They Shoot MAD Horses, Don't They?
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:18 am
They Shoot MAD horses, don’t they?
I thought I’d mix things up, but this is really a continuation of the whack-a-horse threads that keep popping up. The same old, nightmarish “horse evidences” are regularly recycled on MAD. The latest incarnation is called “Carving of Precolumbian horse at Chichen Itza:”. (sorry, can’t link it due to accessing it through a proxy). Here’s the OP:
The photo is one of the “evidences” included in Ben Chapman’s infamous essay:
http://www.2s2.com/chapmanresearch/user ... orses.html
First, this is an incredibly poor quality photograph and, frankly, seeing anything is it seems to be an exercise in Rorschach. I investigated this a while ago, but mistakenly used the wrong photo, so am updating my comments now. I have read many books about Mesoamerica and have never seen a reference to a sculpture of a horse anywhere, so of course I was suspicious. Here’s my first lead:
My original confusion was caused by the fact that there are actually three pictures in plate 1 – a, b, and c. I discovered this upon finding Roy’s book available on adobe:
home.planet.nl/~roeli049/chilam.pdf
Plate 1, c is the correct photo.
While I am not positive, I believe the serpent jaguar is in the top row, the third figure from the left. Remember, it is backwards in the Done photo, damaged, and a very poor photograph.
At any rate, even if this is not the correct source, I find it impossible to believe that there could an actual sculpture of a horse that no Mesoamerican scholars happened to notice.
Now, aside from that detail, the post that interests me the most is from Brant Gardner:
I would like to know the details of this, and if “pre-contact” actually means prior to the extinction of the prehistoric horse. We all know there were “pre-contact” horses in Mesoamerica, but they went extinct long before the Book of Mormon time period. In addition, the “anomalous horse bones” HAVE been properly examined, as I discuss on my website in regards to the C Ray article.
http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com/horses.htm
I thought I’d mix things up, but this is really a continuation of the whack-a-horse threads that keep popping up. The same old, nightmarish “horse evidences” are regularly recycled on MAD. The latest incarnation is called “Carving of Precolumbian horse at Chichen Itza:”. (sorry, can’t link it due to accessing it through a proxy). Here’s the OP:
I picked up a discard from our ward library, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, by Milton R. Hunter, Deseret Book Company, 1956.
Right there on page 6 is a photo of a carving on the wall of the Temple of the Plaques at Chichén Itzá that shows a bearded man riding on a horse. (I can't find any links to a photo, but it's right here in the referenced book.)
These carvings are estimated to date to around 1000 AD, which is long before the Spaniards brought horses to America.
Given how long this information has been around, I'm amazed I haven't seem it mentioned, pro or con, in any of the multitudes of "horse" threads we've had here.
The photo is one of the “evidences” included in Ben Chapman’s infamous essay:
http://www.2s2.com/chapmanresearch/user ... orses.html
First, this is an incredibly poor quality photograph and, frankly, seeing anything is it seems to be an exercise in Rorschach. I investigated this a while ago, but mistakenly used the wrong photo, so am updating my comments now. I have read many books about Mesoamerica and have never seen a reference to a sculpture of a horse anywhere, so of course I was suspicious. Here’s my first lead:
http://www.the-book-of-mormon.com/otto-done.jpg
http://www.the-book-of-mormon.com/photo-proofs.html
From Milton Hunter’s book (written with Thomas Ferguson) Archaeology and the Book of Mormon. This photograph is used on many LDS websites, including Benjamin Chapman’s horse essay. First comment:
“Ferguson was aware that there was no support for the existence of the horse during Book of Mormon times. Just as the discredited Jean Frederic Waldeck saw elephants depicted in Mayan ruins, so Milton R. Hunter, an LDS General Authority in the First Council of Seventy, saw horses; and in his Archaeology and the Book of Mormon he displayed a photograph of a carved stone showing a bearded man standing by a horse on the Temple of Wall Panels in Chichen Itza. However, this reputed “horse” reaches only to the height of the man’s waist, and John L. Sorenson rightly suggested that Hunter’s animal is probably a deer. “
From Quest for the Gold Plates, page 190
Second comment, from a review of the book:
An Amusing Display of Bogus Archaeology, June 15, 2007
In Milton R. Hunter's "Archaeology and the Book of Mormon" (page 229), there is a photograph of the famous "Uncle Sam" carving on Stela 3 at La Venta, Mexico. Uncle Sam's chin beard, however, is airbrushed into the shoulder. This is clear in any other reproduction of the "Uncle Sam" figure.
