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Subject: Ancient Artifacts: Michigan's Mysterious Tablets
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Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 03:33:09 GMT

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Michigan's Mysterious Tablets

by Ken Moore

[Excerpt from The Ancient American magazine, Vol.2, No.9, ISSN 1077-
1646, 3200 West 205th St., Olympia Fields, IL. 60461]

Most recently there have been various articles concerned with possible
translations of Old World scripts displayed on copper, slate, and clay
tablets.  Excavated in archaeological contexts for over a century and
known as "The Michigan Mounds Tablets", they have carried, unjustly,
the stigma of "fraud" or "fake".  Readers unfamiliar with their
checkered history will find it summarized below.  A few words in
advance about a parallel find are needed.

In 1887, an Egyptian peasant woman gathering fertilizer in the ruins
of Tel-el-Amarna discovered some small clay tablets covered with
cuneiform.  This was the site of Akhetaton, the city built by the
pharaoh Akhnaton (Amonhotep IV), and probably the birthplace of a more
famous king, Tutankhamun.  Akhetaton lasted for 17 years but has
become, for history, an intensely studied period.  Our focus here is
on the Egyptian tablets which, after being found by the dung-gathering
woman, gradually made their way through a succession of hands to local
antique dealers, from which they were then disseminated in many
directions.  The first archaeologists and scholars who saw these
tablets dismissed them as elaborate hoaxes and frauds.  It was many
years later that the language on the tablets was identified as the
Akkadian cuneiform script of Babylonia which was the official
diplomatic language of the tie, and the tablets, some 360 of which are
now extant, proved to be correspondence between the Egyptian royal
court and those of western Asia.  Originally damned as "hoaxes", they
are now known as the Armana Letters ; their value to history is
inestimable.

Public awareness of the Michigan Mounds Artifacts began in 1874, in
Crystal, Michigan, where a farmer, clearing some land, uncovered the
large replica of a shuttle ground of black slate and highly polished.
One surface displayed the incised drawing of a man's head wearing a
helmet and the observe showed two lines of writing; a group of
cuneiform and a line of an unknown script.  Over that 19th Century
summer, more pieces were found in the surrounding countryside,
including a copper dagger, a clay box, and some slate tablets, each
item showing an unknown grouping of script but each one bearing on it
the grouping of cuneiform, the same as that on the slate shuttle.

Note: this was not the first finding of such artifacts; it was only
the first major public notice.  From the 1860's onward, pieces with
the same markings had been collected by a professor Edwin Worth and,
although it was unknown to the farmers around Crystal, Professor Worth
had exhibited some of these in Detroit. The collection, began by
Professor Worth in 1848, exhibited for a time in New York, was finally
destroyed in a fire at Springport, Indiana, in 1916.  Only a few
copper pieces survived and these are illustrated by Henriette Mertz in
her book, The Mystic Symbol.

Local farmers, knowledgeable only about Indians, were surprised by
these artifacts, which were unlike anything they had ever seen.  No
one could read any of the incised writing.  Farmers began to display
and compare their newly found artifacts and all agreed that there was
writing on them, but no one could agree on what that writing purported
to be.

Between 1870 and 1920, farmers from seventeen Michigan counties had
found artifacts, each piece showing the same grouping of cuneiform.
From these finds, ome major collections developed, as did the earliest
indications of controversy.  The first professionals to view the
artifacts could offer no explanation for them and, not able to
recognize the writing as any script with which they were familiar,
declared, in each and every case, that the artifacts were fraudulent.

In 1890, James Scotford made his first Michigan Tablet find; it
elevated the controversy to a hysterical level which is only now
beginning to subside.  Scotford, a young hired-hand on the Davis farm
near Wyman, while digging post-holes, unearthed a clay jar covered
with the unknown script.  Scotford was uneducated and could make
nothing out of the markings.  Again, the curious came, this time to
the Davis farm, to see tablets and speculate on their meaning.  This
latest flurry of interest aroused the attention of archaeologists,
even in Europe.  By the end of 1890, Scotford had dug up more objects,
such items as a sphinx, a vase and tablets; each one displayed the
grouping of cuneiform along with the other unknown scripts.

