Hugh Nibley was a fool, come watch

[_beastie]

You're welcome, Gaze.

You mentioned press, and this is a point I'd like to stress. If, indeed, legitimate evidence that horses did, in fact, exist in the New World during this time frame were found, no one would be ignoring it. Sometimes people who really want to believe horses were around then claim that science is just prejudiced and scholars or archaeologists wouldn't recognize or even fairly investigate the evidence because they're arrogant and don't want to be proven wrong. While it is true certain individuals become stubborn and unreasonably wedded to one theory, there are always others eager to either make a name for themselves or just get at the truth.

This would be a truly astounding find. Someone would be all over it. (more than one someone) So whenever people, usually believers, point to evidence that supposedly demonstrates there were horses in the time period (or metallurgy), and the evidence is, for example, very dated, this is the first clue that the evidence was probably investigated and discounted for legitimate reasons.

[_Ray A]

The fact that there were no horses during the Book of Mormon time frame is not disputed among mainstream scholars in the field. Every claim of evidence that I've investigated has turned up empty, or outright fraudulent. The more careful scholars in this field, like Brant Gardner, do not claim there is evidence of the horse during the time period, while they may hope for FUTURE evidence. Instead, he focuses on the potential mistranslation issue.

I'm aware of Brant's thoughts about this since I asked him on FAIR. One thing I wonder about is why there's no mention of the horse after 3 Nephi? Why did all the battles towards the end of the Book of Mormon take place on foot? How widespread was the horse, in any case? Surely if the horse had survived, or there were horses in great numbers, would they not have been used in battle? It's not surprising that when Cortez arrived the Indians were unaware of horses. Even if they had access to carvings they would not be able to estimate the size of the horse. There is mention of horses and chariots, but no mention of horseback riding. This is odd, so I wonder.

I'm not arguing about the historicity of the Book of Mormon here, either, but horses in pre-Columbian America, nor do I believe that proving the existence of the horse will verify Book of Mormon historicity, but it would give some pause for thought.

Thanks for the link about the Wisconsin horse. I will email Kuchinsky and ask him to explain this, since he invites comments about his site. I still haven't read your site in detail, so I'll refrain from hasty comments until I do.

[_Coggins7]

All the video demonstrates is that PP does not have the intellectual discipline or desire to understand and seriously engage what Nibley is saying. Thus far the anti-Mormon position of Book of Mormon archeology has been in retreat for nearly two centuries. The record is quite poor. Roughly the only thing they have left are the names and use of animals and Book of Mormon place names.

What Nibely is saying here has weight. We really don't know all that much about the ancient world as we think we do, and there are many, many gaps in our knowledge. Plausible explanations for the claimed existence of "horses" and other animals have been put forward, but nobody has claimed any definite answers. The Book of Mormon does not, in any event, rise of fall with such concerns.

I think the fact that we know the Egyptians used horses while no bones have ever been found in the pertinent time frame is interesting.

[_Ray A]

Beastie, I was about to email Kuchinsky but found this on his site, regarding the Wisconsin horse

So the record, such as it is, is that the skull was associated
with the burial mound, and the mound was pre-Columbian.
At present one can only conclude that the horse was
pre-Columbian.

The plot is admittedly complicated by an anonymous confession
received by Robt. Ritzenthaler, then of the Milwaukee
Public Museum, from a "Mr P" who claimed that as a lad he
and a friend dug into a mound on Spencer Lake, and finding
nothing of interest, inserted a horse skull as a
prank before backfilling. (ibid, pp. 115-123.)

However, Mr. P's mound was on the West shore, whereas
47BT2 was on the North shore of the lake. It was one of a group,
whereas 47BT2 is an isolated mound. 47BT2 had been dug into,
but McKern is certain that his skull was "approximately fifteen feet
from the nearest wall of the pit excavation." Mr. P found no artifacts
in his mound, yet the backfilled pit in 47BT2 was full of artifact debris.
Furthermore, Mr. P's skull had no mandible (lower jaw), whereas
McKern's skull had the mandible in place.

It is clear enough from this that there were two mounds on different
parts of Spencer Lake, and two horse skulls. It is particularly
unlikely that Mr. P's skull could have grown a new mandible in
the time it was in the earth!

Nevertheless, Ritzenthaler, who also happened to be the editor
of the series in which McKern's report on the excavation was to
appear, took it upon himself to expunge all mention of the skull
from the official report:

W.C. McKern, _The Clam River Focus_
Milwaukee Public Museum Publications in Anthropology
#9, 1963.

And

In short, McKern, who did the digging, says it was a legitimate
burial association of the mound, whereas Ritzenthaler, who was not
even present, undertook to censor his data.

The issue could've course be settled by a C-14 date on the
skull. In 1996, Pat Fazzio, an historian from Laramie Wyoming,
asked Dr. Ann McMullen of the Museum for such a C-14 date,
but so far as I know no action has been taken on her request.

