbor for several hundred
years between 300 or 200 B.C. onward until around 300 to 500 A.D.
We would suggest that rather than
being up to 50 feet below sea level up to a mile inland, the wadi floor starts
to rise almost immediately as one moves inland.
2) Gravity.
A freshwater spring is located about a quarter of a mile up the Wadi. Water
from this spring will obviously flow down hill and collect at the lowest point
in the wadi. If the Wadi were below sea level to more than 1 mile inland the
water would flow inland to the deepest area and pool there, but instead, the
water flows towards the sea and collects there, showing that the area behind
the sand bar must be the lowest point in the Wadi. The water here is 6-8 feet
deep and, according to Google Earth, the
Wadi floor is about 11 feet above sea level here; so the bottom of the spring
water is probably still above sea level.
3) Observation.
The photograph below shows the view towards the sea from about ½ mile inland. The
sea in the background can plainly be seen to be below the height of the Wadi
floor in the foreground.
Khor Kharfot: Blue Arrow: Sea Level of harbor; Yellow Arrow: Wadi
Level rising upward from the shore inland for more than ¾ of a mile
It should also be suggested that Khor
Kharfot is too narrow to have ever been a harbor for a large ship. Quite
frankly, anyone standing on the Wadi floor at either of these points can see
that they are looking down to the sea from a considerable altitude and would be
amazed, of the claim that they are standing below sea level by such a huge
amount.
4) Breakwater.
Perhaps most importantly, is the absence of some type of breakwater
arrangement, which the promontories at Khor Rori provide (see last post).
Without some way to break the water moving in and out between the Sea and the
inlet, breaching the ocean would have been quite difficult for Nephi’s
inexperienced crew, including the possibility of broaching into the swell and
driven backward into the inlet, or even capsizing.
The inlet of Khor Khrafot has no breakwater arrangement as does that of
Khor Rori. The Yellow Arrows shows that the sides of the inlet simply run out
into the sea, the White Arrow shows the flow of the current (before the
entrance was sealed with sand washing down into the sea
Based on studies of Wadi Sayq at Khor
Kharfot, the general inclination of the slope beyond the khor’s entrance is not
deepening, but rising, showing that Ashton’s claim is inaccurate, and based on
Goodle Earth Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) Level, “there are no
significant pockets (if any at all) showing the wadi thread being below sea
level.”
Thus, we can say that Khor Kharfot’s wadi floor
does not lie below sea level for more than a one-mile distance inland from the
shore, and while the wadi may have provided shelter for a small boat, it could
not have been a harbor for a large ship, and this probably explains why Jana
Owen of UCLA, who made a study in 1995 of the ancient ports of Dhofar as part
of the ‘Transarabia Expedition,’ did
not include Khor Kharfot.
Other issues:
Timbered land runs along the Wadi Dirbat above Khor Rori with various
species and types
5) No
available long straight hardwoods: Nephi built his ship in a fertile area
(much fruit) and where there was ample wood for constructing a sailing ship.
Khor Kharfot lacks both of these attributes.
Dr. Phillips’ notes that the only cultivated fruit orchards today are at
Salalah (65 miles east of Khor Kharfot); however, large fruit plantations are
found only 2 miles from Khor Rori at Taqah,
and this was likely so in the past as this is the only place where the
soil is fertile enough.
While it is claimed that timber
appropriate for building a conventional, ocean-going ship does not grow
anywhere along the Omani coast and probably did not in the past, this is not
true. See the last posts and the numerous photos of timbered land along the
Wadi Dirbat above Khor Rori.
Of course, in not knowing what it was
about Nephi’s ship that made it “not built after the manner of men,” or that
the “timbers were not worked after the manner of men,” it cannot even be
suggested what type of wood Nephi’s ship was built of and, therefore, what type
of wood needed to be found along the Omani coast.
6) No Fabric
for Sails:
Being roughly 85 miles west of the port at Khor Rori, and isolated by
mountains, it is hard to image how Nephi could have had access at Khor Kharfot
to cloth fabric for making the sails for his ship. To date no documented
evidence has been found showing that fabric was available in antiquity at Khor
Kharfot. Nor, again, do we know what type of fabric was needed for Nephi to
build sails. Throughout history, sails have been made of various fabric, and
certainly one would think his sails would have been from very heavy or strong
fabric to withstand the tremendous winds and wind action in the middle of the
ocean. The fact that around 200 B.C. Khor Rori became a ship building center,
one might suspect that the materials needed were found there.
