From: hmccullo@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Huston McCulloch)
Subject: Re: Pre-Columbian Jews?
Keywords: Bat Creek Stone, Cyrus Gordon
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 18:42:10 GMT

In article <4179@rebecca-lillian.bbn.com> wwalker@bbn.com (Ward Walker) writes
in a comment on my own reply to <srutt.711774567@beagle> (Steve, 22 July)
concerning the Bat Creek Stone, an apparently Paleo-Hebrew graffito found in an 
undisturbed burial mound in eastern Tennessee in 1889 by the Smithsonian's 
Mound Survey project:
>
>I must say I am a bit cynical about this line of research.  A
>religious group (the Mormons) holds as an article of faith that
>Israelites made it by boat to the Americas in ancient times.  As I
>understand it, Mormon scripture is largely about the exploits of these
>ancient American Israelites and their descendants.  Mormons believe
>this information was revealed to Joseph Smith in the 1800's through a
>divine agent, in upstate New York.
>
>Therefore this research has the flavor of ``proving'' Mormonism
>``correct.''  Work by Mormon researchers on the topic of pre-Columbian
>American Jews must be viewed very cautiously, since there is a bias
>--- conscious or unconcious --- to reach one particular result.  Were
>the principals involved in this ``Bat Stone Creek'' discovery Mormons?
>
>--Ward

    This legitimate concern has already been raised by Gregson Vaux
<92190.142439GRV101@psuvm.psu.edu> (July 8) as well as by Steve in his original
comment <srutt.711681732@beagle>, July 21.  I have already addressed this in my
reply to Steve <1992Jul21.200423.20942>, which Ward Walker references.

    In reply to Ward's specific question, the principals involved were J. W.
Powell, Director of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethonology; under
him Cyrus Thomas, director of the Bureau's Mound Survey Project; and under him
John W. Emmert, a field agent who had done work for the Mound Survey since
1882, who actually did the digging.

    As I pointed out earlier, one of Powell's primary objectives was to debunk
the notion that the "Lost Tribes of Israel" or some other Old World People had
anything to do with the numerous ancient mounds and earthworks in the Midwest.
The Book of Mormon was only one version of this notion.  In particular, Powell
believed that the Grave Creek stone and Davenport tablets were hoaxes, and
wished to prove that no such nonsense would emerge when his own hand-picked
people excavated the mounds.

     One of Powell's first actions was to remove Wills de Haas as Director of
the Mound Survey and replace him with Thomas.  De Haas had been the foremost
defender of the Grave Creek stone, a small engraved tablet found in a large
Adena mound in Moundsville, W.Va. on the Ohio River during the 1830's.
(Despite the efforts of Bing-Levy, the Grave Creek inscription is probably not
Hebrew, but instead is most likely Iberic.)

    In Cyrus Thomas's final report, *Report on the Mound Explorations of the
Bureau of Ethnology* in J.W. Powell, Director *Twelfth Annual Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1890-'91*,
GPO, 1894, Thomas dutifully denounced the Grave Creek and Davenport, Iowa
inscriptions as hoaxes (pp.632-645), and declared that there was absolutely no
evidence of Old World contacts with the Moundbuilders.  On pp. 392-4, he
published the Bat Creek stone upside down, and misidentified it as modern
Cherokee.

    There is no record of Emmert's religion, but we may be sure that Powell and
Thomas made sure their staff was free of any Mormon contamination.  Emmert was
from Kingsport Tenn., not Utah or Missouri, where most Mormons were at that
time.

    Anyway, if this was a Mormon hoax, why did the conspirators allow it to lay 
forgotten for 80 years until Cyrus Gordon (a non-Mormon) declared it to be 
Hebrew?  Once again, I'm not a Mormon either (I'm a lapsed Unitarian), nor is 
Seth Rosenthal.

    In my posting of 27 July, I neglected to respond to Steve's inquiry about 
skeletal remains that might allow him to identify their racial background.  
Although the mandible of the skull underneath which was found the stone, the 
brass bracelets, the carbon-dated wood fragments, and a few minor items was 
collected and catalogued, it has been lost by the Smithsonian somewhere along 
the way.  Fortunately, the other items are still in the Museum of
Natural History in Washington, safely out of sight in a back room.

                               -- Hu McCulloch