According to The Ancient America Foundation, the world's oldest multiple-page book—in the lost Etruscan language—is now on display in Bulgaria's National History Museum in Sofia. As shown in the photograph, this book was created on metal plates that are bound together with metal rings and dates to 600 B.C., about the same time that Lehi and his family left Jerusalem—and the Book of Mormon material was first begun.
The small manuscript, which is more than two and a half millennia old, was discovered 60 years ago in a tomb uncovered during digging for a canal along the Strouma River in southwestern Bulgaria. It has now been donated to the museum by its Madedonian finder. The authenticity of the book has been confirmed by two experts in Sofia and London, according to the museum director Bojidar Dimitrov.
The six sheets of the book are believed to be the oldest comprehensive work involving multiple pages, according to Elka Penkova, who heads the museum's archaeological department. There are around 30 similar pages known in the world, though they are not linked together in a book.
The Etruscans—one of Europe's most mysterious ancient peoples—are believed to have migrated from Lydia, in modern western Turkey, settling in northern and central Italy nearly 3,000 years ago. They were wiped out by the conquering Romans in the fourth century BC, leaving few written records.
This find, demonstrating that bound metal records existed in the Middle East 2500 years ago as claimed by the Book of Mormon.was brought to the attention of the AAF by Jeff Brooks.
Thank you for this information. I didn't know there were any other plates of gold anywhere in the world at this time. Very interesting and most informative. Shows the BOM is not as unique in the material it was written on as I had thought.
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