7) No
iron ore: Geologists have surveyed southern Oman and cities where iron ore
deposits are to be found on the Mirbat plain (including the deposits discovered
6 miles east of Khor Rori), and a small wadi between Raykut just east of
Mughsayl (40 miles to the east). Again, this essential element for Bountiful is
absent at Khor Kharfot.
8) No
Seamenship Skills. Without a protected harbor it is little wonder that no
evidence exists at Khor Kharfot that the necessary intellectual resources Nephi
would have needed to build a ship and sail it to the promised land ever existed
there.
9) No
safe access to the sea. A huge unsupported assumption is often made about
Khor Kharfot—that it was open to the sea in Nephi’s time. It is presently
closed by a sandbar, and we are not aware of any evidence that it was open to
the sea in the 6th century B.C. Khor Rori also has a sandbar presently blocking the entrance, but we do know that in the past this sandbar did not exist since the Romans and others used Khor Rori as a harbor and had entrance for large ships into it through this present sandbar.
One of the more important
aspects of Khor Rori that is overlooked by nearly all theorists, is the problem
facing a vessel moving out of a harbor, inlet, or narrow opening into the sea
with conflicting tides, currents, winds, and sea depth.
These three images show the problem with moving from a protected harbor
out into the sea. Top: What appears to be a smooth flow of water outward, is
(Middle) at least a rough and confusing tidal and current movement that makes
for breaching the ocean a very difficult thing, and (Bottom) at times can be
quite dangerous
The concept of bottom topography
plays an important role in a vessel breaching the ocean from an inlet, river,
or harbor where a channel exists. That is, for the ship to have been built, it
would have needed some type of harbor where the entrance to the sea was narrow
enough to restrict tidal and current fluctuations where the boat was moored.
The problem lies in that vessel then leaving the inlet and entering the sea. As
Nephi states it: “And it came to pass after we had all
gone down into the ship, and had taken with us our provisions and things which
had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth
before the wind towards the promised land” (1 Nephi 18:8).
The problem any vessel has in leaving
protected harbor or inlet is to breach the current and waves upon entering the
sea. Even modern-day diesel driven vessels have problems. In the days of Lehi,
hitting swells like that could cause a broach, turning the vessel sideways to
the swell and even capsizing
In order to “put
forth into the sea,” the ship would have to move out of the protected harbor,
over the uneven topography that always lines areas where inlets, rivers, khors,
etc., empty into the sea.
First of all, probably one of the least
understood and anticipated influences on wave conditions is bottom topography.
Water depth has a major effect on waves, which will behave very differently
between shallow and deep water.
Waves do not merely affect the surface of a body of water.
The motion involved actually goes down fairly deep, around four times the
height of the waves. So if a wave is four foot, the water is being disturbed
down to a depth of about sixteen feet.
Thus, where the bottom suddenly rises up to near the
surface, such as the mouth of such an inlet, this can cause nasty sea
conditions—it is somewhat like wind flowing around tall buildings, and water
moving against a submerged plateau is going to "hump up" at that
point. And that “hump” causes a giant lift in the prow of the vessel and with
an inexperienced crew, could cause serious damage.
Not only does the underwater obstruction force a change in
water flow direction, but will cause increases in velocity and create nasty
eddies, which can create some of the most dangerous water conditions there
are—like rapids on a river that only a very skilled boatman can handle them. Such
places can be serenely placid at one moment, and deadly the next as the slack
tide or winds suddenly change. Consequently,
sailing from any location of a protected harbor or inlet out into the sea would
present problems for an inexperienced crew like that on Nephi’s ship.
What has been done in modern times, though not always
understood anciently, is the building of a breakwater system at such a harbor
in inlet area, to reduce the intensity of wave action in inshore waters and
thereby reduce the difficulty of entering the sea, though today, with diesel
engines, that is not the problem it once was. In fact, breakwater systems are generally
meant to break the force of waves, to an inlet, river entrance, or harbor as
well as to protect anchorage within the inlet or harbor.
