Nephite coinage: 7s, 2s, exchange rates

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Dr Moore
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Nephite coinage: 7s, 2s, exchange rates

Post by Dr Moore »

From another thread...
Symmachus wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:57 pm
Hugh Nibley wrote:... They had a system which ran in sevens instead of fives and tens; or sixes and twelves, as the English [system] does; or the decimal system as we use it. It ran in sevens, and Richard Smith pointed out it was the best possible system that could be devised. It used the least coins for any necessary transaction. If you want to figure out a system that will use a minimum amount of coins and save you a lot of trouble, this is the system. It’s an almost perfect system, which Joseph Smith devised for his Nephites here [laughter]
Re the magical system of 7s and 3s, etc, I may have posted this before, but if not here it is. The same coinage ratios appear in one of Charles Anthon's reference guides.

I submit Exhibit A: A Classical Dictionary containing a Copious Account of all the Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors with The Value of Coins, Weights, and Measures, Used Among the Greeks and Romans; and a Chronological Table, by J. Lempriere, 5th Ed, Corrected and Improved by CHARLES ANTHON, Adjunct Professor of Languages and Ancient Geography in Columbia College, New York, 1825.
Nephite coinage inspired the Greeks?
Nephite coinage inspired the Greeks?
lepta.jpg (55.93 KiB) Viewed 553 times

1) Largest coins and the magic of 7:
* (gold, Nephite) 1 Limna = 7 Senine (Alma 11)
* (silver, Nephite) 1 Onti = 7 Senum (Alma 11)
* (brass, Grecian) 1 Lepton = 7 Chalcus (Anthon 1825, 4th page from the end, per image above)

2) Coinage exchange:
* 1.5 silver Senums = 1 gold Antion (1 gold Antion = 3 silver Shibloms or 1.5 silver Senums, Alma 11:14-19)
* 1.5 silver Drachma = 1 brass Tetrobolus (same source, see footnote, drachma and didrachma were silver, others of brass, per image above)

3) Multiples of 2 for intermediate coinage
* Nephite: (gold) 1 Seon = 2 Senine, 1 Shum = 2 Seon, 1 Shiblon = 2 Shiblum, 1 Shiblum = 2 Leah
* Nephite: (silver) 1 Amnor = 2 Senum, 1 Ezrom = 2 Amnor
* Grecian: (per Lempriere) (brass) 1 Chalcus = 2 Dichalcus, 1 Dichalcus = 2 Hemiobolus, 1 Hemiobolus = 2 Obolus, 1 Obolus = 2 1 Diobolus, Diobolus = 2 Tetrobolus, (silver) 1 Drachma = 2 Didrachmon, 1 Didrachmon = 2 Tetradrachmon


Right so Nibley never read Anthon?
(edited to add correspondence #3 above)
Last edited by Dr Moore on Thu Aug 25, 2022 1:14 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by drumdude »

That probably also explains why we haven't found a single Nephite coin. They were just so darn efficient with their use of them.
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Doctor Steuss
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by Doctor Steuss »

Wow.

Thank you for sharing this.
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by consiglieri »

A scintillating find, Herr Doktor!
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by Shulem »

It makes sense that Smith stole information for his Nephite mint. He stole everything from everyone.

Crazy.
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by Shulem »

Let's be clear about something, shall we? There is no way that Joseph Smith just dictated the coinage system off the top of his head while his face was buried in the hat. This is a clear example of the likely use of a cheat sheet in the hat and utilizing a pre-devised money system prior to translating dictating.
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by Symmachus »

This is a stellar discovery, Dr Moore! Readers of this forum hardly need to be reminded that Prof. Anthon was the scholar to whom Joseph Smith had sent Martin Harris for verification of the "Caractors" from the Book of Mormon plates in 1828. Your post raises a question that had never occurred to me: did Joseph Smith know about Charles Anthon? He was not that well known at the time and achieved notoriety later most through his textbooks. I own a few of them myself, and I do have reprint of his edition of Lemprière, the work you've cited. According to Anthon's account, Harris had first visited the learned Samuel Mitchil, whom he already knew of, but Mitchil in turn sent Harris to Anthon to have them translated. The implication has been that Harris hadn't known about Anthon and only learned about him from Mitchil, because Mitchil gave Harris a note for Anthon "requesting me to decypher, if possible, a paper, which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M. confessed he had been unable to understand," according to Anthon's account. That's a reasonable inference, but actually it doesn't tell us whether or not Harris was already intending to visit Anthon. Perhaps Smith had seen the name in the dictionary. Does anyone know? I feel like Dan Vogel or Don Bradley would be able to shed light.