If this "Uncle Sam" figure is supposed to be a white man, he is indeed a strange Nephite because this half-naked man is wearing a human head as a pendant from his necklace.
Such disreputable and illogical attempts to turn bearded Indians into white Nephites are as amusing as they are false. Remember that Montezuma--a Native American if there ever was one--had a beard.
On page 6 of volume one, Hunter is pictured "pointing at likeness of the Chichen Itza horse and bearded man." It was "plainly visible to tourists and archaeologists. "There immediately before our eyes was new and valuable Book of Mormon evidence."
Reality check: After much research, and not finding any reference to a carving of a horse at Chichen Itza, I discovered that the carving was the damaged portion of a backwards figure "S" jaguar serpent (a feather is the horse's head).
A detailed rubbing of the stone can be seen in the "Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel," by Ralph Roys (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1967), plate 1.
Further, nowhere in the North or South America did the civilizations have horses, cattle, sheep, steel weapons, swords, or chariots mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The Maya of real history were so ignorant of horses that when Cortes left his lame horse in the care of the Itza Maya, they fed it meat. The animal, of course, died from this strange diet.
Terrified, the Maya erected a statue in the shape of a tapir, the closest approximation to a horse in their environment. They worshipped this "horse" as Tzimin Chac, after Tzimin, the tapir, whose profile roughly resembles a horse, no other animal save the deer even approximating the alien animal.
Hunter's book is full of footnotes that do not check out and assumptions that will amuse those who have studied the history of ancient America.
It is worth noting that for some twenty years, Milton R. Hunter's archaeological evidence was inserted into the Book of Mormon. The fact that it was dropped speaks volumes. But how did all these falsehoods get past the leaders of the LDS Church and put into a sacred volume?
Your comments--positive or negative--are appreciated. Thanks.
See my other reviews of Mormon books.”
My original confusion was caused by the fact that there are actually three pictures in plate 1 – a, b, and c. I discovered this upon finding Roy’s book available on adobe:
home.planet.nl/~roeli049/chilam.pdf
Plate 1, c is the correct photo.
While I am not positive, I believe the serpent jaguar is in the top row, the third figure from the left. Remember, it is backwards in the Done photo, damaged, and a very poor photograph.
At any rate, even if this is not the correct source, I find it impossible to believe that there could an actual sculpture of a horse that no Mesoamerican scholars happened to notice.
Now, aside from that detail, the post that interests me the most is from Brant Gardner:
Actually, an interesting question that probably hasn't had enough research done on it to be conclusive. I am remembering some potentially anomalous DNA in the Southwestern wild horses that appears to be unrelated to the Spanish horses (though certainly there are connections to the Spanish horses). I didn't read the research, so I am not sure on that one.
I am on firmer ground with remains of horse bones found in situ in Precolumbian Mesoamerican sites. They have been tested and declared both authentic and pre-contact. I heard about the results of the study a year ago, to my knowledge is hasn't been published. There have been anomalous horse bones in different locations that weren't properly examined, because "everyone knew" that they shouldn't be there.
The result of all of this is that we really should excercise caution on this topic. Blanket statements about what all LDS believe are incorrect, and there is evidence from the world of science that doesn't fit the blanket assertion that there were no horses. Caution is a better position.
I would like to know the details of this, and if “pre-contact” actually means prior to the extinction of the prehistoric horse. We all know there were “pre-contact” horses in Mesoamerica, but they went extinct long before the Book of Mormon time period. In addition, the “anomalous horse bones” HAVE been properly examined, as I discuss on my website in regards to the C Ray article.
http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com/horses.htm