Waves roll
in series, and every so often, a rogue or unusual wave will occur, at first
hidden among the swells and undistinguished to those who do not know what to
look for
It should be kept in mind that waves have a life cycle of
their own. As an example, with every 30th to 40th
wave comes a wave that is much larger than all the waves before it. Basically
the set of 4 waves merge and create a super wave. Recent studies have shown
that these rogue waves may be more common than oceanographers first thought, and they are
unpredictable, usually out to sea, but also along the coast and can create
undue damage. Even smaller forces can disrupt steerage, especially at critical
times such as moving out to sea, with the deeper the water, the greater the
change at such disruption.
One of the important things to keep in mind about the Sea of
Arabia along the south Arabian coast is that the sea has
depths that exceed 9,800 feet, and there are no islands in the middle. Deep
water reaches close to the bordering lands except in the northeast, off
Pakistan and India. To the southeast the Lakshadweep atolls along the
southwestern coast of India, form part of the submarine Maldive Ridge (1800
miles off Arabian coast), which extends farther south into the Indian Ocean
where it rises above the surface to form the atolls of the Maldives. On the
western side of the sea, 300 miles south off the Omani coast, the plateau
island of Socotra, about 70 miles long and with an area of about 1,400 square
miles, is an insular extension of the Horn of Africa, lying 160 miles east of
Cape Gwardafuy (Guardafui).
All of this leads to
the point that in this huge box-like area off the coast of Khor Rori is a very
deep sea of approximately 10,000 feet depth, where water is moving inland
toward the coast. When it reaches the area of rising land, it creates
undertoes, cross-currents, rising tides and tidal influences as well as other
navigational problems for a vessel entering the Sea of Arabia from an inland
khor or river.
In a wooden sailing ship of 600 B.C., the results of an
inexperienced crew in such waters would be disastrous.
However, one of the interesting factors of Khor Rori is the
natural breakwater effect provided by the two promontories along the entrance
to the inlet on either side of the khor. These two promontories or cliffs stand
about 100 feet high, blocking any winds that would effect the sails of the ship
as it passed, in addition, the extensions of them also block current eddies and
tidal changes along the coast, providing a “breakwater” arrangement out three
hundred to four hundred feet, more than three times the length of the boat and,
therefore, providing a smooth transition between khor and sea.
Yellow
Arrows: The Inqita’at Mirbat and Inqita’at Taqah promontories on either side of
the Khor Rori inlet mouth, provide a form of breakwater and (Blue Arrow) a safe
and easy entrance into the Ocean from the river (khor)
No other area along the coast provides such an easy egress
into the sea and is one of the major reasons the area was used by Roman ships
and traders for several centuries from
around 200 B.C. onward.
These
100-feet tall cliffs on either side of the entrance to the inlet act as breakwater
barriers and bring a tranquility to the waters entering and leaving the khor
It is interesting that these promontories provide a dissipation of energy and
relative calm water created in the lee of the breakwaters, thus allowing a
vessel of Nephi’s size to pass between and out into the ocean along a protected
path, requiring very little expertise from the crew.
This brings us next to the fact that deep water ships need
sail arrangements that take advantage of the various winds. In fact, the speed
and value of a ship at sea is partly in its sail arrangement and ability to
catch the wind. Sea currents push or drive a ship forward, when the wind fills the
sails. In the Age of Sail, the sail was a critical issue in the success of a
voyage. Columbus, after reaching the Canary Islands, changed the sail
arrangement of one of his ships to add a lateen sail for later use of coastal
steerage and sailing. Apparently the lateen sail developed from a square sail
as the need to head up closer to the wind was seen to be important, meaning the
ship could sail closer to the “dead zone” or “into the wind” at a close angle
to its source.
Left: When
sailing, or running with the wind, the wind is directly behind the ship and a
square sail, like Nephi’s, is the most efficient; Right: When sailing in the
opposite direction, ”into the wind,” there is an area straight ahead referred
to as a “No-Go Zone,” where the ship cannot sail
To take advantage of this, obviously two things were done:
1) Ship Captains sailed with the wind behind them, learning where these
currents and winds blew so they could map out a course that would take them
where they wanted to sail; and 2) Add canvas (sail).