In nearby Stanton, people who were convinced that these relics were,
in fact, remains of an unknown culture formed a society to study them.
Photos were sent to museums and universities in the hope that someone
could recognize the writing or identify the objects.  Every answer was
negative.  A typical newspaper article was headed "Archaeological
Forgeries at Wyman, Michigan". At this same time, 1892, a man named
Cornell of Battle Creek, Michigan, believing wholeheartedly that the
artifacts were genuine, published a small monograph entitled
"Prehistoric Relics of the Mound Builders".  It describes the objects
and illustrates some of them.  After a description of the
circumstances of the finds, he provided a detailed account of the
mounds in which they were found, leaving us a very important eye-
witness account.  After summarizing some history of the Near East, he
ends the pamphlet with a page of eye-witness testimonies signed by
people who watched artfacts being dug from the ground.

The society of Stanton disbanded while the debate and condemnation
continued sporadically in various newspapers and journals.  Public
notice gradually melted away until October, 1907, when more artifacts
again began to appear in Detroit.  A man named Daniel Soper, who later
went on to assemble one of the major collections of these artifacts,
was responsible for this newest sensation.  His own account, written
some years later, is a most interesting narrative.  He describes
walking in the woods and seeing a mound where a woodchuck had dug a
den.  The sand thrown out by the woodchuck contained pieces of broken
pottery which, when washed off, displayed the writing and markings.
He got a shovel and dug into the mound where he found a clay lamp and
a slate box which contained three copper spearheads.

On the same evening of this first find, Soper went to see his friend,
the Reverend James Savage, who, beyond being a Pastor, was a
knowledgeable amateur archaeologist and collector.  Savage recognized
that the artifacts resembled nothing in his present collection of ten
thousand artifacts.  Later, Savage was to build another major
collection of mound artifacts.

In 1910, Bishop Rudolph Etzenhouser, a missionary of the Church of
Latter-Day Saints, enters our story.  Etzenhouser proceeded to
assemble his own collection and then published a formal brochure,
Engravings of Pre-Historic Specimens from Michigan, U. S.A.  It
featured forty-four ages of photos of artifacts and the tablets,
including some from the collections of Soper and Savage. The engraved
plates for this printing were made by Van Leyen & Hensler of Detroit.
The brochure has an introduction which generally suggests that,
although the language of the tablets has not yet been interpreted, it
will in the long run "...yield an interesting chapter to the ancient
history of this continent". A few copies of his booklet are still in
circulation.  [I have one which was generously given to me and I
suggest tat anyone who expects to do any research on these artifacts
should get a copy, because it contains some reproductions which are
not illustrated elsewhere.]

By now, many well-recognized experts were denouncing the artifacts as
forgeries, some already accusing Scotford of counterfeiting them.
This is interesting.  In hindsight, their accusation is interesting,
because what they were actually saying was that he forged artifacts
which had, in fact, been found before he was born.  Bishop Etzenhouser
was on a lecture tour to acclaim the artifacts and various well-known
professors were lecturing just as vigorously to the contrary.  At this
time, a committee was formed to settle the question by proceeding to
Detroit to see a mound opened.  Professor Frederick Starr of the
University of Chicago and Roswell Field, an editor of the daily
Chicago Examiner, were joined by a representative of the Mormon
Church, Dr. James Talmage, Director of the Deseret Museum at Salt Lake
City.  Already, there had been vague suggestions that the Michigan
tablets could in some way throw doubt on those allegedly found by
Joseph Smith; the Mormon Church now had a special interest in this
study.

Along with the committee, a group of curious spectators watched, as
two mounds were opened, yielding 5 artifacts.  Professor Starr then
wrote that even though he had himself removed one of the objects from
the mound they had been "introduced into the mound by sleight-of-hand
even as everyone watched" (sic).  His report was published without
question.  However, it was for Talmage to become the loudest voice
among all the denunciations, which have overshadowed the study even
until most recently.  Thankfully, Talmage kept a diary of field-notes
and observations and, again thankfully, Dr. Fell, for reasons which
remain obscure, published the significant section of Talmage's journal
in ESOP (1988).

On first reading Talmage's notes, it becomes obvious that he went to
Detroit with the explicit intention to discredit the artifcts (my
personal evaluation).  His story, published in the Deseret Museum
Bulletin, including illustrations of some of the objects, is headed
"The Michigan 'Relics' -- A Story of Forgery and Deception".  He
viewed the Soper and Savage collections and it is here that we find
the first reference to the group of cuneiform characters appearing on
the artifacts as the "Tribal-Mark".  Concurrently, a Professor Kelsey
had labeled this the "sign-manual of the forger".  The Talmage journal
is readily available (ESOP), so to avoid lengthy repetition, I
summarize the highlites:

The published story begins with a brief referral to the Soper and
Savage collections and then poses a five part theorem, which Talmage
suggests must be completely true for the relics to be considered as
authentic:

1. That ... the present State of Michigan was inhabited in the long-
   ago ... by people of the Caucasian race possessing a high degree of
   civilization.

