In my first post I said that I found a possible pattern in the Book of Mormon concerning migrations. When I first started researching the different theories about where the Nephite lands are I was getting very frustrated at all the different opinions and theories people had on this subject. I had too many questions that wasn’t being answered satisfactorily. So, I decided to get a fresh look on where these lands could possibly be located. I started by looking for possible patterns by doing a keyword search on certain words like migrations, Zarahemla, Nephites, Lamanites, etc. I then looked closer at the migrations and noticed that this was mentioned only six times in the Book of Mormon and every one went north. When I mean migrations I mean a group of people moving to new lands and establishing permanent villages and towns there. If you look in the scriptures you will also notice that only one reference was made every 3 books of people moving to new lands with two mentioned in Alma 63. Now, I need to know where Lehi landed as a place where these migrations started. I remembered a reference where Joseph Smith said in a Times and Seasons article that Lehi landed just south of the Isthmus of Darien or Panama. So, I started here and worked up. Now I needed more reference points to place my information on. There is a lot of research that says that Zarahemla was in the Yucatan/Guatemala region and that the Nephites final war was in upstate New York. These last two was enough to establish a possible route of the migrations. I made the chart below and placed each Book of Mormon section that corresponds to the above references on a New World map and everything lined up with the appropriate countries that they lived in. For example, most of the Nephite history in Zarahemla is in Mosiah and Alma, the largest book in the Book of Mormon and both books is in the middle of the Book of Mormon. And guess where Zarahemla is now generally accepted? In the Yucatan, southern Mexico and Guatemala area; right in the middle of both continents. This is the perfect location to establish the Church of Jesus Christ in this part of the world. The prophet could send missionaries in both directions, north and south, to spread the word of God throughout the New World. This could not happen until the lands in the north was prepared for the coming of the Nephite nation. There was still a war going on with the Jaredites when Lehi landed and the land need to be purged of the last corrupted nation. Also, the Church of Jesus Christ had to be strong enough and established before the Nephites could move into the new lands or else it would not survived very long. I will talk more on this later on. In short, I believe, because Mormon had so little room to put much detail on where the Nephite lands are more specifically he designed the Book of Mormon as a geographical map, placing certain information in specific places, leaving up to a future individual to figure out the clues and build the map. I am not saying this is me but I wonder if anyone else since the Book of Mormon was published has noticed this pattern. This theory would answer a lot of questions and resolve a lot of seemingly conflicting information that was written by early LDS writers. I will post more of my thoughts and research in the coming weeks.
Here is a chart I made:
On the Trail of the Plates of Mormon
Start at Bottom.
Moroni
322 -421 AD—Ether —-Lands of New England—Jaredite Lands—Final battle of both nations
Ether 6:5 And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.
Mormon
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4 Nephi
52 BC-321 AD 3 Nephi – Lands of Central USA/Missouri and surrounding lands
Helaman— 3:3. And it came to pass in the *forty and sixth, yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land. 4 And they did travel to an exceedingly great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers. 5 Yea, and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants who had before inherited the land. 6 And now no part of the land was desolate, save it were for timber; but because of the greatness of the destruction of the people who had before inhabited the land it was called desolate.
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Alma— 63:4 And it came to pass that in the *thirty and seventh year of the reign of the judges, there was a large company of men, even to the amount of five thousand and four hundred men, with their wives and their children, departed out of the land of Zarahemla into the land which was northward. 5 And it came to pass that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. 6 And behold, there were many of the Nephites who did enter therein and did sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward. And thus ended the thirty and seventh year. 7 And in the thirty and eighth year, this man built other ships. And the first ship did also return, and many more people did enter into it; and they also took much provisions, and set out again to the land northward.
30-53 BC–Mosiah —Land Of Guatemala, South Mexico, and Yucatan—Land of Zarahemla
Words of Mormon
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Omni—13 And it came to pass that he did according as the Lord had commanded him. And they departed out of the land into the wilderness, as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord; and they were led by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla. 14 And they discovered a people, who were called the people of Zarahemla. Now, there was great rejoicing among the people of Zarahemla; and also Zarahemla did rejoice exceedingly, because the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah with the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews.
