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Was the Liahona in Part a
Magnetic Compass?
(Part 2-B)
By Alan C. Miner
Even conceding the idea that the
principle of magnetic navigation was known anciently in China,
did that knowledge ever reach the Near East
by 600 B.C.? I figured that if knowledge of the compass traveled
by sea, then before I searched for clues in Arabia and Palestine,
I might find some clues in India, which would have been a natural
stopping-off place on any sea-journey from China.
In an interesting book by Carl Peters
dealing with ancient navigation, he goes back to some important
beginnings of Indian civilization:
In the third millennary
before the birth of Christ important national movements had taken
place along the shores of the Indian Ocean.
Aryan tribes had quitted their ancestral homes in Eastern Iran,
and had pushed forward, probably through Cabulistan and the western
passes of the Hindu Koosh, to India, where they appeared
as conquerors in the valley of the Indus, and later also on the
Ganges. The particulars of this great migration of nations lie
quite beyond our historical tradition... .
My next step was to get more information
on this connection between China and India. From the Internet I learned that while
some assume that ancient trade between India and China was accomplished
entirely by land over what would later be termed the Silk Road,
that journey was anything but safe. Those who attempted the journey
had to cross some of the highest mountains in the world in addition
to some of the most forbidding deserts.
Natural disasters were a way of life.
There were multiple kingdoms with their wars, their heavy taxes,
their cultural differences, and their robbers. And while people
carried provisions for themselves, their pack animals had to be
regularly fed and watered along the way. By comparison, while
the maritime route from India
to China also had its
difficulties, these difficulties were more easily overcome.
I located a number of evidences for
Indian maritime activity in some well-researched Internet articles.
Interestingly, one of the articles began with the following concerning
historical bias which has ignored such activity:
Professor A. L.
Basham reduced India along with her culture ... [He] wrote in
his book Wonder That Was India ... "certain over-enthusiastic
Indian scholars have perhaps made too much of the achievements
of ancient Indian seafarers, which cannot compare with those of
the Vikings or of some other early maritime peoples."
At the close of the article, after
citing much evidence in favor of Indian maritime activity, the
above quote is countered with the following:
Nand Kishore Kumar wonders:
It will be hard
to find a secondary source from any part of the world which will
endorse Professor Basham's view. Indeed it is difficult to understand,
how in view of incontrovertible primary evidence proving Indian
maritime activity, extensive respect of space and time-span, intensive
in terms of variety, tonnage and value, and altogether of far
reaching consequences in material as well as ideational spheres,
Professor Basham could have belittled ... this aspect of Indian
civilization. Is it because it is hurtful to the pride of a native
of the British Isles which conquered the
world through military strength but cannot compare with its erstwhile
colony which for over a millennium dominated the world through
civilized means?
Dr. Vincent Smith has remarked,
"India suffers today, in the estimation of the world,
more through the world's ignorance of the achievements of the
heroes of Indian history than through the absence or insignificance
of such achievement."
Now, having given this historical
background, I will cite some of the more pertinent evidence in
the current Internet articles in favor of Indian maritime activity.
Max Duncker, author of History of Antiquity, notes that
ship-building was known in ancient India by at least
2000 B.C
Historian Radha Kumud Mookerji writes
that India-built ships were superior in ocean navigation because
they were built of teak wood, which resisted the corrosive effects
of salt water and weather for a very long time. India had an abundant supply of such timber. According to R. C. Majumdar,
Chinese texts refer to maritime trade between India
and China
dating back as far as the seventh century B.C. Recent excavations
in Philippines,
Malay peninsula, and Indonesia
confirm early and extensive trade which continued down to the
historical period.
But
the Hindus didn't just navigate eastward. Duncker makes it clear
that from the earliest times they carried on extensive trade with
the west as well. He says that "Trade
existed between the Indians and Sabaeans on the coast of South
Arabia before the 10th century B.C." Archaeological evidence shows
that as early as the eighth century B.C., there was a regular
trade relation, both by land and sea, between India on the one
hand and Mesopotamia, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Egypt on the other.
A.
M. T. Jackson writes that "The Buddhist Jatakas and some
of the Sanskrit law books tell us that ships from Bhroach and
Supara [on the west coast of India] traded with Babylon (Baveru) from the 8th to the 6th century B.C." Theophrastos mentions that
Indian teak wood was shipped to the Persian
Gulf to be used for shipbuilding there. In fact, there is a town
there (Siraf) that was entirely built of this wood.
