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The Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon Archaeology, Anthropology, and Historicity Explorer George D. Potter And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, Because of its much fruit and also wild honey… 1 Nephi 17:5 Figure 1 One of the waterfalls in the magical Darbat Valley in Oman, the upper valley of Khor Rori only 3 miles from where Nephi mostlikely built his ship. Courtesy of K. Christensen. 1 ©George D. Potter, 2018 Published by The Nephi Project - 2018 George Potter, Explorer/Author www.nephiproject.com Timothy Sedor, ,Explorer/Filmmaker Dedicated to helping students of the Book of Mormon appreciate that it is a true history through our research, documentary films, books, and free public presentations. Please help us by forwarding this free e-book to all your friends. Our documentary films and fully illustrated books are available at www.nephiproject.com. Our Books Our DVDs For free presentations in your chapel or home, contact: [email protected] 2 ©George D. Potter, 2018 Contents Introduction: Why believe the Book of Mormon 5 1. The Book of Mormon’s Accurate Description of the Ancient Frankincense Trail 15 2. Discovering The Valley of Lemuel 29 3. Bountiful and Nephi’s Harbor 35 4. The Jaredites 57 5. South America, Geography and the Book of Mormon 67 6. A Nephite Civilization in Ancient Andes 87 7. Remnants of an Ancient Near East Culture in Peru 111 8. Cuzco, a Candidate for the City of Nephi 131 9. Pukara, a Candidate for Zarahemla 157 10. Taraco, a Candidate for the City of Jacobugath 183 11. Nasca, a Candidate for the Land of Bountiful 193 12. Tambo Viejo, a Candidate for the City of Mulek 207 13. A Jaredite and the Dawn of Civilization in the Americas 217 14. The Voyages of Hagoth 233 15. The Book of Mormon Solves a Christmas Mystery 243 Conclusion 251 Selected Bibliography 255 About the author 267 3 ©George D. Potter, 2018 Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the faithful assistance of the exploring, filming, authorship, and editing support of my many friends. I cannot possibly mention all those who have traveled with me on my journeys. However, I must thank my Nephi Project partner, videographer, and exploring companion, Timothy Sedor; Richard Wellington, who was my exploring companion, desert guide, co-author of Lehi in the Wilderness, and author of parts of the first four chapters; Frank Linehan and Conrad Dickson, who helped with the chapters on Nephi’s Ship and who co-authored with me The Voyages of the Book of Mormon; Dennis Mead , editor of this book and the Nephi Project Newsletters, and exploring partners Bruce Santucci, Stephen Done, Jim Anderson, Satya Nand, Craig Thorsted, Tom Cueller, Michael Bellerson, Jay Todd, Rich Whaley and so many others. Open Rights for Translation Any person can translate and distribute in their native language all or part of this book so long as they: 1) do not change the meaning of the original English text, 2) do not charge for the translated text, 3) state the name of the person who translated the text, and 4) give credit for the original book to The Nephi Project and George D. Potter. 4 ©George D. Potter, 2018 It will be as it ever has been. The world will prove Joseph Smith a true prophet by circumstantial evidence. Joseph Smith (Translator of the Book of Mormon) Introduction Why Believe the Book of Mormon Why should we believe in the Book of Mormon? By any measure it is an extraordinary book. There are millions of people who believe it is the word of God as reveled to prophets who lived in the ancient Americas. There are also many people who believe it is a fraud dreamed up in the imaginary mind of a young Joseph Smith. If the Book of Mormon is true, it is the earliest known eye-witness account of many important historical events that transpired in the Old and New Worlds. The objective of this book is to show that the Book of Mormon is an actual history originally recorded in ancient times. Along with my colleagues, I spent five years and traveled some 75,000 miles on sandy desert tracks retracing Lehi’s Trail in Arabia. We used advanced maritime computer simulators to plot the most favorable sea routes for the voyages of the Jaredites, Nephi, Mulek, and Hagoth. I lived for more than a year in the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru. For the last decade I have studied the flood of new archaeological discoveries that have been unearthed in the mountains and coastal plains of Peru. These new discoveries have reshaped how scientists conceptualize the emergence of civilizations in the New World, and provide striking parallels to the history recorded in the Book of Mormon. This book includes highlights from my previous books and also includes exciting new findings. It is a free book, which I hope you will share will your family and friends. A Remarkable Book about Exceptional People The Book of Mormon is a