This scriptural reference given by
Nephi has been entirely overlooked by all Theorists, at least as we read their
writings about the Land of Promise. Mesoamericanists especially, and those who
favor the eastern U.S. (Heartland, Great Lakes, Mound Building in Mississippi
Basin, etc.), appear unresponsive of the idea that Nephi clearly stated when he
combined three ores following the word “both,” which means “two.”
On the other hand, the theorists
mentioned above have difficulty with the entire concept of metallurgy in the
scriptural record, since nothing of any significance has been found in the
ground after several decades of archaeological work looking for such metal
artifacts. In fact, while the earliest metallurgy found in Mesoamerica dates to
around 900 A.D., though some (like John L. Sorenson) have claimed as early as
600 A.D. There has been none found in the eastern U.S. in B.C. times.
However, it was in Andean South
America, where metallurgy is considered to have first begun in the Americas,
specifically in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador—with the earliest
gold work dated to 2155 to 1936 B.C., and mostly in very intricate
ornamentation.
According to archaeologists, there is
no question that metallurgy in the Andean area of South America was far
superior to anything found elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and rivaled that
of the Old World
Indigenous
South Americans had full metallurgy with smelting and various metals being
purposely alloyed, while metallurgy in Mesoamerica developed from contacts with
South America. In
addition, extensive use of smelting kilns has been found in the area of Lake
Titicaca (Puma Punku and Tiahuanacu) as early as 8000 B.C. through 500 A.D., in
making metal I-beams used to connect huge stone blocks.
Fully developed smelting in adobe
brick furnaces has been found among the Moche of Peru (200 B.C.) along the
coast where ores were extracted at shallow deposits in the Andean foothills,
and brought to the specialized metallurgical workshops in the developed cities
where it was shaped and formed into high numbers of objects. According to
Heater Lechtman (“The Production of Copper-Arsenic Alloys in the Central Andes:
Highland Ores and Coastal Smelters,” Journal
of Field Archaeology, 1991, 18 pp 43-76), the placement of these workshops
in the administrative sections of cities suggests the high importance the
people placed upon metal and those who worked it. It is interesting to note
that the type of copper-arsenic alloys, enargite
is only found in the high sierra of the central Andes, while arsenopyrite is also available in some
of the north coast valleys.
Professor
of Archaeology at M.I.T., Lechtman, trained in archaeology and anthropology,
and the Director of the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and
Ethnology, and who has carried out field work in the Andean zone of South
America for 30 years, has as her specialty the prehistoric Andean metallurgy. From
her field and laboratory studies, Andean metallurgy emerges as a technology
quintessentially Andean, distinct from the early metallurgies of western Asia,
Europe, and Africa. She is considered an expert in ancient American metallurgy
and especially of that found in ancient prehistoric Peru.
As
she states, “Although Andean metallurgy stressed the non-utilitarian quality of
its products, it was among the most sophisticated of prehistoric metallurgical
traditions in the Old World and the New, and it was through the very
technologies involved in their manufacture that those same non-utilitarian metal
objects provided the Peruvian with an important means of perpetuating their
normative power” (Technologies of Power: The Andean Case, Heather Lechtman
Cornell University Press, (p244)
According
to Lechtman, metallurgy and cloth in the Andes assumed a very different social
role than that of Europe and Asia, where both were used for very different purposes.
In the Andes, both metallurgy and textiles reached great heights, even greater
than in the Old World in technique and process, producing very high quality
results that have seldom been seen elsewhere, yet has often been overlooked by
historians because of this difference—beauty and perfection over utilitarian
usage, i.e., weapons and tools, and were the source of power, while in the
Andes, the art and beauty were the source of power.
This
is much like the Book of Mormon, where the Nephites, while involved in the
pages of the scriptural record were often defending themselves against Lamanite
attack, were more involved in their religion, and their society, than in
standing armies and tools for accomplishment.
It
was also very Nephite for them to have had exceptional silk and fine-twined
linen, costly apparel, and all manner of good homely cloth of every kind (Mosiah
10:5; Alma 1:29; Helaman 6:13), as well as Jaredite (Ether 8:36-37; 9:17;
10:24).
Another
issue that is something seldom discussed among archaeologists and materialists,
and that is the actual movement from stone tools (hammers, knives, chisels, and
querns, as well as arrowheads, axes, spear points, maces and slings) to those
of bronze, was more from a society standpoint a matter of cost than utility. According to Karen Olsen Bruhns (Ancient South America, Cambridge University
Press 1994), Bronze tools were often an expensive substitute for the equally
efficient stone tools so easily made and functionally effective.
The word “stone” in this sense
often brings to mind “rock,” however, stone tools were often made of obsidian,
flint, chert, rhyolites, felsites, quartites, jasper and others, which were
both inexpensive and very effective.
Which brings us back to the first
comment above “both gold, and silver, and copper.” Obviously,
the word “both” means “two,” as in “both a dog and a cat.” One would not say
“both a dog and a cat and a monkey.” But Nephi and Joseph Smith were not using
improper grammar as some suppose. To understand this statement, we merely need
to recognize that two of those items can categorically be placed as one—that
is, the precious metals of gold and silver, which is one item, the non-precious
metal “copper,” which is a second item. This is also seen in “the pains of
every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family
of Adam” (2 Nephi 9:21). Again, men and women are adults (one category) and
children are not (another category). So what about both gold, and silver, and
copper?
Top
Left: Ore rock containing 3.95 ppm gold, 5 ppm silver, and 1% copper; Top
Right: High grade silver, containing gold and copper; Bottom Left: Both gold,
silver, and copper in a single ore sample; Bottom Right: Both gold, silver, and
copper bubbled in a single ore
So
why did Nephi make such a statement? Obviously, because the Nephites found
“all manner of ore,” including that which contained gold, silver and
copper in a single ore. We need only keep in mind that ore often contains more
than one metal, especially the ore of copper, which can contain gold, and it
can contain gold and silver. Thus, we see that Nephi is telling us that he
found abundant deposits of gold, silver and copper ore—a single ore containing
all three metals.
Now,
copper is not found in gold and silver ore deposits everywhere—none, as a
matter of fact in the Great Lakes region, and while tumbaga (a manufactured
alloy of gold and copper) was found in Central America, it was not found in the
ground in that manner, because it is a man-made alloy. It is a fact, though,
that gold, silver and copper are found in single ore in Chile and Peru in
Andean South America.
(See the next post, “Metallurgy
in Andean Peru—Both of Gold and of Silver and of Copper – Part II,” for more on
the use of gold, silver and copper in Andean South America, and metallurgy
there long before it was used in Mesoamerica)
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