In
1811, teak was found in the walls of a Persian palace near Baghdad (7th century B.C.E.). R. K. Mookerji, author
of Indian Shipping, sums things up with the following:
"For full thirty centuries India stood out as the very heart of the old world
and maintained her position as one of the foremost maritime countries.
She had colonies in Pegu, in Cambodia, in Java in Sumatra, in Borneo and even
in the countries of the Farther East as far as Japan. She had trading settlements in Southern
China, in the Malayan Peninsula, in Arabia and in all the chief cities of Persia and all over the East
Coast of Africa.
So
if what was stated in these articles was true, I figured that
maritime knowledge of the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the
Red Sea, and around the southern tip of Africa to the Atlantic
was perhaps more extensive in ancient times than might be supposed.
But
I pondered, does the existence of extensive ocean navigation imply
the use of the compass? Perhaps not universally, I thought.
According to one author, the skies over the Indian
Ocean were usually very clear, especially during the times that
the sailors traveled with the monsoons. Thus the compass might
not have been considered very important.
On
the other hand I found some comments in favor of the early use
of the compass by at least a few Indian sailors. In an 1898 Autumn
Leaves publication it reads: "In the ancient language
of the Hindoos, (the Sanscrit-which has been a dead language for
twenty-two hundred years) the magnet was called 'the precious
stone beloved of Iron.' " Thus, according to the above
quote, magnetism was apparently known in India
by at least 300 B.C.
But
again, was it used in maritime navigation? Another source I came
across reads as follows:
The early Hindu astrologers are said to have used the magnet,
in fixing the North and East ... The Hindu compass was an iron
fish that floated in a vessel of oil and pointed to the North.
The fact of this older Hindu compass seems placed beyond doubt
by the Sanskrit word Maccha Yantra, or fish machine, which Molesworth
gives as a name for the mariner's compass.
Thus
I had reason to assume that knowledge of the compass was known
and used for Indian maritime purposes, although perhaps on very
rare occasions. Now India
is geographically located close to Arabia on the Indian Ocean,
and that fact brought me once again to the more pertinent question,
did knowledge of the magnetic compass reach the Near
East by the time of Lehi? My search continued as I now focused
on Arabia.
Interestingly,
Genesis 10: 21-30 says the following about the spread of mankind
into Arabia:
Unto Shem also, (the father of all
the children of Eber, the brother Japeth the elder), even to him
were children born.
The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.
And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.
And unto Eber were born two sons: the
name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided;
and his brother's name was Joktan.
And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and
Jerah,
And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah,
And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba
And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: All these were the
sons of Joktan.
And their dwelling was from Mesha,
as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east.
In
some books by Carl Peters, he elaborates on these verses :
We have the so-called Table of the Nations of Genesis
to consider (chap. x) ...
A. H. Sayce, who is supported in this by Dr. Edward Glaser,
explains that this "Table of the Nations" can lay no
claim to represent an ethnographical chart. It is purely geographical,
i.e., it gives a list of Arabian place-names ... The Eber mentioned
is perhaps the cradle of the Hebrews, who are thus traced back
to South Arabia and the Phoenician country as their place of origin. Ophir
here appears between Sheba and Havilah. The whole [Arab] region in question is exactly
specified geographically ... Mesa or Mesha is, according to Ritter
(Ritters Geography, vol. xiv, fol. 372), the modern Musa, and
Sephar, later known as Dhafar, Dhofar by Mirbat in the incense
country, is now the "Isopor" of the natives. "The
mountains of the East" is the modern range of incense mountains,
called Faguer in the Ekhilil language. The Ekkhilil language
is a dialect of the remotely ancient Himyaritic tongue.
In the third millennium B.C. ... a movement of Semitic tribes
had taken place, starting from the Persian Gulf ... [the] great
Punic stream, the "South Phoenicians," founded empires
in South Arabia, and pressed as conquerors over East Africa. To this belong the Himyarites,
Minaeans, Sabaeans, Kahtanides, Azanians and Abyssinians...
.