history of two amazing groups of people, the Jaredites and the Nephites. These two small groups of immigrants brought to the Americas the technology, culture, and the religion of their homelands. Their history is not that of nomadic drifters, primitive hunter-gatherers or half-naked primitives living in twig huts atop mounds of earth. Rather, they were literate, skilled craftsmen, metallurgists, and inspired architects. From their earliest days in the New World they built great cities, constructed a temple that rivaled Solomon’s, and highways. They introduced to the New World highly productive farming techniques and raised herds of sheep and other domesticated animals. Since its publication in 1830, the Book of Mormon has claimed that such sophisticated civilizations took root in the Americas as far back in antiquity as the third Millennium BC. Yet, it has taken archaeologists 5 ©George D. Potter, 2018 nearly another two hundred years to discover that such impressive civilizations existed in ancient America. Indeed, the remains of Book of Mormon-like civilizations have only recently been discovered in the Americas along South America’s Pacific shoreline and the adjacent Andes Mountains. The location of these ruins should not be a surprise to anyone who thoroughly understands what Joseph Smith taught. While revisionists have suggested that Joseph Smith believed otherwise, the Church members who actually knew Joseph Smith and listened to his discourses knew that it had been revealed to the Prophet that Nephi’s ship landed in what is today the nation of Chile. Two highly influential apostles of the Church, Elder Orson Pratt and Elder Franklin D. Richards, repeatedly taught that the Prophet received a revelation that Nephi’s ship landed at 30 degrees south latitude in South America. Both apostles were called by the Lord through Joseph Smith, and it goes without saying that apostles are themselves prophets, seers, and revelators—special witnesses of Christ—and certainly men who would not have taught a doctrine that conflicted with the teachings of Joseph Smith. Evidence supporting this revelation to Joseph Smith is that the words thereof were written in the “handwriting of Frederick G. Williams, Counselor to the Prophet, and on the same page with the body of an undoubted revelation,” which is now part of the Doctrine and Covenants.1 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints even included the revelation that Nephi landed in Chile as a footnote to the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon.2 Indeed, contrary to the revisionists’ theories, B. H. Roberts reminds us that the dominant belief among the early Church members was that Joseph Smith revealed that Nephi landed in South America.3 The artifacts of the civilizations with possible Book of Mormon associations have been discovered from Columbia in the north to Chile in the south. These early polities included parts of today’s Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. Some of these societies appear to have practiced norms associated with the Law of Moses and the teachings found in the Book of Mormon. Other societies in the same region were pagans who at times even performed human sacrifices. Although it did not exist during Book of Mormon times, the largest and most advanced of the pre-Columbian Andean civilizations were the Incas, whose capital was in Cusco, Peru. When the Spanish arrived in Peru, the short-lived Inca Empire was on the verge of collapse. Its king, crown prince, and the majority of its population had already died from the newly introduced smallpox virus. As a result, the empire plunged into a bloody civil war. In less than two hundred years, the Incas, a small elite family from the Cusco Valley, had conquered and ruled over a land mass larger than the ancient Roman Empire, just to fall to a handful of brutal conquistadors. During the two centuries before the arrival of the Spanish, the Incas had remodeled many cities, rebuilt temples, and expanded a highway system that was longer than all the Roman roads combined. They rebuilt massive stone monuments and fortifications the manner of which even today’s engineers cannot conceive. 1 Roberts, B. H., New Witness for God, vol. 3., 501. 2 Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 1, “Book of Mormon Geography.” 3 Roberts, 501. 6 ©George D. Potter, 2018 The conquistadors described the Inca nobility as being tall and having fairer skin than the Spanish. The Inca surgeons performed highly skilled brain surgeries that had “significantly higher” success rates than American Civil War doctors.4 The research by Gary Urton, the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies in the Archeology Department at Harvard University,5 supports the oral traditions that the Incas ancient ancestors had a written language that eventually became lost6 (fulfilled prophecy: Jacob 4:1-2).
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