What they did not do, and what every Theorists wants to
claim they did, was just head for the Western Hemisphere through the
straightest path they could find. In the case of the Sea of Arabia and Indian
Ocean, that would have been a path to India and then on to Indonesia, down the
Malacca Channel or Strait, and winding past several islands out into the
Pacific Ocean and island-hopping across the Pacific to Central America. The sad
thing about such theorizing is that it violates every possible maritime method
of sailing in the days of Lehi, moving against winds and currents, requiring highly
efficient maneuvering around islands and their dangers by a crew that had never
before been to sea, let alone handle a 100-ton sailing vessel, and then later
set in and embark from one island after another, as though such an activity
would be like rowing a boat.
What looks
good on a flat map is misleading when you try to translate it onto a globe.
First of all, this distance is about 3 times as long as one down south through
the Southern Ocean, and extremely dangerous as has been pointed out in this
series
Consequently, ships were built to hold more canvas and
additional sails were invented, such as gallants, royals, skysails, and moon
sails above the topsail, as well as adding “studding” sails to the sides, outboard of the
main sails by rigging a temporary boom. This allowed the vessel to catch more
wind in the main sails, increasing their reach and improve speed with the wind
directly at their back.
(LtoR)
Adding sales upward, then also (far right) adding studding sails to the side of
the main sails increased the amount of sail available to the captain as he
maneuvered his vessel across the oceans
The construction of these Arabic dhows is still carried on without benefit of drawings and relies on
the master builder and his experience for direction and supervision, a general
brief for performance requirements having first been established with the
owner. While boat builders all have to be extremely skillful in their work, the
traditional craft of three-dimensional shaping of wood seemed to be more so in the
early days.
When Nephi asked, “whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may
make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me”
(1 Nephi 17:9), it is likely from the wordage used, that the Lord showed in the
vision to Nephi not only what the ship was to look like, and how the vessel was
to be built, but also the tools in their operation of use. Obviously, at that
moment, Nephi had already been shown by the Lord the ship and how it was to be
built.
No doubt, having
lived at Jerusalem all his days (1 Nephi 1:4), obviously living on a farm-like,
independent homeland somewhere outside the walls of Jerusalem, and probably
down the hillside from the city (1 Nephi 3:16, 23), where the maintaining of
the household and property might well
have required certain crafts that Nephi either learned to do growing up,
or learned from observation. One of these might have been metallurgy, which
resulted in his response to the Lord’s image and instruction of his building a
ship. “Whither shall I go that I may find
ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship…”
We can probably
surmise from this that Nephi knew what was involved in building and operating a
bellows. Perhaps he had already made elementary metal objects, such as spikes, knives,
axes, chisels, tongs, door fittings, etc.
Metallurgy was well known and practiced
throughout the Middle East from the 3rd Millennium B.C. onward, and
certainly was in use around Jerusalem shortly afterward as the map shows with smelting and early metallurgy
attributed to the Hittites of Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age
Whether or not the
adze was already known to Nephi is not certain, though it was an all-around
tool used for nearly any wood work required of the time, especially for those
growing up on isolated farms or homesteads in outlying area where the household members had to know how to
do things like simple carpentry, metal and leather work.
(Image E – Left: An adze set aside after shaping the
boards, trough, and knob; Right: An Egyptian stone cutting showing a worker
using an adze on a boat being built
Other tools, such as bow drills, saws, hatchets, rubbers,
measuring rods, plum-lines, and set-squares were also used. The bow-drills were needed to produce the holes through
which the nails were hammered to fix the planking to the ribs, and a cold
chisel to hammer caulking between the planks to make them watertight. Tension
on the bow drill is maintained by the fingers of the hand holding the bow. The
sharpened bit on the drill is remarkably effective in the right hands, the bow
drill giving substantial control to the operator and allowing slow or relatively
fast speeds to be used when drilling; however, high speeds were avoided as they
tended to burn the wood.
