page_title: Angel Moroni
section_title: Theorized origin of the name
hierarchical_section_title: Angel Moroni / Theorized origin of the name
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Island of Anjouan, one of the Islands of the Comoros from map by Jacque-Nicolas Bellin, featured in "Histoire Générale des Voyages" by Antoine François Prévost As reprinted in Joseph Smith, Captain Kidd Lore, and Treasure-Seeking in New York and New England during the Early Republic
context_page_description: The Angel Moroni is an angel stated by Joseph Smith to have visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 21, 1823. According to Smith, the angel was the guardian of the golden plates, buried in the hill Cumorah near Smith's home in western New York; Latter Day Saints believe the plates were the source material for the Book of Mormon. An important figure in the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, Moroni is featured prominently in Mormon architecture and art. Besides Smith, the Three Witnesses and several other witnesses also reported that they saw Moroni in visions in 1829.
  Moroni is thought by Latter Day Saints to be the same person as a Book of Mormon prophet-warrior named Moroni, who was the last to write in the golden plates. The book states that Moroni buried them before he died after a great battle between two pre-Columbian civilizations. After he died, he became an angel who was tasked with guarding the golden plates and directing Smith to their location in the 1820s. According to Smith, he then returned the golden plates to Moroni after they were translated and, as of 1838, Moroni still had the plates in his possession.
context_section_description: Commenting on the name of the angel Moroni, Grant H. Palmer speculates that Smith had read of the city Moroni on the island Comoros from either a map or tales of Captain William Kidd, popular at the time.
  Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley noted the prevalence of names in the Book of Mormon with the root "mor" and suggested that the root may be of Egyptian origin with the meaning of "beloved".
caption: Meroni, Comoros included in a 1748 map by French hydrographer Jacques Nicolas Bellin.[25]
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