The 1967-68 dates were ostensibly performed in order to
establish that the skull was post-Columbian, but through
some oversight the skull itself was not dated! (The one
piece of charred bone doesn't appear to be from the
skull.) But absent such a date, the record as it stands
is that this is a pre-Columbian horse.

The late Henriette Mertz raised a rucus over the Spencer Lake
horse skull in the _Canadian Journal of Anthropology_, circa
1976, but I can't find the reference. She had learned of the
above C-14 dates, but was unaware that they had been
described in greater detail in _Radiocarbon_.

-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept.
Ohio State U
[19][25]mcculloch.2@osu.edu

http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/tran/9h8.htm

What do you think of this? I realise C-14 tests were not done, and that makes it more speculative. I still plan to email Kuchinsky.

[_Ray A]

There is no evidence supporting the existence of horses during the Book of Mormon time period in the Americas.

LDS Book of Mormon apologists are well aware of this fact, and it is why they have attempted to delve into theories that rely on translation errors.

Eager believers regularly provide "evidence" of horses, but this evidence has, thus far, shown to be either outright hoaxes, or wishful thinking.

Yes, there are nonLDS who also engage in this flight of fancy, for whatever reason, such as Barry Fell, but their evidences are as equally problematic as what LDS believers provide.

http://zarahemlacitylimits.com/wiki/index.php/Horses

Just reading through your site and saw this:

if horses existed in ancient Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon time period, then despite the fact that ancient Mesoamericans depicted many animals in art and ideology, they never depicted a horse or included the horse in any of their mythology. Added to the complete absence of horse remains during the specified time period, and we are left with a highly unlikely proposition.

I'll look into this in more detail later. Got to get back to the real world for the next few hours. I emailed Kuchinsky and referred him to your site (since I assume it's for public consumption), so I'm hoping he will provide some more insight into his views, and possibly some more explanations of the Wisconsin horse skull, and commentary on your site.

[_beastie]

Ray,

Think about what you're asking us to believe, or rather what Yuri, is asking us to believe without any evidence. There just happened to be a REAL ancient horse skull right near where the prank horse skull was planted! Amazing! Now, those scientists just plain refuse to do radio-carbon dating on the REAL horse skull, because, well, because, they're AFRAID of the truth. Or something.

You do remember Occam's Razor, right?

http://www.onmilwaukee.com/ent/articles ... ption.html

"Fakes and Frauds" represents another leg of deception. In this case, the group collected fake archeological artifacts that have been used for various reasons, including Wisconsin's famous claim to falsification, the Spencer Lake horse skull.

"Finding the skull in a Native American burial ground dated 500-1,000 AD was very controversial because it implied that horses existed in North America during a time they were previously though to have disappeared," says Skyberg. "A farmer later admitted to burying the skull in the rural Wisconsin archeological dig in 1928 and recently the Milwaukee Public Museum dated it to 1800-1890."

But this is the wrong skull, right? Just imagine the odds. Some kids play a prank and plant a skull, and it just happens to be in the same dig that happens to contain a REAL skull, that scientists refuse to date.

I'm sorry, but it will take much more than Yuri repeating information to convince me of this tale.

[_Jersey Girl]

Loran

I think the fact that we know the Egyptians used horses while no bones have ever been found in the pertinent time frame is interesting.

How do we know it?

[_Ray A]

Ray,

Think about what you're asking us to believe, or rather what Yuri, is asking us to believe without any evidence. There just happened to be a REAL ancient horse skull right near where the prank horse skull was planted! Amazing! Now, those scientists just plain refuse to do radio-carbon dating on the REAL horse skull, because, well, because, they're AFRAID of the truth. Or something.

I'm not disputing that, beastie. I said this in my own post, including the lack of radio-carbon testing. My apologetic hat is off. I really want to hear what Kuchinsky has to say, and I don't label him a "kook" until he convinces me he is. If your arguments are stronger, I will take my hat off to you. Give the man a chance to explain himself, that's the very least we can do.

[_Coggins7]

How do we know it?

How do we know what? It appears that Nibley is wrong when he says that no bones have ever been found, some have-a few fragments and one complete skeleton for the entire span of Egyptian history. Would that do for the critics? I doubt it. As Nibly makes clear, we have tons of art work depicting them, so there is no reason to dispute anything. What then, to make of the rather substantial collection of sculpture and art depicting what are appear to be clearly elephant's or elephant-like creatures from Central America?


http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/foodp ... horse.html

[_Ray A]

How do we know it?

http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/foodp ... horse.html

Okay, I have my apologetic hat back on, and I found this from the link Coggins gave very interesting:

In the New Kingdom horses were animals of the military elite and the ruling class. In general Egyptians did not ride on horses but used them for chariots.

See my comments about this in the Book of Mormon, above.