In addition, Nephi’s
narrative tells us of an ordered departure from Bountiful on a completed ship
already in the water and sea worthy. This appears to confirm that he used the
age-old practice of building a ship above a protected harbor and launched it
from its dry-dock using ways (ramps) into calm water. This allowed the crew the
essential time in safe water to let the plank timbers expand to seal the hull
(the Hebrew word is tzaref) and then caulk any remaining leaks (see Ezekiel
27:9). This was the construction method used by both the Hebrews and the
Egyptians. Once the hull was verified as being watertight, the ship could be
loaded with ballast and put to sea for sea trials prior to loading and sailing.
This all required a harbor.
And
the harbor of Khor Rori is by far the best possible location all along the
southern Arabian coast.
As for the bellows Nephi built (1 Nephi 17:11), Jeremiah mentions
bellows in his own writings (Jeremiah 6:29) in a complete explanation of the
ore smelting process. In addition, Nephi lived at a time when iron and simple
steel had become commonplace in Jerusalem, and bronze was used for simple
purposes, like casting. Bronze, of course, was generally inferior to steel for
tool making, and producing it required a source for its components—copper and
tin. Only minor traces of copper minerals have been reported in Dhofar, and tin
is unknown there. Animal skins would have been available to make the skin
bellows, and numerous drawings show their use during Nephi’s time.
While workers blow the fire each with his own foot bellows (1 to 4 or even 6 people), the worker smelts and works the ore over a simple pit furnace
As mentioned in the last article, the problem of slamming a
ship into wave after wave, in this case “broaching” waves where the prow of the
vessel runs down a trough and slams into the wall of the approaching wave, can
cause serious damage, both structurally, as well as ship handling. Such impacts
cause wear and tear on deep-ocean sailing, as well as can result in capsizing,
or at least causing the ship to veer sharply off course. Loosing control of the
vessel in such conditions can result in serious problems, such as capsizing.
Broaching
is running the prow into the wall of the wave ahead. Not only does this eventually cause structural damage, but can slam the vessel around parallel to the wave where it can slide down the trough and capsize, especially in the hands of a novice seaman
For an inexperienced crew, such as on Nephi’s ship, such
deep ocean sailing could be difficult without the constant directions the
Liahona would have provided. In this case, with the approach of such swells,
the problem can be overcome with knowledge—such as reducing speed to match the
conditions approaching, or better still, to alter course to a new one where
broaching is not a threat. No doubt this is one of the reasons why Nephi’s
ship included a rudder for steerage (1 Nephi 18:13).
While smashing into steep four footers in fifty knot winds
at 26 knots is no problem for boats built to withstand the impact; however, such
constructed ships did not exist before the 13th or 14th
centuries A.D. The designs before that time simply were not capable of handling
this and other rigors of sailing in deep water. In fact, many had trouble with
severe rolling in only there following seas—which is one of the reasons we scoff at writers who claim Phoenicians in 600 B.C. were sailing into deep water, their ship construction simply would not have allowed them to do so.
According to David Pascoe, author of Rough Water Seamanship, and an expert in blue water sailing, “Understanding
the effects of wind, waves and currents is not an easy subject to master. Waves
behave differently under a large variety of different conditions, so that
unless one is familiar with all, or at least most of these conditions, then one
is not experienced. That's why to get an ocean operator's license from the USCG
requires that an applicant prove that they have had a large number of hours
under such conditions.”
Speaking about
today’s boat designs, he goes on to say that “Hull design has a lot to do with
how different boats will handle under different conditions. The simple fact is
that the vast majority of boats sold today are designed for creature comforts,
not rough water performance. The number of boats around that have good rough
water capabilities are few and far between. One reason for this is that people
are not willing to give up luxury and convenience for good handling
characteristics. And so the vast majority of boats are best suited for
protected, not open water operation.”
Unknowing scholars try to claim Phoenicians
and others were sailing deep water long before ships were built capable of
such. Mediterranean and Arabian Sea sailing was basically in protected waters
compared to the open ocean. This is why when Phoenicians passed Gibraltar, into
the Atlantic, they stayed close to the shore on their way north to England and Gaul
or south to North Africa
In a different way,
but none-the-less as important, ships of early traders who plied the coasts of
the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, were far more interested in cargo capacity
than good handling characteristics. Nor did they need to be since they did not
sail deep water, did not sail out of the view of land, did not sail at night,
and were interested basically in moving goods from one point to another for
trade and profit.