544-130 BC–Jarom— Lands between South America and Guatemala—Discovery of Zarahemla by Mosiah
Enos
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Jacob
600-421 BC– 2 Nephi – Columbia/Ecuador- Landing of Lehi-just south of the Isthmus of Darien (Panama)
1 Nephi 18:22 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did guide the ship, that we sailed again towards the promised land. 23. And it came to pass that after we had sailed for the space of many days we did arrive at the promised land; and we went forth upon the land, and did pitch our tents; and we did call it the Promised Land.
On the Trail of the Plates of Mormon 
This definitely is an intrigueing subject, with many speculations on specific places over the years. There is no doubt in my mind that that history was played out on that continent. From ledgends of the indigeonous people it would seem both northern and southern continents were involved. The degeneration of the society into war, superstision and human sacrifice was also very widespread, reaching both continents.
Nephi talks of other plates that contain a much fuller record of their history, if they become available we will be in a position to trace geographical sites much better.
I’m very suspicious of the Mirador Basin area in central America, because it is unusual as a location for such a large population to have lived, and shows great industry and organization. Also it has a well developed writing system, Christian era temples of a ‘Triadic’ type which could be physically capable for Christian temple work. Looking for Book of Mormon archaeology is difficult because there is only a very small window where Christianity was practiced uniformaly, about 150 years before it began being corrupted. With the total corruption Mormon records I would guess even previous Christian temples would have become places of human sacrifice. Plus the language system is obscure. El mirador and the surrounding area remain mostly still buried, it would be interesting to see what lies there, looking at the glyphic ‘Masks’ on the Temple walls could easily be interpreted as relating to Jesus Christ, at least by me anyway, especially if the symbolism rests on an Israelite/God given base. Unfortunately I only seem able to find pictures of a limited number of the masks on these triadic temples, there are masks also on Temples from later times but they change substantially from these earlier ones they seem to derive from. This is a link that shows a temple mask at El Mirador, it looks weird because its not our language and it uses images to represent ideas like any language I guess, but each representation is there for a reason and means something. What can you see?
This is a well drawn representation of the complete structure:
http://www.authenticmaya.com/guatemala_ancestral.htm
Hmmm, one link didn’t work the other doesn’t show the drawing, to get the drawing of the Triadic structure go to Maya Architecture link in the left column then press on the drawing;
‘El Tigre triadic Complex in El Mirador, drawing by Rutledge’
halfway down the page to enlarge.
The mask(s) can be seen here from a similar Temple;
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/legacy/mayan_lost_tribes/nakbe/nakbe.html
Thanks, Mark for your comment. I will look over the sites a little more later on today. My theory covers in general where the Nephite lands are and the circles on my map shows the approximate areas I believe the Nephites migrated to and settled in. I still believe that there is a huge library buried somewhere in Central America that we need to find to answer all of our questions about these people.
Just looked at your map on the other post, interesting ideas. I read recently about the ancient copper mines in the northern US and the obvious links they had with artifacts matching those found in the mediteranian area, I think they dated to a Jaredite time frame, as does the olmec civilization in central America. I’d been researching hardened copper tools as used by the Egyptians, who it seems also had high carbon steels.
If artifacts from mines or quarries in central America could be traded and end up thousands of miles from their source then we could presume long distance travel was possible given sufficient reason.
I find it really hard to believe that as old as the Egyptian civilization are that they would not have world travel. It survived over 2000 years as a civilization. The people must have learned something during that time about ship building and metallurgy. If they could refine gold to the point of using it in their artwork why not experiment with other metals? I read somewhere that King Solomon’s treasure actually came from the New World mines. The Jaredite civilization is also about 2000 years. That is a very long time to build a civilization. Remember too that the eastern side of the US is mostly a very damp climate so anything that is not buried, rock or a metal of some sort would not survive very long so I believe that this is the main reason why we don’t find that many artifacts here like we do in other places. The Jaredites probably used mostly wood for their structures and everyday items.