2. That, living at the same time... same area, was another group of
   inferior culture, resembling the Indians of today.

3. That these two peoples, representing widely different cultures,
   were at enmity one with the other...

4. That the people of higher culture used a written language, both
   pictographic and characters, some of which had points of
   resemblance to alphabets of Egyptian, Greek, Assyrian, Phoenician
   and Hebrew.

5. That the peoples of the higher class had knowledge of books of
   Jewish scripture, specifically Genesis, and later books of the Old
   Testament.

[Note here: A lack of reference to New Testament]

From a perspective today I suggest that, in the light of progressive
positive study, all of the five points which Talmage considered
fanciful are being validated.

Talmage states that if the Michigan "relics" were genuine, they would
"Furnish strong external evidence of the main facts set forth in the
Book of Mormon..."  Yet, having said this, he curiously again brands
them as forgeries.  He suggests that he open some mounds himself and
everyone concerned agreed that he should.  He allowed Scotford to lead
him and in November of 1909, he opened some mounds with Scotford's
help.  Talmage then describes an area near the Oldsmobile factory and
admits that some of the mounds appeared to be plainly artificial in
origin.  [His description of the first mound opened is important for
us here now because it contains several facts which at this later
time, suggest a theory to me which I will detail later].  In the sand,
12-inches below the mound surface, a layer of charcoal was found.
Both Scotford and Soper stated that the finding of this charcoal layer
would prove that the mound held artifacts.  They continued digging and
did find a copper axe.  He describes the next mound, which the locals
called the "Serpent Mound".  Here he found the layer of charcoal and
then a slate tablet inscribed on both surfaces.  Scotford stated,
"This is like what was found onone of the plates from Mormon Hill at
Cumorah, New York".  In this same mound they found a slate knife
inscribed on one side.

Several days later Talmage, with Scotford and Soper, went back to this
mound and found another slate tablet.  The next mound, with the
charcoal layer, produced another slate tablet.  Now, the next few
mounds opened had no charcoal layer and produced no artifacts.  All of
the artifacts found displayed the "Tribal-Mark".  Talmage went to New
York and then Washington to show his six, newly found artifacts to
museum archaeologists, all of whom pronounced them as "fakes".  He
returned to Detroit and quietly went out to dig with the help of some
hired men.  The 22 mounds they excavated yielded nothing.  Returning
to Salt Lake, Talmage learned of the Etzenhouser book.  He illustrates
some of the plates from this work and adds his own very disparaging
commentary.  After stating his reasons for believing the artifacts as
spurious, he directly accuses Scotford of forging them.  In his (then)
unpublished field-notes (June 6, 1911), Talmage records an interview
with Scotford's stepdaughter, in which she states that Scotford
"...had fraudulently manufactured many of the articles supposedly
discovered in the ground".

A final note here is an open letter to Talmage printed in the Deseret
Evening News, August 12th, 1911, headed "Those Spurious Michigan
Finds".  It was written by a Miriam Brooks.  Her letter lists all of
her reasons for pronouncing the tablets as forgeries.  She suggests
that to be valid the tablets should be inscribed with beauty of line
and space and balance of figures in design and composition.  On one
tablet she cites a "hooligan" Indian with a "Splintered sky-rocket
spear".  As we read her letter today, although it is superficially
humorous, we are embarrassed for her because of her myopic ignorance.

In 1925, the New York Times published a lead story entitled "Bogus
Relics of the Past and Counterfeits Foisted on the Public".  It
produced a lengthy commetary on the Michigan artifacts.  In April,
1953, Michigan's Controversial Finds was released.  It was written by
an Al Spooner, son of a man who had been with Soper until 1920.

The following November, at a lecture on the "Soper Frauds", a Judge
Claude Stone of Peoria, Illinois, who believed that all of the relics
were genuine, asked Dr. Henriette Mertz to examine the writing on some
of the tablets and, if she found that they were indeed authentic, to
then prove their authenticity.