To attribute to these
early traders skills beyond their capability and interest is simply unrealistic
as is its purpose. Until governments were willing to pay for ships and men to
investigate foreign lands for the purpose of expanding empires, man showed very
little interest in exploration. In the Age of Columbus, ships were provided by kings, or other type investors, even the Church was involved in putting up the money for such activities based upon a return on their investment. With kings, control and conquest drove most early
movements, as did the need for relocation because of such conquest. But in
truth, the Age of Exploration, which coincided with the Age of Sail, did not
really occur until around the 12th century A.D. onward. We might
attribute an early date to the Vikings, though their expansion was more in the
area of conquest than it was for settlement, the latter being mostly temporary
attempts that had little success in Iceland and Greenland, and eventually none
at all in the Americas.
Consequently, to
claim that the Phoenicians had an interest in early exploration is to attribute
to them an interest they did not exhibit. The Phoenicians were traders,
acquiring and selling goods throughout the Mediterranean and as far north as
England and Gaul (for the tin trade) and as far south as the North Africa coast
to present-day Ghana, for the gold and slaves. It should be kept in mind that exploration was not
profitable to any sea captain, nor even a trading nation other than when used
to open up new markets, as the
Phoenicians did along the Western Mediterranean coasts.
Thus, the early sailing
trade operations were done along coastal waters in protected, not open water,
operations, such as along the Arabian Sea and within the Mediterranean, Red
Sea, Persian Gulf, etc. Historians can give credit to Phoenicians for sailing
the open ocean, but it never happened. Ancient information show us the type of
ships they had and they were simply not capable of withstanding the rigors of
deep sea sailing. To continue to claim they did things they could not have done
is to skew the past, rewrite history, and mislead readers on how the Americas
were settled and by whom and under what circumstances.
In addition, there are
many theorists who want to place experienced seamen aboard Nephi’s ship, since
even the best of boat designs and construction won’t overcome the lack of
knowledge and seamanship skills. As an example, when waves reach a certain
height, it becomes necessary for the operator to match the speed of the vessel
with the speed of the waves. This means slowing down or speeding up, depending
on conditions. It is not a good idea to stuff the bow into the backside of the
wave ahead, without raising the possibility of broaching and losing control. If
you permit the boat to go zooming off the front side of the wave, you have to
consider the consequences of what happens when you quickly meet the backside of
the wave ahead. As an example, would you drive your car 50 miles an hour down a
road full of foot deep potholes? The analogy is an appropriate one here. You'd
end up tearing the wheels off the car, losing control and crashing. When the
wind blows, the seas become full of potholes. And worse.
Thus one cannot
consider Nephi’s ship without also considering the Liahona and its role in
teaching and training the crew how to handle the vessel, when to make
corrections, and what corrections to make. Obviously, the ball was capable of
written instruction (1 Nephi 16:26-28).
Another very important part of Nephi’s ship construction was
in the fact that some designs make for better handling of the ship than others.
The average seaman today has experience on two or maybe three different
designs, but that is not necessarily enough to show how really different
designs can handle. In Nephi’s case, he needed a vessel that was really easy
and simple to handle, requiring the least amount of knowledge and skill to sail.
Seamanship is the
ability acquired by a seaman to pilot his vessel skillfully under adverse
conditions. It's a skill that involves understanding your boat, wind, waves,
tides, currents and geography. Nowadays, operating a boat is regarded as little
different than driving a car: just get in and steer the boat around. We see
this casual disregard for the need to acquire any kind of boating skills
whatsoever on every single weekend at the local marinas where we can observe
dozens of boat owners who have yet to learn even how to dock their boats with
any degree of skill.
The less the vessel
requires of skill and knowledge, the easier it would be to sail. Skill and
knowledge are especially required when sailing through ocean inlets, tide rips
(riptides) that cause waves to become taller and steeper, with less distance
between crests; and also rocky shoals jutting miles out from islands.