These are some thoughts on El Mirador and Nakbe, Temples and Temple masks; why they may be important is that these places seemed to have
become back waters in the early Christian era 150-200AD, as their
powerbase shifted to other centers, they became lightly
populated, so they may be less
messed up, by latter populations.
Like modern temples these classes of complexes share a
celestial alignment.
Considering Book of Mormon history, there were
Christian temples, with the apostacy and
destruction of the Nephites, their temples would have
been desecrated and likely used by the overthrowing power in
a different way. Temples were often built over, though maybe not here.
What we see of the Maya in
the late 1st millenium AD is the apostate, if we go back far
enough we should be able to find the early Christianity with
similar expressions as far as symbols and art. Bearing in
mind that the symbolism used by the early Christians is the
true form, and that that symbolism would be Israelite culture based.
The masks either side of the steps on the main pyramid
presents a number of symbols, pretty weird looking stuff.
But the question is could it be writing on the walls of a
Christian Temple? Just the way we do it now?
It looks like it to me, it took a little while to
work out, but in the centre is a stylized head with a funny
beak like nose, what that is is the head of what they call
the Mayan bird deity, I don’t know if anyone else has made
the connection but it’s quite obvious looking at the head
part of that Bird Deity on the walls at San Bartolo and on
the La Mojarra stone both also dated around the Christian
era,
they base it on the Harpy eagle. The relevance: if it’s
‘reformed Egyptian’ it probably represents Jehovah, like the
bird in the picture in the book of Abraham (angel of the
lord who identified himself as Jehovah).
Either side of that head are two hands, in the form of
Tiger paws, a representation of power. In the centre of each
palm a hole surrounded by a border, Christ was not known by
a cross on that continent but by his wounds which is what
these look to represent, the artists have gone to some
trouble to signify that these holes go through, on La
Mojarra stone they are deep, and have become ear flares.
Above and below the hands are what
they call knotted bundles, one above one below, I think they could represent what Christian
temples are used for; binding on earth and in Heaven, it
would be a smart if not inspired way to represent that using
pictures.
For a mental exercise try thinking of another way you
could use picture writing to convey that concept and relate it to the God of Israel.
The bird deity has one of its earliest found representations
at San Bartolo, around the early Christian era, it then
morphs a little over the next centuries and is still
depicted by the classical Maya many hundreds of years later. The
bird is depicted in a tree and in its beak a rope which
holds a vial of incense, with the odor depicted as curling
smoke. The curling odor is also depicted on the Temple
‘Mask’ or inscription just above the hands and highest
knotted bundles.
To an Israelite using symbolism they were familiar with,
this would symbolize prayer, as indicated in the Bible, Rev
5, and elsewhere and would tie in with the Temple being a
house of prayer.
This might also begin to shed light on the bird deity, and
gives a possible explanation of the rope and incense burner.
At San Bartolo, if the tree represents the Tree of Life.
The fruit; the love
of God.
The Eagle; Christ in
the tree; the personification of the love of God in his
willing sacrifice.
The incense carried by
Christ perhaps being his interceding, on behalf of his
people, as their advocate before the Father, his praying for his people represented by the incense odor,
then the symbolism works on an Israelite cultural base. And
the bird deity starts to look less peculiar; even when
people totally apostatize they don’t necessarily change
from using accurate terminology, and it may be that these
early Temples and temple masks may be the pure religion that
the latter temple builders apostatized from. So if versions
of these symbols were used by the false they were likely
also used by the true, which shouldn’t be overlooked because
they may look like the apostate.
This is just speculation but it will be interesting to see
what more they dig up in the future.
Where can we find maps that show migrations and land settlements of the Book of Mormon people?
There are no official maps from the LDS Church but if you go to the home page of this blog you will find my maps of where I believe they migrated and settled.
Here are some insightful quotes I like… Lemme know if you likje them:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
“I, at any rate, am convinced that He (God) doesn’t throw dice.”
“The important matter isn’t to stop questioning; interest has its own reason for existing.”
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I am not certain about the universe.”
“Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.”
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It’s the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
“Anyone who hasn’t made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather attempt to become a man of worth”