This
movement of Semitic peoples into southern Arabia
helped give me some background to recent research by LDS authors
George Potter and Tim Sedor. They have published some video documentaries
in which they outline the reasoning for their theory that the
biblical person named Ophir (Genesis 10:29), the brother of Jerah
(Jerach, Jare, Jared) came south from the Tower
of Babel, from the land of Mesopotamia to southern Arabia, and
became one of the founders of the empire in Dhofar, establishing
a maritime culture, especially at Khor Rori, a spectacular natural
port that was supposedly named after him (Ophir) and which still
remains to this day.
Their
ideas gave me some background to evaluate the comments I found
in another book. In 1995 a revised and expanded edition of Hourani's
1951 Arab Seafaring was published. In it I found the
following on maritime activity in Arabia:
Our subject begins when the first Arabs erected a mast and
a sail and trusted to the winds on the open sea ...
Arabs were astride two of the world's great trade routes.
But the advantages of this geographical position could not be
fully exploited until certain difficulties had been overcome.
Arabia does not and never did produce wood
suitable for building strong seagoing ships. Neither does it
contain iron for nailing them, nor is it near to any iron-producing
country. It has no navigable rivers and few first-class harbors.
Nothing is known of the seafaring activities of the Arabs before
the Hellenic conquest of the Near East. But other nations have left
records of their own voyages in Arabian waters long before that
time. A brief account of these will show that the coasts of
Arabia were in all historical ages in contact
by sea with other countries.
Sumerian and Akkadian inscriptions of the third millennium
B.C. report maritime relations between Mesopotamia
and the countries of Dilmun, Magan and Melukhkha. Dilmun is probably
the island of al-Bahrayn. Magan is now generally agreed to be
'Uman [Oman].
Timber and copper are said to be found there, and there is mention
of "the shipwrights of Magan" in the text from Lagash of the time of Shulgi (c. 2050 [B.C.])...
Indeed
if, according to recent research, Dhofar on the southern coast
of Oman was involved in seafaring as early as the fourth millennia
B.C., then Semitic migration from
Sumeria to the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula would have
brought maritime activity and trade down through the Persian Gulf
not only to the southern coast of Arabia, but perhaps even to
the east coast of Africa. Carl Peters elaborates on the extent
of this seafaring knowledge:
That the Arabians were acquainted with the relation of the
Indian to the Atlantic Ocean, and with the configuration of the
southern point of Africa at the beginning of the Christian era,
need not excite surprise when one calls to mind that King Necho,
or Neku, of Egypt had already sent a Phoenician expedition to
sail round the whole [African] continent about 600 B.C.
The Phoenicians sailed from Suez and returned in the third year from starting by way of the Straits
of Gibraltar. Thus Herodotus tells the story, and his account
is in every way trustworthy.
Now anybody will concede that King Necho, in order to conceive
such a plan, must already have had exact information as to the
geography of Africa. Such information, however, had
been furnished him by the Phoenicians, who again had received
it from their cousins in South Arabia and East
Africa. We can also infer from this record that the south of
the Indian Ocean was already very well
known to the Punic nations before 600 B.C... .
The
reference to the Phoenicians as cousins to the Semitic Tribes
in South Arabia led me to additional perspectives on maritime
knowledge in the Near East. In addition to the southern wave of Semitic migration from
regions of the Persian Gulf, Carl Peters elaborated on a northerly wave from the same
regions:
The northern movement poured itself beyond the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean, where it arrived about 2000 B.C., settling down
as Phoenicians in Asia Minor, as Carthaginians in North Africa,
whence it pressed on as Milesians as far as the British
Isles. To this stream also belonged the Hebrews, the Syrians,
the Nabatheans and Babylonians, who had penetrated overland towards
the north.
To
this knowledge of northern Semitic migration to the Red Sea and
beyond to the Mediterranean Sea, Hourani also added the following:
On the western side of Arabia, Egyptian vessels were sailing
on the Red Sea from at least the reign of Sahure (c. 2470 [B.C.])
of the Fifth Dynasty, and under the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2341-2181
[B.C.]) journeys were made quite frequently by land or by sea
to the country of Punt, probably the Somali coast facing Arabia
...
After the decline of Egyptian power, Phoenicians appear as
the mariners of the Red Sea.[] They may have been so
for many centuries before, but the earliest definite evidence
comes from the first Book of Kings.
"And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber,
which is beside Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land
of Edom; and Hiram sent in the navy
his servants, shipment that had knowledge of the sea, with the
servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir and fetched from
thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it
to King Solomon."
