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Greetings all,

In my quest to understand the actual evidence for an ancient Book of Mormon and its value, I have tried to find anything similar among the artifacts of Ancient America. The best evidence for something resembling the Anthon transcript in any way seems to be (although I haven't exhausted all avenues) a collection of Preclassic cylinder seals found in Mesoamerica. These seals arguably provide evidence of a complex writing system of abstract symbols in the Preclassic Era. Beginning with an article by Carl Hugh Jones in 1970, the characters of the Anthon Transcript have been compared favorably with such seals.

In JBMS 8.1, an article revived Jones' work, without citing the specific parallels between the two documents. For this article, click here

I have not seen the original Jones article, but if any of you know where I can get a hold of it, please let me know.

I will say that, looking at the Anthon Transcript next to the Tlatilco seal (because it is one cylinder seal picture readily available online), I am hard pressed to see how one would think that these are related. What do you think?

Meriotic makes more sense to me.

If I were looking for Old World material, I might take time to assess this. I am not.

Along these lines, I'm trying to find an article that I once had (and may still have) favorably comparing Anthon's description of the characters with those of one, Professor Ralfinesque, and some symbols from a place called Otolum.

Her Amun wrote:

I have a slightly different theory.

Edit: Nearly forgot the Aspects:

Trevor wrote:In JBMS 8.1, an article revived Jones' work, without citing the specific parallels between the two documents. For this article, click here

I have not seen the original Jones article, but if any of you know where I can get a hold of it, please let me know.

Jones's article is posted here.

Tom wrote:Jones's article is posted here.

Thanks, Tom!

Trevor wrote:Greetings all,

In my quest to understand the actual evidence for an ancient Book of Mormon and its value, I have tried to find anything similar among the artifacts of Ancient America. The best evidence for something resembling the Anthon transcript in any way seems to be (although I haven't exhausted all avenues) a collection of Preclassic cylinder seals found in Mesoamerica. These seals arguably provide evidence of a complex writing system of abstract symbols in the Preclassic Era. Beginning with an article by Carl Hugh Jones in 1970, the characters of the Anthon Transcript have been compared favorably with such seals.

In JBMS 8.1, an article revived Jones' work, without citing the specific parallels between the two documents. For this article, click here

I have not seen the original Jones article, but if any of you know where I can get a hold of it, please let me know.

I will say that, looking at the Anthon Transcript next to the Tlatilco seal (because it is one cylinder seal picture readily available online), I am hard pressed to see how one would think that these are related. What do you think?

I think the transcript looks amazingly like the shorthand I used to use to take dictation. And the cylinder looks like a system of lines and dots. In other words, not at all related. (but then, why would we expect them to be?)

harmony wrote:I think the transcript looks amazingly like the shorthand I used to use to take dictation. And the cylinder looks like a system of lines and dots. In other words, not at all related. (but then, why would we expect them to be?)

Indeed. But I wanted to give the apologists a shot at persuading.