sign in sign up
<<
Home , Awwam, Marib Dam, Nahom

NEWLY FOUND ALTARS FROM NAHOM

WARREN P. ASTON

any readers have read about the finding two altars in an exhibit on ancient touring of ancient votive altars in Yemen that appear Europe since October 1997 and could no longer be Mto bear the place-name examined at the Bar

The second altar with the NHM name stands solitary in the fore- court of the Bar

58 VOLUME 10, NUMBER 2, 2001 built earlier than the dam. The Bar

JOURNAL OF BOOK OF MORMON STUDIES 59 settled in proximity to the Lehite encampment. 2. Nephi’s Bountiful lay “nearly eastward” from Nahom (1 Nephi 17:1). 3. Nahom was, or at least in- cluded, a place of burial. Note that Nephi does not state that Ishmael died there, only that he was buried there, implying that it included an established burial place. Let us review these three ele- ments in the light of the altars that have been found. Until now, the earliest reference to the NHM name came from historical and religious writings in that may rest on information that goes back to the first century A.D.12 As already noted, the altar Altar 2, with the name NHM enlarged at left (read right to left). finds take us another seven cen- turies earlier, squarely linking us stages of construction into an ever more substantial to the time period referred to in the Book of Mormon. Latter-day Saints no longer temple complex. The three altars donated by Bi>athar appear to precede or belong to a fourth period of need to conjecture whether the name existed at the construction beginning in the late sixth or fifth cen- time Nephi wrote—it did. In my view, it is unlikely that Lehi and his family tury B.C., at the height of the influence of the Sabaean kingdom. The date has been further refined by the passed close to Marib. After leaving Nahom, north- west of Marib, the “nearly eastward” route recorded altar texts themselves, which refer to the ruler Yada>-il, by Nephi would have taken them along the unin- who is likely Yada>-il Dharih II (about 630 B.C.) or habited southern edge of the Empty Quarter, some perhaps Yada>-il Bayyin II (about 580 B.C.).11 This distance north of Marib. They were then no longer places the making of the altars within decades of on the famed incense route but were traveling paral- the time that the Lehites made their desert odyssey. lel to its eastward leg. Significantly, however, since Naw>um of the Most readers of the Journal will be aware of the tribe of Nihm was the grandfather of Bi athar, the > ongoing fieldwork being conducted on the southern Nihm name must be at least two generations—per- coast of .13 This area, the only one that matches haps another century—older still, certainly predat- Nephi’s detailed description of “Bountiful,” lies within ing the arrival of the Lehites to the area. one degree of being due east of the Nahom region. Nahom in Nephi’s Record Such precise directional linking of Nahom with the In a single verse, 1 Nephi 16:34, Nephi tells us only plausible site for Bountiful is striking confirma- all that he wished us to know about the place called tion of the accuracy of Nephi’s account. Nahom: “And it came to pass that Ishmael died, and We now come to the third aspect of Nahom— was buried in the place which was called Nahom.” that it was a place of burial. As Nephi wrote his From this and one other terse statement in the account years later in the New World, he surely real- Book of Mormon we learn several facts about the ized that he and his family would never return to location: the burial place of Ishmael, his father-in-law and a 1. The wording makes it clear that Nahom was not grandfather to his children; thus he was careful to named by Lehi’s party but was already known by that place on record the name of that place. The altar name to local people. Thus other people were already discoveries lend strong support to the view that

60 VOLUME 10, NUMBER 2, 2001 anciently Nahom/Nihm may have extended over a much larger area than it now does, a concept first proposed in 1995.14 While we cannot be certain, Bi>athar would have been unlikely to contribute to a temple that lay outside his tribal area. The simplest explanation is that in his day the Nihm tribal area extended at least as far east as Marib, a view that modern-day scholars have no problems accepting. Furthermore, this new window into the ancient past of southern Arabia tells us rather clearly that the origin of the name Nahom is connected to a place of burial. And its name is also tied to the Nihm tribe living in the area. Scholars have recog- nized for some time that the Semitic roots of the name Nahom closely relate to sorrow, hunger, con- soling, and mourning, obviously very appropriate for a place of burial, and may therefore reflect the origin of the Hebrew name used by Nephi.15 At the same time that the BarAlam, Ruwayk, and Jidran, just 25 miles north of Marib.16 While there are isolated burial tombs scattered throughout the Nahom region, this vast Altar 1, on which the name NHM was first identified, is currently on cemetery covering many square miles and numbering tour with the exhibit in Europe. many thousands of tombs is the largest burial area known anywhere in Arabia. If in fact Nahom extended into this region in Seen from any perspective, S. Kent Brown’s origi- ancient times, this burial area now takes on special nal assessment of this development as being “dra- significance. The tombs date back as far as 3000 B.C., matic new evidence” in the quest to place Nahom evidence of the large population in the area even ear- firmly on the modern-day map holds true. Nephi lier than the generally accepted dates of the Sabaean implied that a place in southern Arabia named period, when Marib was at the height of its influence Nahom already existed in his day, and now three in the region. Could this unique site be the actual chiseled blocks of stone from a pagan temple in scene of “the place which was called Nahom”—the Yemen provide incontrovertible evidence that, in actual burial area referred to by Nephi? fact, it did. !

JOURNAL OF BOOK OF MORMON STUDIES 61