This Ezion-geber can now be identified with confidence as the
site at Tall al-Khulayfah, west of al-'Aqabah, which was excavated
by an American expedition in 1938-1940. It is quite likely that
Solomon himself (c. 974-932 [B.C.]) built the town and the large
copper refinery which has been unearthed there, after the subjection
of the Edomites by his father David. But the passage quoted above
shows clearly that Solomon's ships were manned by Phoenicians
sent by King Hiram of Tyre, and succeeding verses also speak of a separate
fleet of Hiram sailing with that of his ally.
These ships must have been built at Ezion-geber, and at Tall
al-Khulayfah there were actually found large nails of iron and
of copper alloyed with iron, fragments of thick ropes, lumps of
pitch for caulking, and resin for coating. Wood for planks could
be cut from the oak forests then existing in Edom ...
Recent
research indicates that "Since Solomonic times ... Israelites
were undoubtedly involved in the extensive incense trade along
the South Arabian caravan routes, as well as in sailing from 'Ezion-Geber
to India during the summer monsoon, and returning with their spices
and other trade goods during the winter monsoon, presumably making
stops at ports along the way. Concerning the ancient
spice trade in the Near East I found the following:
at various periods in history, spices have been as valuable
as gold and silver ... The beginning of the spice trade is hinted
at in Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions during the New Kingdom period about 3,600 years ago. The Pharaohs of Egypt opened
up special relationships with the kingdom
of Punt to the south. Although the Egyptians
knew of Punt long before this period, it was during the New
Kingdom that we really start hearing of important trade missions
to that country that included large cargoes of spices ...
Apparently,
this ancient spice trade extended to the East
Indies and beyond.
In
the biblical book of 1 Kings we find that in addition to the massive
amounts of gold brought from Ophir, King Solomon "had of
the merchantmen, and of the traffick of the spice merchants, and
of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors
of the country." (1 Kings 10:15) Again I quote:
The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century
A.D., offered his explanation of the Biblical story of Solomon
and Hiram's joint trade mission to the distant land of Ophir.
In his Antiquities of the Jews, he said the voyages which
began from the Red Sea port of Ezion-geber were destined for the
island of Chryse far to the east in the Indian Ocean ... Where then was the island
of Chryse mentioned by Josephus? Greek
geographers usually placed it east of the Ganges
river mouth ...
Thus,
according to the above accounts, maritime knowledge of the Persian
Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, around the southern tip of
Africa to the Atlantic and on past the Straits of Gibraltar into
the Mediterranean Sea was perhaps more extensive in ancient times
than might be supposed.
If
the information from the previous quotes from Hourani and Peters
is correct, then open sea vessels had been sailing the seas of
the Indian Ocean since the third millennium
B.C. Thus communication by sea between the two land masses of
Arabia and India
would have been inevitable and this implies that magnetism might
have been known in Arabia by at least 300
B.C. and perhaps much earlier. But was it?
And
even if knowledge of the principle of magnetism was known in Arabia
at the time of Nephi and Lehi, could the Liahona have been manufactured
there or must it have come from some foreign land? According
to Hourani, Arabia did not have any iron
ore deposits, so how could an iron or "steel" compass
needle (let alone a "brass" ball) have been worked?
In
searching for some answers I came across a manuscript of Keith
Christensen in my personal library in which he notes that starting
about 1000 B.C.,
King Solomon created at the southern end of the Wadi Araba
(near the Red Sea), an industrial establishment to turn his raw
materials into manufactured articles ... the like of which had
not been known before his own day, nor was surpassed until comparatively
recent times... . It is now known that along the entire length
of the Wadi Araba (which runs south of the Dead Sea to Ezion-geber)
are deposits of copper and iron ... Solomon's men employed what
is essentially the principle of the Bessemer
blast furnace, rediscovered less than a century ago. Ezion-geber
was thus not only an important naval base and fortress guarding
the crossroads to Arabia and Egypt but also an industrial center ... Solomon
traded copper and iron to Arabia in return for spices,
incense, and other precious objects obtainable there ... Solomon
and his merchants became rich by shipping out of Ezion-geber copper,
iron, olive oil, and possibly many products manufactured in Egypt.
Cleon
Skousen gives further perspective on this site. He writes:
In 1937 Dr. Nelson Glueck of the American Schools of Oriental
Research, took a large expedition into the lower end of the Arabah
valley ...
