The Use Of Metal Plates To Preserve Historical Records

Pyrgfi Plates

 There has been discussions for hundreds of years as to the veracity of Joseph Smith’s claim that he found an ancient record written on plates of gold. Especially in his day, scholars scoffed and argued that metal plates were NEVER used to record anything. Even today, this myth  persists among many educated and learned individuals. But, it is still just a myth.

Just because you have never seen the Great Pyramids in Egypt doesn’t mean they don’t exist. There are those who have seen them and testify they are real. Absence of evidence does not prove that something didn’t happen. It only proves that we don’t have any evidence yet that proves it did happened.

The reasons that we don’t have copies of so many ancient records is because the primary forms of writing; papyrus, paper, wood, etc, are subject to decay. Without continual copying of the information onto new media, the records are eventually lost.

Many records have been recorded on pottery, the walls of caves, temples, and other ancient buildings. Because of these we know that many ancient civilizations had written languages and made an effort to preserve their history.

Often in the conquest of war, the victor destroyed all the records and evidence of the existence of the vanquished as a final victory blow. This has happened for millennium in the Middle East, China, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. It even is happening in our day, as the Nazi’s destroyed the records and works of many of the people they conquered. Today, ISIS and other radical Islamic groups are also destroying records, statues, and buildings of those they overthrow because they considered them inferior. In the style of Fahrenheit 451, many communist nations are rewriting history to justify their overthrow of their people. To the victor goes the history.

That aside, here are several efforts by ancient people to preserve their teachings, in stone, clay, and even on metal plates of lead, silver, and gold.

The Sumerians, considered by most scholars to be one of the oldest civilizations on the earth, had a system of writing we know as cuneiform. They lived in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East in what is present day Iraq. Their characters were etched in clay and dried in the sun to create tablets that were semi-ceramic and very durable. These date back to approximately 3500 BC. There is ample documentation on the Internet regarding their civilization and timelines.

One of the most interesting artifacts discovered is a treaty between the Sumerians and their closest rival. After years of fighting, they came to a draw and created a treaty. The treaty was intended to last “forever” and therefore was imprinted on to clay tablets, to last forever. The fact that we still have this record today, over 5,000 years later is miraculous and smacks of forever. It was printed on 3 separate tablets in 3 different languages, so we have been able to translate it completely.

The following is a list of other records written on metal plates that have been discovered in the past 200 years. These are ones that I have been able to verify, but there are also scores more that I haven’t been able to source. The jury is still out on authenticity of the Etruscan Gold Book, but the rest appear to be authentic. There are records here from 3,500 years ago written on metal plates. Because they were written on metal plates, they have been preserved until now.

Date	Record	Type	Where	Source
1,500 BC	Byblos syllabary	Bronze plates	Byblos, Lebanon	Biblia Grmmata by Maurice Sunard
600 BC	Etruscan Gold Book	Gold Plates	Etruscan, Italy	Now in Museum in Bulgaria
500 BC	Letter from Achillodros to Anaxagoras	Lead	Greece	Life & Letters in the Ancient Greek World
500 BC	Pyrgfi Gold Tablets	Gold	Pyrgfi, Italy	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgi_Tablets
522 BC	King Darius	Gold/Silver Plates	Persepolis	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_the_Great
161 BC	Roman-Jewish Treaty	Bronze plates		Judas Maccabaeus
41 AD	Roman Documents	Lead Sheets		Pliny and Pausanias
100 AD	Dead Sea Scrolls	Copper roll	Qumran, Israel
109 AD	Roman Citizenship Docs	Bronze Plates

These 2 photos are the actual plates, of Darius, made in 522 AD.

As you will note, 4 of these records date back to 500 BC – 600 BC, the very same time that Joseph Smith claimed one of the records of the gold plates, the Small Plates of Nephi were begun. The Book of Mormon also mentions 2 other records written on metal plates; 1 was made of gold, the Plates of Ether and the other plates were made of brass, The Brass Plates. All of these were abridged and combined in a record made by Mormon and his son, Moroni, on gold plates, approximately 380 AD.

The authors expressly stated that they kept their records on metal plates so they would last for generations. They acknowledged that other media they used for writing would decay and not last for their posterity.

The Plates of Ether contained the record of a people that came to the Americas about 2,500 BC to 2,000 BC, but the record was written or compiled about 500 AD – 600 AD at the time the civilization was imploded and was destroyed. The record claims that the people were skilled in metallurgy, making swords, shields, and breastplates, having the skill to create a record on metal plates or sheets of gold is very plausible. Archaeological evidence from these times in the Americas show that the people were skilled in these arts. 

The Brass Plates were supposed to have been made before 590 BC. It contained prophecies of Isaiah, around 650 AD and Jeremiah, killed about 590 AD. We don’t know when it was started as it also had many of the writings of Moses and other prophets and teachers from the Old Testament. It may have been a living history or a record compiled approximately 600 AD.  

Bronze and brass are both alloys of copper. Brass has zinc added and bronze has tin, therefore, they are quite similar to make. The Bronze Age, the time man began to make bronze, began about 6,000 BC or 8,000 years ago. Weapons, tools, and statuary were all made during this time from bronze and brass. Is it so far-fetched to assume they could have also made plates that could have been inscribed with records?

Oh, yes, it happened at least once 3,500 years ago just north of Israel in Byblos along the Mediterranean Sea.