There is also the
problem with “confused-seas” that occur following thunderstorms, hurricanes or
major fronts. In such cases, currents are overwhelmed by major shifts in wind
conditions that occur quickly, which causes waves coming from different
directions, resulting in waves that are
irregular and unpredictable—this can drive a vessel into an island,
shoal, or other underwater or above sea obstacle in channels or island-hopping
in the Pacific. Rogue waves, even smaller ones, can occur when in these
conditions, two waves coming from different directions from earlier currents
and winds strike at oblique (very wide) angles, causing difficulties in tight
areas.
Top: An unmanned, underwater robot (glider Scarlet Knight) designed and run by Rutgers University maneuvers through the dangerous opposing and circular currents in swirling eddy fields of the deep ocean to collect data below the waves where satellites cannot see for the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS); Middle: Eddies swirl around the Southern Ocean between the tip of South America and Antarctica and are key to the mixing of air and water through this dangerous Drake Passage creating what dynamical systems experts call the "unstable manifold"; Bottom: NASA Scientific Visualization assembled this map from large amounts of satellite information, with the world's "Perpetual Ocean" currents showing eddies, swirling currents of the surface current flow of the ocean's topography
Coastal currents,
swirling eddies, tidal flows between major islands, and other problems
encountered when sailing near shore, islands, channels, etc., which, by the
way, most theorists have Lehi doing in his island-hopping across the Pacific,
all lead to difficulty in sailing and especially among inexperienced captains
and crews. After all, once you pilot a boat into troubled waters, you
become trapped by them.
The point is, what
looks all right on a map on paper is seldom the case in real life on the sea!
As an example, It can
more comfortable, and safer, cruising in twelve foot waves than six foot waves
(under some, but not all, circumstances) as long as the captain has any
understanding at all of waves. In such circumstances, he will know that
it's not the height of the wave that is most important, but the distance
between waves. If the distance is very far, as with swells, they can be very
large indeed, but not be threatening or causing undue discomfort. Yet a steep
four-foot chop can be downright dangerous or make your time on the water
miserable.
Assuming
the plan was to take Nephi’s ship across the Pacific to the Western Hemisphere
via the Southern Ocean where strong winds blow a direct and extremely short
course around the globe, one can expect the building of this ship to take this
path to be extremely important. The Lord
told Nephi that he was not going to
build the ship after the manner of men (1 Nephi 18:2), nor was he going “to
work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men” (1 Nephi 18:3).
Obviously, it was important for the survival of the Lehi party to have a ship
far more sturdy and far superior in its design and or construction than ships
of the day—that is, those man alone had so far designed and built up to 600 B.C.
While in
our day and age, we might not think too much about the design and construction
of Nephi’s ship and its overall importance since people all over the world
build and sail ships today, along with their diesel engines and specially
designed sails, GPS, radar, radio, and other support and advanced technology.
However,
the durability of a blue-water, deep ocean sailing vessel in 600 B.C., would
have been a matter of extreme importance. We have discussed the need forf
strength in deep ocean sailing vessels of the time, and the regular and
incessant pounding they take on any voyage into deep water as opposed to
coastal sailing. After all, a single wave can weigh dozens of tons, and though
water is fluid, it resists the movement of the boat through it. And this constant
pounding had an accumulative effect on the wooden hulls of the day.
The large
currents at the surface of the ocean are affected by global wind patterns and
Earth’s rotation, and while not all currents occur at such a large scale,
individual currents and cross-currents had a devastating impact on the beams,
ribs, boards and keels of early wooden vessels.
Take as
an example, one type of problem facing the mariner in deep sea sailing and that
is “broaching,” a condition in which a boat runs down
the crest of wave (far left), gathering speed, and as it meets the backside of the next
wave ahead, buries its bow in that wave (left). The resistance of the bow hitting the
backside of the wave causes the bow to slew around, and the boat to veer
sharply off course. There's nothing unusual about that, but the impact causes
tremendous forces on the structure of the vessel, something that does not occur
in coastal sailing but does in the deep ocean, and can cause a weakness in the
boat construction and over time rip one apart.
It is one of the reasons ships did not sail
into deep ocean in antiquity except in more protected areas, such as the
Mediterranean, Sea of Arabia and even northern Indian Ocean. Beyond such
protections, vessels simply were not strongly enough built to handle such deep
ocean sailing.