Eventually Nelson Glueck discovered ... Tell-el Kheleifeh ...
once Ezion-geber the long sought vanished seaport of King Solomon
...
... Dr. Glueck said in his official report:
... the whole town of Ezion-geber,
taking into consideration place and time, was a phenomenal industrial
site, without anything to compare with it in the entire history
of the ancient Orient. Ezion-geber was the Pittsburgh
of old Palestine and
at the same time its most important seaport.
Revell
Phillips notes that about 600 B.C. there were only two reasonable
options for a metal instrument: bronze and iron. Iron and simple
steel had become commonplace in Jerusalem, yet bronze was retained for special purposes like casting.
Bronze was softer and generally inferior to steel for toolmaking,
and producing it required a source for its components, copper
and tin. Only minor traces of copper minerals have been reported
in the Dhofar, and tin is unknown there.
Of
course, tin and copper might possibly have been trade items on
the India-Africa trade route. This means that iron
and "brass" and their properties would have been well
known to Lehi, and that they would have been available to Nephi
at the Valley of
Lemuel. These metals would have also
been traded along the Frankincense Trail.
So
in essence, while the materials of a magnetic Liahona, iron and
"brass," could have been found and worked on both ends
of the Frankincense Trail at 600 B.C., they were more accessible
near the location where Nephi and Lehi were camped in the Valley
of Lemuel, near the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba at the northern
end of the Red Sea and the Frankincense Trail.
In
concluding Part 2, I can say that I have provided evidence that
maritime knowledge of the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the
Red Sea, and around the southern tip of Africa was perhaps more
extensive in ancient times than might be supposed.
I
also can say that an abundance of evidence substantiates the fact
that the properties of lodestone and the principles leading to
the magnetic compass were known in ancient times.
And
if the principle of magnetic navigation can be traced to India
no later than 300 B.C., and the materials to build the Liahona
were available to those traders who traveled along the Frankincense
trail well before 600 B.C., especially along the northern tip
of the Red Sea, the precise location of the Valley of Lemuel,
then perhaps the Liahona could have been, in part, magnetic.
(Continued In Part 3)
. Carl Peters, The Eldorado of the
Ancients, London: C.A. Pearson, Itd., 1902, pp. 308-309.
. R. C. Majumdar, Ancient India,
p. 210-216, cited in "A Tribute to Hinduism - Seafaring in
Ancient India" http://www.atributeto hinduism.com/Seafaring_in_Ancient_India.htm
. "Study Course: Landing and First
Settlements of the Nephites," in Autumn Leaves, Vol.
11, No. 7 (July), pp. 310-311. This information is also quoted
by RLDS author A. H. Parsons, Parson's Text Book, Lamoni, Iowa: Herald Publishing House, 1902, pp.
46-47.
. Carl Peters, The Eldorado of the
Ancients, London: C.A. Pearson, Itd., 1902,
pp. 308-309. See also Carl Peters, King Solomon's Golden Ophir:
A Research into the Most Ancient Gold Production in History.
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton & Co., Ltd., 1899. Reprinted
1969 by Negro Universities Press, A Division of Greenwood Publishing
Corp., New York.
. Carl Peters, The Eldorado of the
Ancients, London: C.A. Pearson, Itd., 1902, pp. 308-309.
. According to Potter & Sedor,
the Greeks called him Jarach. "The Jaredites" 2001,
Video documentary by George Potter & Tim Sedor. Available
through www.nephiproject.com
. The Holy Bible, English, Douai. 1820? (Genesis 10:26) Located at the
Harold B. Lee Library (BS 180). See also "The Jaredites"
2001, Video documentary by George Potter & Tim Sedor (Available
through www.nephiproject.com) According to Potter & Sedor,
St. Jerome called him
Jare.
. According to the Smith's Bible
Dictionary, London,
1863 he was called Jared. "The Jaredites" 2001, Video
documentary by George Potter & Tim Sedor (Available through
www.nephiproject.com)
. For details on this theory the reader
is referred to "The Jaredites," 2001 and "Driving
the Jaredite Trail," 2003 produced by George Potter &
Timothy Sedor. Based on research by George Potter & Richard
Wellington. Filmed entirely on location. Available through www.nephiproject.com.
. George F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring
in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, revised
and expanded by John Carswell. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 4-6.
. Juris Zarins, The Land of Incense,
Archaeology & Cultural Heritage Series Vol. 1, Archaeological
Work in the governorate of Dhofar, Sultanate of Oman 1990-1995.
