page_title: Kinderhook plates
hierarchical_section_title: Kinderhook plates
caption_attribution_description: English: Front and back of four of the six Kinderhook plates are shown in these facsimiles (rough copies of even earlier published facsimiles), which appeared in 1909 in History of the Church, vol. 5, pp. 374–75.
context_page_description: The Kinderhook plates were a set of six small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with strange engravings created as a hoax in 1843, surreptitiously buried and then dug up at an Indian mound near Kinderhook, Illinois.
  The plates were forged by three men from Kinderhook as a prank on the local Latter Day Saint community. According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book of Mormon is a record of the ancient Judeo-Semitic inhabitants of the Americas, originally translated by the founder of the movement, Joseph Smith, from golden plates engraved in the language of reformed Egyptian. Latter Day Saint residents of Kinderhook sent the plates to Smith in Nauvoo for translation, where Smith said they were of ancient origin and translated a portion of the them.
  In 1980, scientific testing confirmed the hoax, and that the plates were a modern creation. Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's translation was never accepted in the canon of scripture, but was generally considered authentic. Latter Day Saints currently consider Smith's translation be speculative, and not inspired.
context_section_description: The Kinderhook plates were a set of six small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with strange engravings created as a hoax in 1843, surreptitiously buried and then dug up at an Indian mound near Kinderhook, Illinois.
  The plates were forged by three  men from Kinderhook as a prank on the local Latter Day Saint community. According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book of Mormon is a record of the ancient Judeo-Semitic inhabitants of the Americas, originally translated by the founder of the movement, Joseph Smith, from golden plates engraved in the language of reformed Egyptian. Latter Day Saint residents of Kinderhook sent the plates to Smith in Nauvoo for translation, where Smith said they were of ancient origin and translated a portion of the them.
  In 1980, scientific testing confirmed the hoax, and that the plates were a modern creation. Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's translation was never accepted in the canon of scripture, but was generally considered authentic.  Latter Day Saints currently consider Smith's translation be speculative, and not inspired.
caption: Front and back of four of the six Kinderhook plates are shown in these facsimiles, which appeared in 1909 in History of the Church, vol. 5, pp. 374–75.
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