The North Countries – Part II

Continued from the previous post regarding the “north countries” of the Nephites, mentioned only twice in the scriptural record—once in Helaman (4:7) and once in Mormon (2:3), in both cases referring to the countries to the far north of the Land Southward and also in the Land Northward. It might also be of interest to know that Moroni used the term “north country” to refer to both the entire Land Northward (Ether 1:1;9:35), and once referring generically to the “north countries” in general (Ether 13:11).
    Consequently, the “north countries” is that area to which the Nephites retreated as the Lamanites continued to drive them northward and eventually out of the Land Southward completely during the final wars during Mormon’s time and beyond the narrow neck into the Land Northward. Now Mormon does not tell us what these north countries were, or exactly where they were located, except that they were in the far northern reaches of the Land Southward and, no doubt, beyond the narrow neck into the Land Northward. In this area in the northern part of the Land Southward, near or in the overall Land of Bountiful, there was a city called Angola, and an area called “the Land of David,” and another land called Joshua, which was in the borders west by the seashore” (Mormon 2:4-6).
    The fighting in this area was so fierce, Mormon states: “there was blood and carnage spread throughout all the face of the land, both on the part of the Nephites and also on the part of the Lamanites; and it was one complete revolution throughout all the face of the land” (Mormon 2:8). This fighting went on for 23 years, and the Nephites again “began to flee before the Lamanites” (Mormon 2:16), and at this point, the Nephites evidently retreated into the Land Northward to a land of Jashon, for “the city of Jashon was near the land [of Antum and the hill Shim] where Ammaron had deposited the records unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed” (Mormon 2:17; 1:3), an area Ammaron told Mormon about (Mormon 1:2) when Mormon was a youth of ten years and living in the Land Northward before his father carried him into the Land Southward and to the Land of Zarahemla (Mormon 1:6).

Caral-Supe along the Supe River that separates the Supe Valley from the Huaura and Pativilca valleys, is one of the oldest sites in the Americas. Bandurria, south of there is even older

The entire area north of Lima along the coast is referred to as Norte Chico, where the Sacred City of Caral-Supe was built evidently in early BC times along a dry desert terrace just north of present-day Lima (Zarahemla of the Book of Mormon).
    Now in this northern coast, archaeologists have identified the complex cultures of the Moche, Chimú, and Huari, with their pyramids and tombs in Trujillo and Chiclayo. Here the city of Caral-Supe is considered one of the oldest known civilization in the Americas, and believed to be one of the six sites where civilization originated in the ancient world. The site encloses 60 hectares (150 acres), accommodating more than 3,000 inhabitants and is one of the largest Norte Chico sites known. The main structure is 495 feet long, 360 feet wide, and 92 feet high (equivalent of a nine story building). There are 19 other similar major structures scattered across a 35-square mile area in the Supe Valley, bringing the entire estimated population to 20,000.
    During this time, the Lamanites came “down against the Nephites to battle, and they did commence the work of death; yea, insomuch that in the fifty and eighth year of the reign of the judges the Lamanites succeeded in obtaining possession of the land of Zarahemla; yea, and also all the lands, even unto the land which was near the land Bountiful” (Helaman 4:5).

The Great Wall of Peru discovered in 1931 during an aerial survey photo mission by Robert Shippee and Lt. George Johnson who re-discovered the 40-mile long wall built by an ancient Peruvian civilization as a means to keep an invading (Geographical Review Magazine, Vol XXIII, No.1, January 1932)

Near this southern border of the Land Bountiful, the Nephites “did fortify against the Lamanites, from the west sea, even unto the east; it being a day's journey for a Nephite, on the line which they had fortified and stationed their armies to defend their north country” (Helaman 4:7). This fortification we have already learned from the time of Moroni was to “building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land“ (Alma 48:8, emphasis added).