The Project of the National Committee for the supervision of Archaeological
survey in the Sultanate, Ministry of Information, (Sultanate of
Oman: Sultan Qaboos University Publications Al Nahda Printing
Press, 2001, 74, 88). Cited by George Potter and Richard Wellington
in an unpublished manuscript.
. Carl Peters, The Eldorado of the
Ancients, pp. 317-319.
. Carl Peters, The Eldorado of
the Ancients, pp. 308-309.
. Interestingly, Jim Bailey notes
the following on the Phoenicians and the Red
Sea:
Herodotus said that they came from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean
... the name Red Sea can possibly apply to those places where
"the Red Men," the Phoenicians, were concentrated...
Erythia in Greek means red. (Jim Bailey, Sailing to Paradise:
The Discovery of the Americas by 7000 B.C., New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1994, p. 49)
The above information is interesting when viewed against the
detractors of the Book of Mormon who claim that the name "Red Sea" is a mistranslation in the Bible and thus an anachronism
in the Book of Mormon.
. George F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring
in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, revised
and expanded by John Carswell. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 7-8.
. Ch. Rabin, Studies in Religion,
III [1973/1974,], 209; "Winds and Currents: A Look at Nephi's
Ocean Crossing," FARMS Update, April 1986; cf. National
Geographic, Oct 1967, p. 559 as quoted in Robert F. Smith,
"Book of Mormon Event Structure: Ancient Near East,"
Provo, UT: FARMS, 1984, p. 23.
In ancient China it was required that people first chew cloves
(gui) before speaking with the Emperor to ensure a pleasing breath
... cloves have [also] been found as early as 1,700-1,600 BCE
in Terqa, Syria where
a pot of cloves was found by archaeologist G. Buccelatoi. This
date is very interesting because not too far away in Egypt
during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (1503 to 1482 BCE), there
is mention in the hieroglyphic texts of ti-sps "cinnamon
wood" being imported from the southern land
of Punt. Now cinnamon also grew only
in southeastern Asia before the modern period.
Cinnamon is again mentioned in the 7th century BCE Hebrew biblical
texts and by Theophrastus (372-288 BCE). The Hebrews claimed
that cinnamon, cassia, and possibly also lemon-grass were used
in the holy oil of the temple proscribed by Moses (Exodus 30).
This correlates somewhat to the early dates for cloves in
Syria and
cinnamon in Egypt.
The Hebrew word for cinnamon "quinamom" is believed
to be derived from Malay kayu manis "sweet wood,"
and the English word is ultimately derived from the Hebrew. How
did these spices arrive in Africa and the Middle
East?
Archaeologists have found that the medieval cinnamon trade
followed a route across the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean
from Indonesia to Madagascar ... in medieval time, cinnamon
landing in
Madagascar
would then find its way to Rhapta in present-day Somalia. From there is reached the South Arabian
traders in Muza, Yemen
who carried on the trade along the coasts of the
Red Sea. Now, this could be a medieval model explaining the
ancient ships of Hatshepsut which sailed to the southern country
of Punt to obtain cinnamon amongst other goods! ...
Continuing on, and in terms reminiscent of the seagoing manner
of the Jaredite barges [see the brackets] the author notes:
Pliny the Elder (23/24 -79 CE) wrote of how the Ethiopians
bought cinnamon from their neighbors (probably to the south)
who purchased it themselves from a seafaring people. These
mariners:
bring it over vast seas on rafts ["barges"] which
have no rudders to steer them or oars to push or pull them or
sails or other aids to navigation; but instead only the spirit
of man and human courage. What is more, they put out to sea
in winter, around the time of the winter solstice when the east
winds are blowing their hardest ["a furious wind bl[e]w
upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land"
-Ether 6:5]. These winds drive them on a straight course, and
from gulf to gulf ...
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in the first
century ACE, describes ships from Chryse in the Malay Archipelago known as Kolan-diphonta or "Kolan-ships."
The "Kolan" here are probably the Kunlun
of the Chinese annals. The ships are described as large vessels
made of two whole logs roped together ["the length thereof
was the length of a tree" -Ether 2:16]. This sounds very
much like the double canoes of Oceania
["they were light upon the water" - Eth. 2:16]. Stone
representations of such canoes have been found in Indonesia
and northeastern India.