Another
problem is that waves of different intensities break across the prow of a ship
in deep water, pound on the decks and slam into the structure causing stress
along the various axis of a ship that if it is not well constructed to
withstand such roughness, can cause serious damage hour after hour, day after day, week after
week as it plies the dangerous blue waters of the ocean.
These waves, sculpting seawater into crested shapes, move water and energy from
one area to another, with big waves and swells traveling over long distances.
Based on wind speed, duration, and the fetch (direction wind is blowing),
causing waves of all shapes and sizes. The more open an ocean is, like the
southern Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans, the more big waves and fierceness of the
currents the ship encounters.
In addition, giant or
rogue waves can and frequently do occur in blue water, deep ocean areas. Some
form during storms, others from combining waves and currents, with reports of
such being 100 feet or more in height, with wave energy dispersing over a large
area that slams into ships at sea in relentless fashion.
These
swells can approach a ship from one, two, or even three different directions at
the same time, transferring energy through the sea that results in swell waves
being fast moving and extending far deeper than the waves produced locally by
the wind. Because of their length in relation to
their height, swell waves do not break even if the wind is still blowing over
the swell, but their impact on the hull of a vessel can be staggering—not felt
so much by the mariners, but in the torque they produce upon impact. The wind
may cause wind waves superimposed on the swell but, often, the wind will have
died away or changed direction so that wind waves may well be across the swell.
Swells
can travel enormous distances. Strong winds down the east coast of South
America can create a swell that reaches Nigeria. By that time the swell
wavelength is so long that wave crests cannot be detected. However, large, slow
sea level rises and falls occur as the very flat waves arrive.
Many
ill-informed writers give all sorts of credit to man’s sailing ability during
the period of antiquity, before compass, sextant, time piece and other
extremely important additives to the sailing world—especially before anything
like the above was known or understood and its impact on the durability of the
vessel needed to withstand such deep ocean forces. Actual examples of sailing
achievements in antiquity were far and few between.
The image of a Phoenician sailor as imagined by a modern painter; however, the ships shown were not invented at the time of the Phoenicians since all the images that have survived show they were man-powered, driven by oars, thus the image of the magnificent Phoenician mariner persists, though there is no record anywhere of their sailing the deep ocean
Still, it
has been a fertile ground of make-believe of Phoenician sailing
accomplishments, their ships, routes, and far-reaching voyages; however, actual
(and factual) incidents are simply missing from the equation, with most based
on artifacts found from time to time that archaeologists and others try very
hard to fit into the dispersement scheme of ancient man.
It is
like man’s so-called crossing of the unfounded Beringa Land Bridge and man’s
subsequent migrations across Siberia, Alaska, and down to the southern tip of
South America. It looks good on paper, and some rationale can be built around
such a scenario, however, evidence of such ever happening is far from real.
Yet, it persists today as the way man discovered and settled the Western
Hemisphere.
Phoenician
sailing stories persist today of great achievements and far-reaching sailing
voyages that never happened. For the record, the Phoenicians existed from about
1550 B.C. to 300 B.C., however, after 605 B.C., they were absorbed into the
Babylonian Empire. Though they were known to have spread their alphabet from
North Africa to Europe throughout the Mediterranean, at their peak, typically
about 1200 B.C. to 800 B.C., shows they reached Sardinia and Spain and the
Western Mediterranean. They were credited in 440 B.C. by Herodotus’ as “being
involved in long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and
Assyria,” which is only about 450 miles. Far from the global hopping credited
to them.
It should
also be noted that in their heyday, they used the galley, a man-powered (oars)
sailing vessels, and are credited with the invention of the bireme.
The reality is that the Phoenician vessels in 600 to 500 B.C. as shown in drawings of the time had (top) single oar banks or (bottom) double oar banks and were quite fragile craft, capable of sailing coastal waters and the calm Mediterranean; Middle are modern views of these ships ancient drawings
This is
hardly a ship that could make it across the Atlantic, let alone to the Pacific
Ocean. When the Lord told Nephi he was going to show him how to build a ship unlike what man had built, it would seem obvious he had in mind a method of construction far more sturdy and successful than the Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans, and probably more like the type of ships built during the Age of Sail that successfully circumnavigated the globe.