I have checked the contents of the Manchester Renting Library catalogued by Robert Paul, and I don't see Lemprière's dictionary among its holdings. However, there was also a library in Palmyra, though I don't think we have record of its contents in the mid 1820s. And of course there were some bookstores in Palmyra. One can imagine Joseph Smith in one such shop landing his eye on a chart like this. That's a total speculation, but this is just an astonishing coincidence for a book published in 1825 to contain this detail mirroring what we have in the Book of Mormon.
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by Doctor Steuss »

I don't know if this helps at all, but we also have the list of books that Joseph et.al. donated to the Nauvoo library.

The names are all abbreviated for the most part, so might be hard to wade through.

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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by Dr Moore »

Well, the Anthon angle may be coincidental or meaningful. The name stood out because it was in browsing various Anthon books that I discovered the coinage table. It could be coincidental selection bias, given the nature of Joseph's religious endeavor and the limited number of people with Anthon's training.

Lempriere appears to have first published that coinage chart in his 4th edition, 1801 (p. 313), but not in his 3rd edition, published in the 1790's.

How long until Lempriere's 4th ed would make its way to educated circles in America? Might Joseph have encountered Lempriere's authoritative reference during his lengthy surgery recovery (1813) in Salem at his uncle's home? If he occupied the time perusing old books, a young curious man like Joseph might have lingered on the pretty charts. If you spend but a few minutes staring at the Grecian coin chart above, what stands out most is the top 7 rate, and the 1.5x brass-silver exchange rate, with all intermediate coins trading at mundane 2x multipliers. Perhaps the two capping numbers and otherwise 2x steps stood out in young Joseph's beautiful mind. Certainly worth considering.

Actually, here is an obvious third notable correspondence between Nephite and Grecian "intermediate" coins - they're all exchanged by 2's - I'll edit the OP to include the following:

3) Multiples of 2 for intermediate coinage
* Nephite: (gold) 1 Seon = 2 Senine, 1 Shum = 2 Seon, 1 Shiblon = 2 Shiblum, 1 Shiblum = 2 Leah
* Nephite: (silver) 1 Amnor = 2 Senum, 1 Ezrom = 2 Amnor
* Grecian: (per Lempriere) (brass) 1 Chalcus = 2 Dichalcus, 1 Dichalcus = 2 Hemiobolus, 1 Hemiobolus = 2 Obolus, 1 Obolus = 2 Diobolus, 1 Diobolus = 2 Tetrobolus, (silver) 1 Drachma = 2 Didrachmon, 1 Didrachmon = 2 Tetradrachmon

This also makes me wonder about another mystery related to money and Salem. If Joseph occupied himself pondering ancient coins while recovering in Salem, might that have been the genesis of a long-term curiosity about Salem's hidden treasure?

Here's the chart scanned from a copy of Lempriere's 1801 fourth edition.
lempriere1801.jpg
lempriere1801.jpg (76.36 KiB) Viewed 421 times
The inside title page.
Irresistable content
Irresistable content
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Re: Nephite coinage: 7s and exchange rates

Post by Doctor Steuss »

I apologize for an incredibly silly addition to the thread (especially following Dr. Moore's additional incredible post). My brain is seeing faces in all the clouds, and this was kind of fun.

In Brown's dictionary that Joseph donated to the library, it contains a table from the work of "Dr. Arbuthnot" of the moneys mentioned in the Bible. Dr. Arbuthnot's work is also referenced in Webster's 1828 dictionary entry on a Shekel.

Here's where things get a little fun. Dr. Arbuthnot puts the equivalent of a Shekel at 2 4/7 grains (troy weight).

The Book of Mormon has the grain (obviously the om-nom, and not troy weight) equivalents of the amnor, ezrom, and onti at...

2, 4, 7.
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