Dr. Mertz was well-known to Judge Stone as a scholar.  She was
professionally training in forgery identification and, because of her
many years of pre-Columbian studies, had a working knowledge of the
writing habits of the ancients.  As a Lt. Commander - USNR, she served
in the Office of Scientific Research and Development.  She clearly
possessed all the professional credentials for such an investigation.
Dr. Mertz agreed that she would examine some of the tablets and rule
on them impartially.  The ensuing 30-years of intense study of these
artifacts resulted in her book, The Mystic Symbol, a work that does
indeed prove to any reasonable scholar that the Michigan artifacts and
tablets are not frauds.  Although in limited supply, her investigation
is still available and my personal feeling is that history will accord
it a high place among publications of this century.  In a recent
conversation (May, 1994), her nephew, Herbert, stated that at this
time he has no plans for a second printing.

Its title reflects the grouping of cuneiform which appears on each and
every tablet or artifact and which Dr. Mertz transliterated as "I-H-
S", or the name of God, as rendered by the Ancients.  It is also
generally agreed that the cuneiform is not Babylonian, but rather a
related Persian form.

The Mystic Symbol contains many fine illustrations of tablets and
objects.  The most numerous tablets are religious, depicting scenes
from both the Old and New Testaments and executed so precisely that
there is never a doubt abot the exact biblical reference.  Dr. Mertz
is the first to suggest a theoretical time-period in which the tablets
were inscribed and buried, a conclusion based on the inscribed
tableaux.  Because there is absolutely no reference to the Virgin
Mary, she suggests that the tablets were made by peoples who came here
during the first four centuries A.D., because Mary was not elevated
until the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus, in 431.

During the course of her study, Dr. Mertz assembled her own collection
of objects, some from the Soper and Savage groups, the Worth
Collection, from Judge Stone, the clay Luke-Tablet from the
Etzenhouser Collection, and several other random pieces. One
noteworthy item is an artifact which really is hors-de-combat from the
regular controversial collections.  It is a copper hammer about the
size of a modern tack-hammer and bears the Mystic Symbol.  It was
found by workmen who were digging a new sewer in the Highland Park
section of Detroit, in 1912.  More about this collection later.

One focus of Dr. Mertz's research was on the calendars which appear on
some of the tablets.  These are circular calendars of 13-months as
used by ancient peoples.  She illustrates four and remarks that every
request that she made to scholars knowledgeable in ancient calendars
for insight was ignored or refused.  Most experts regard them as "hot
potatoes" and will not become involved in the study, a direct result
of the whole corpus of negative publicity.

Dr. Mertz estimates that all of the referenced items over the years
may total more than 10,000.  Of these, sadly, there are records of
disposal for over 3,000 artifacts.  As a result of the "fake" label,
many collectors "purged" their collections.  She estimates the Savage
Collection at about 2,700 pieces, with  several hundred more in the
Soper Collection.  Not stated in her book but remembered from past
conversations, Henriette recounted that she traced several thousand
related items to Notre Dame University.  There she larned that the
tablets were stored away in the school archives.  She also suggested
two   other archives, where some of these pieces might yet be
collecting dust.  I have passed this information along to one who will
follow it up and more tablets may yet come to light.  Dr. Mertz and I
both noted that Talmage had sent some tablets to the Smithsonian.

In summing up, Dr. Mertz speculated that the persons who had made and
buried the artifacts were early Christians.  In the first centuries,
they were fleeing persecution and sailing from various homelands in
the Mediterranean.

Dr. Mertz passed away in 1984, just as she was finishing her book.
Herbert Mertz published the book posthumously, cleaned out her
apartment in Chicago, trashed all of her files, then took her
collection to his home.

Four years later, I asked him in a letter if he might let me have, on
loan, a tablet for study.  I was then a member of AIAR [American
Institute for Archaeological Research] and I asked, out of courtesy,
for his permission to use the Mystic Symbol as a logo to memorialize
Henriette's work.  By return mail, he sent me two copper tablets, one
of which was inscribed on both sides. I showed them to many study
groups and had them displayed at the Visitor Center of America's
Stonehenge (New Hampshire); I sent photographs of the artifacts to
interested persons.  At the time, a colleague, Evan Hansen of Beryl,
Utah, was staying with me; he had some guest-lectures at Lowell
University.