Map of the Santa River mouth and region, showing (red) the Great Wall of Peru that follows the river, and the numerous settlements of the northern coastal region

Now, along the seacoast in northern Peru, north of Huambacho, stands a large settlement, and just north of there is the bay of Samanco, which provides one of the few really protected harbors on the Peruvian coast. There, just beyond Chimbote, is a magnificent wall, called The Great Wall of Peru, which snakes up from the Pacific sea coast—the first five or six miles inland the Wall is now mostly missing, with the earlier stones of the wall carried off by locals for other buildings, though the foundation is still visible—and continuing into the interior for about 40 miles. This is so impressive, that Victor W. Von Hagen wrote about it extensively in his book, The Royal Road of the Inca (Gordon & Cremonesi, London, 1976).
    The wall now begins at a demolished village, itself all but lost beneath centuries of drifting sand, and leads away up the north side of the Santa and, according to Leo Deuel in Conquistadors Without Swords (St. Martin’s Press, 1967), across the level sandy plain of the river's delta, then up over the bordering foothills where the valley narrows.  As the foothill ridges become sharper and steeper, the Wall rises and dips, and in places is turned slightly from its generally straight course. Its distance from the river is about a mile and a half, though in one place it drops down close to the edge of the riverbed.  In places the wall blends in so well with the background as to be almost indistinguishable.
    Throughout this area were scattered settlements, their remnants still visible today. In fact regarding this early culture, all these sites in the Supe valley share similarities with the ancient city of Caral. They had small platforms or stone circles. The Peruvian archaeologist and anthropologist Ruth Shady Solis, who is credited with discovering the first known civilization in Peru, believes that Caral was the focus of this civilization, which itself was part of an even vaster complex, trading with the coastal communities and the regions further inland—as far as Amazonia. She holds the office of President of ICOMOS-PERU, principal professor and co-ordinator of the master of archeology graduate program faculty of social sciences of the University of San Marcos (the oldest University in the Americas, founded in 1551), has spent many years working at Caral, from 1994 to the present, and is the director of the archaeological project at Caral (Ruth Shady Solis, et al., “Dating Caral, a Preceramic Site in the Supe Valley on the Central Coast of Peru,” Science, Vol.292, No.5517, April 27 2001, pp723-726).
    Another interesting find at the site, was in an artefact of a knotted textile piece that the excavators a quipu (khipu), showing evidence that the quipu record keeping system, a method involving knots tied in rope that was used much later by the Inca Empire, and previously believed invented by them, but was actually much older than any archaeologist had previously guessed. Evidence has emerged that the quipu may also have recorded logographic information in the same way writing does.

Long considered impossible to read, the quipu has received a lot of attention lately for being more than a secret mnemonic memory device, with claims of understanding the messages through studies at the Harvard Khipu Database Project

According to Gary Urton, a prestigious Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies at Harvard University, and previous Professor of Anthropology at Colgate University, the quipus (Khipus) used a binary system which could record phonological or logographic data. Now logographic is a written character that represents a word or phrase, such as Chinese, Japanese kanji, and some Egyptian hieroglyphs, which are logograms, as well as some graphemes in cuneiform script. The use of logograms in writing is called logography. and is based on logograms or a logographic system.

Logographic characters in four different languages, showing a symbol with a complete word meaning, rather than a sound—Urton claims the quipu knot position is a logographic symbol with a word meaning (a written language)

On the other hand, phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in languages. It has traditionally focused largely on the study of the system of phonemes in particular languages (and therefore used to be also called phonemics, or phonematics), but it may also cover any linguistic analysis either at a level beneath the word (including syllable, onset and rime, articulatory gestures, articulatory features, mora, etc.) or at all levels of language where sound is considered to be structured for conveying linguistic meaning.
    Urton, who is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Grant”)—one of the most distinguished awards given—is a specialist in Andean archaeology, particularly the quipu numerical recording system used in the Inca empire. He is the most prominent advocate of the theory that the quipus encode linguistic as well as numerical information. He is, perhaps, one of the foremost authorities on such regarding the Americas. His teaching specialties include South America, the Andes, Amazonia, native people of South America, as well as their communication and linguistics, particularly with the quipu. It is interesting to note that Urton specializes in cultural anthropology of South America, which is not your typical anthropological study but one that involves participant observation (fieldwork) requiring the anthropologist to spend an extended period of time at the research location involved in “hands-on” research.
    Whether or not the quipu will prove to be more than a simple numeric recording system as has been touted by archaeologists and theorists for years, wherein no written language was involved, has yet to be determined.
(See the next post, “The North Countries – Part III,” for more about the Peruvian north countries and its relationship to the events of Mormon’s eventual retreat toward Cumorah)