The Nahom Follies

[_Kishkumen]

Nahum the name of a book of the Bible. Case closed.

[_DrW]

Hi DrW,

Great information.

I do think that the Hiltons are a generation or two behind the current theory. If I recall correctly, there is a book and video by a Warren Aston that posits the NHM inscription in the region of Sanaa, Yemen and Wadi Sayq/Kohr Kharfot as correlating with Nahom and Bountiful respectively.

Any additional thoughts on this, or familiarity with this region?

Yes. One desolate wadi along the coast of Oman is about like the next. Wadi Sayq/Kohr Kharfot is simply Khor Rori South. Pretty much everything I stated about Khor Rori applies to Khor Kharfot.

Again, I would encourage anyone who wants to believe this malarky to go to Google Earth and have a look. Is there any timber that could be used to lay a keel? Then consider my earlier post about the problems of building a sea-going dhow by ancient methods, even in the early 1980s in Sur, Oman. Consider the quality and quantity of materials that had to be imported to build the sea-going dhow.

As mentioned, Salalah proper does have a microclimate that provides more rainfall than other areas to the north or south, and there is a thriving agriculture there. If you look at Google Earth, you will see that there Salalah a fairly deep valley surrounded by quickly rising mountains. The uplift caused by these surrounding mountains cools the onshore flow and for about 3 months out of the year Salalah does have frequent rain. Go 10 miles north or south of the rim of these mountains as they intersect the coast and you are back to stark, dry desert.

If one googles Wadi Sayq/Khor Kharfot one gets a set of images for the imaginary Mormon Bountiful - and the best match I see there is the heartland model match. Have a look.

[_EAllusion]

DrW -

There likely have been shifts in climate and ecology in that area over the thousands of years. I think you need to make your judgement based on historical reconstruction of ancient habitats.

[_Chap]

DrW -

There likely have been shifts in climate and ecology in that area over the thousands of years. I think you need to make your judgement based on historical reconstruction of ancient habitats.

If there were in fact paleoclimate data showing that the NHM region was different enough from today to be capable of producing good timber for ships c. 600 BCE, I'd have expected some apologist to cite it. Has anybody done this?

I haven't looked much, but it seems the world temperature then would not have been very different from modern values:



http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter ... limate.htm

[_mentalgymnast]

What's your view on the coincidence of the LEHIgh river?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehigh_River

About the same as my reaction to Vern Holley's maps/work done years ago. Interesting. As with some of the other names in the Book of Mormon you're going to find those names elsewhere. Lehi is also in the Old Testament.

Years ago it was the Camoros and Moroni connections off the east coast of Africa that I found to be even more interesting. It seems as though in this big/wide world there are always parallelisms and common elements to be found among languages, peoples, customs, etc. And to expect that there wouldn't be some overlap with current culture...Joseph Smith/Captain Kidd/Camoros for example...and ancient cultures would be unreasonable wouldn't it?





Lehi isn't and probably never has been a name found only in one place and only at one time. Same with a lot of other Book of Mormon names. Alma, etc.

Regards,
MG

[_Arrakis]

I do think that the Hiltons are a generation or two behind the current theory. If I recall correctly, there is a book and video by a Warren Aston...

Aston is also the go to guy for alien encounters and UFO's

http://alienexperiences.com/24WARREN.html

[_EAllusion]

reconstruction of ancient habitats.

If there were in fact paleoclimate data showing that the NHM region was different enough from today to be capable of producing good timber for ships c. 600 BCE, I'd have expected some apologist to cite it. Has anybody done this?

I haven't looked much, but it seems the world temperature then would not have been very different from modern values:



http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter ... limate.htm

The graph you cite is a global measure of temperatures. Local anomalies in the climate and corresponding ecology shift over thousands of years. For example, Mesopotamia was more lush in the height of early Holocene civilization than it is today. We can today measure shifts in rainfall patterns by looking at shifts in the ratio of isotopes in lake sediments. Mesopotamian civilization experienced a relative collapse during a hot and dry period. Beyond that, the nature of the land was also significantly impacted by human activity through deforestation and intense use of agriculture and changes in river patterns and sediment deposits. You cannot look at local conditions today and project them back several thousand years ago. You need to reconstruct what local conditions were likely to be like.

[_Craig Paxton]

If the Lehi folks were still erecting inscribed monuments while they were crossing Arabia, why did they give up the practice (together with all traces of their writing, technology, pottery-making, metallurgy, architecture etc) the moment they hit the New World? Making a fresh start? And if they did keep up those skills and customs, where are the archaeological remains?

I hate it when people use logic to undermine the Book of Mormon...

[_Chap]

reconstruction of ancient habitats.

If there were in fact paleoclimate data showing that the NHM region was different enough from today to be capable of producing good timber for ships c. 600 BCE, I'd have expected some apologist to cite it. Has anybody done this?

I haven't looked much, but it seems the world temperature then would not have been very different from modern values:



http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter ... limate.htm

The graph you cite is a global measure of temperatures.

Indeed, as I indicated.

Local anomalies in the climate and corresponding ecology shift over thousands of years. For example, Mesopotamia was more lush in the height of early Holocene civilization than it is today. We can today measure shifts in rainfall patterns by looking at shifts in the ratio of isotopes in lake sediments. Mesopotamian civilization experienced a relative collapse during a hot and dry period. Beyond that, the nature of the land was also significantly impacted by human activity through deforestation and intense use of agriculture and changes in river patterns and sediment deposits. You cannot look at local conditions today and project them back several thousand years ago. You need to reconstruct what local conditions were likely to be like.

However, we are not in Mesopotamia with NHM (*Nahom), but somewhere in modern Yemen, south of Saudia Arabia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahom#Pro ... n_of_Nahom

Can you give a reference to any studies of the climate in that region around 600 BCE?

I have found this:

http://sbsc.wr.usgs.gov/cprs/research/p ... /yemen.asp

While other investigators are concentrating on the abundant archaeological or geological deposits, the role of the USGS researcher, Dr. Kenneth Cole, is to reconstruct the past vegetation and climate of the area. Plant fossils have been found in the abundant middens left in the steep limestone cliffs by rock hyraxes (Procavia spp.). The rock hyrax, or "wabar", leaves midden deposits of urine, feces, and plant parts in caves and shelters called hyraceum. These hyrax middens are remarkably similar to packrat middens which are abundant in the arid portions of the western North America. The hyrax middens analyzed thus far from the site range in age between 5200 and 2100 years. This covers the time period during which few archaeological sites are known from the area probably because of the hyper-arid climate.

This project will reconstruct the vegetational history through plant macrofossils and pollen contained within the middens in order to understand the climatic changes taking place in the area and the possible impacts of domesticated animals (primarily goats and camels) on the vegetation. Early mid-Holocene (roughly 7500 to 6000 years ago) archaeological sites suggest that the climate at that time was considerably wetter than at present. Midden results thus far document an interval of extreme aridity between 4600 and 2500 year B.P. The biennial precipitation regime, the use of domesticated animals, and plateau topography of the Hadramawt Province are remarkably similar to the Colorado Plateau region of western North America. This project will integrate with studies of the effects of past and future global climate changes in similar desert areas.

The emphasized words do suggest that Yemen was 'hyper-arid' around 600 BCE. hence probably not a good place to find timber suitable for building ocean-going vessels.

[_SteelHead]

Was it infants on thrones who did the podcast on the level of infrastructure needed to build a ship as per the Nephi narrative? Needless to say, without divine intervention providing a bunch of the foundational dependencies, it would be impossible.

Example: Nephi smelt ore.... great, now where did the anvil he used come from?