. B. Keith Christensen, The Unknown
Witness, pp. 60-61, unpublished
. W. Cleon Skousen, The Fourth Thousand
Years, SLC: Bookcraft, 1991, pp. 248-251 in which he quotes
from Werner Keller, The Bible As History, New
York: William Morrow and Co., 1956, "pp.192-201
provides a rather complete summary of this expedition."
. Wm. Revell Phillips, "Metals
of the Book of Mormon," in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies,
Vol. 9, Num. 2, 2000, FARMS, pp. 37, 41. Phillips writes that
it is important to note that the direct process of iron reduction,
forging, carburizing, quenching, and tempering were technologies
known throughout the Near East of Nephi's day. All were possible
for a learned or inspired man using a simple pit furnace with
bellows and a simple forge.
These techniques changed little for the arms makers of the
Christian crusades or, indeed, for the blacksmiths of the pioneer
communities of the American West
. Additionally, iron might have come
from the other end of the Frankincense Trail. Responding to a
F.A.R.M.S. request, in 1985 Eugene Clark, former geologist for
ESSO in Oman, prepared a preliminary
report of geological possibilities of mineral deposits in the
Dhofar region, where the chief source of Frankincense for trade
with other Near Eastern countries was located. (Eugene E. Clark,
"A Preliminary Study of the Geology and Mineral Resources
of Dhofar, the Sultanate of Oman,"
Introduction).
The report identifies a number of geological possibilities
for accessible copper and iron ore. Most promising among the
published studies are reports of specular hematite found in small,
random deposits on the Mirbat plain east of Salalah. Specular
hematite is the most readily available form of high-quality iron
and would have been most attractive as a low-tech smelting source.
The report also notes that Dhofar irons would usually occur in
mixtures with manganese and carbon, yielding higher-quality steel
that would be superior for tools.
On April 2, 2000 three BYU geology professors and a professional
geologist reported on their work of evaluating the presence of
iron ore in southern Oman,
specifically the Dhofar region which has been proposed as the
area of Nephi's Bountiful. According to Ronald Harris, although
Oman has an abundance of ore
deposits, most of these deposits are buried beneath a thick cover
of sedimentary rock. However, the Dhofar region of Oman
is an exception. In fact, it is one of the few places throughout
the Arabian Peninsula where the ore deposits
are exposed.
Jeffrey Keith noted that the team found deposits of iron-rich
carbonate, goethite, and hematite, which can be crushed, mixed
together, and heated to make a very usable form of iron ore.
In fact, the team extracted some of this ore material, brought
it back to BYU, and made iron out of it. These deposits occur
in two areas along the southern Omani coast in concentrations
sufficient to make tools: Raykut and Mirbat. (Ronald A. Harris,
Eugene E. Clark, Jeffrey D. Keith, and W. Revell Phillips, "Nephi's
Tools: An Overview of Iron Ore
Occurrences in Oman," Brown Bag Lecture on 5 April, 2000.
Reported in "FARMS Project Reports," in Insights,
May 2000, p. 7.)
Mirbat is located a few miles east of the Salalah coastal plain
(Hilton's proposed Bountiful site), and just
west of Khor Rori (Potter's proposed site). It would have been
easily reached by camel in Nephi's time. There is clear excavation
evidence at a mountain site called Jebel Ali of a type of soft
iron deposit called "goethite." Having gone through
a natural process of breakdown by sulfuric acid, this soft deposit
can easily be picked up and transported.
Raykut is located somewhat close to, and east of, Wadi Sayq
(the Astons proposed Bountiful site); however, it is not reachable
overland. One must approach it by boat from Wadi Sayq. Here
the geologists found limited amounts of Iron carbonate, Hematite,
and also Goethite.
Sur on the northeast of Oman (proposed by Hedengren as Bountiful) has
the ore but not the water for a lush environment.
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About the Author: |
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Alan Miner is on the advisory board of Ancient America Foundation, a Book of Mormon research specialist and author of: Step by Step through the Book of Mormon and Chronology of Thought on Book of Mormon Geography (both yet to be published), as well as several articles on Book of Mormon culture. His compilation of commentary and quotes from general authorities, scholars and other writers relative to Book of Mormon geography and culture is classic. He spent his mission in Guatemala. He is a dentist by occupation. He and his wife, Barbara Dedrickson Miner, have six children. |
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