Evan is a very sharp-eyed observer and he spent much time examining
the copper tablets.  After he returned home, he sent photos and some
xeroxes from Dr. Mertz's book to one of his correspondents.  His
generosity was instrumental in bringing another, completely neutral
scholar into our investigations.  His name was Don Clifford of
Harlingen Texas.  Since then, Evan has done much in-depth research on
all of the illustrated tablets.

Mr. Clifford, believing from the outset that the Michigan artifacts
were genuine, began his stuy with only the copies of the tablets Evan
sent him.  He deliberately refrained from reading Dr. Mertz's book
until later, so as not to bias his work. His first published account
of his findings appeared in 1989, in Dragon Treasures and is entitled
"The Mongolian Connection".  He tentatively identified one of the
unknown scripts which appears on the tablets as "Kok-Turki", a little
studied alphabet of Turkish Runes.  He found several examples which
transliterate into Latin.  Since publication, Don sent me other
examples.  He emphasizes that his is only one suggested line of
experimentation, arguably not definitive, toward some understanding of
what appear to be multi-lingual texts.  Interestingly, he has, through
interpretation of the iconography on some of the tablets, demonstrated
a solid link to Zoroastrian practices.  In light of this important,
possible link, I would like to insert a theory which connects Don's
conclusion with Talmage's on-site observations.  Talmage noted that
local people, who had experience in recovering artifacts, explained to
him that a layer of charcoal in a mound guaranteed that it would
contain artifacts: No charcoal, no finds.  He reported the excavation
of twenty two mounds without fining any artifacts, although he here
made no reference to charcoal.  If he dug into a mound with charcoal
and found no artifacts, I believe we can assume that he would have so
noted as a further item towards discreditation.

If some of the tablets do represent Zoroastrianism, then a burial in a
mound might have had, as part of the burial ritual, a layer of wood
spread over the mound surface, where it was ritually burned.  The
whole mound could have been engulfed in flames.  A further covering of
sand and the fallen forest debris of the intervening centuries would
make a pattern of stratigraphy exactly as Talmage describes, wherein
artifacts were found.

In the Spring of 1989, Herbert Mertz wanted to divest himself of
Henriette's collection by donating it to a conservator who would be
responsible for its preservation and make it available for further
study.  He decided to give (or loan?) the total collection to AIAR.
Now, the reason for my question-mark is because I never saw anything
from him in writing which explains the status.  His letter to me with
the first two copper tablets had specified "loan".  There was no
letter for the collection, only telephone conversation between Mr.
Mertz and Dorothy Hayden. There may have been one but my understanding
is based only on hearsay.

Anyway, a discussion ensued as to how to take possession of the
artifacts, some of them too fragile to trust in shipping containers.
I considered driving to Florida to bring them here but, asit turned
out, just at the time Bill Royal of Warm Mineral Springs was planning
to drive to Maine to show his paleolithic skulls, which he had
recovered from the depths of Warm Mineral Springs, at a conference in
Maine.  He agreed to drive to Palm Beach, take possession of the
collection, and bring it here.

Bill and his wife, Shirley, packed the collection for the trip and
(may the Ancient Gods bless Shirley!) she saved, just as carefully,
bits of labels and tags which had been loosely intermixed with the
objects.  These bits give us some important information we would not
otherwise have.  Bill and Shirley made a break in their drive to Maine
and handed over the artifacts, which came to my house.  I immediately
made color slides, in a proper 4-light setup, of both sides of each
object.

The collection then was taken by Dorothy Hayden to her home in Mt.
Vernon, New Hampshire, because as Director of AIAR, it was only right
for her to keep them.  The collection made one public appearance.

In June, 1989, I rented the Columbia Cultural Center in Taunton,
Massachusetts, for a seminar and an exposition of the Mertz
Collection.  From this display the Mertz collection went back to New
Hampshire where it has been ever since.

Subsequently, David Deal of Monte Vista, California, has done some
masterful work towards readings of the mixtures of languages on
various tablets.  Some of his findings have been printed in various
archaeology periodicals, but the best summation appeared in The
Ancient American #5 March/April 1994.  David has, through detailed
coalition of historical references and his own understanding of the
ancient languages, added a multifaceted and enlightened body of
evidence, which adds an exclamation point to Dr. Mertz's proof of
authenticity for the artifacts.  He verifies Dr. Mertz's suggested
dates and, further, by inspired computer analysis, even adds an exact
date to one of the tablets.

In a recent letter (April 30, 1994) David sums up his work on the
Michigan artifacts "I think they are an extremely important piece of
ancient American history.  I think I have demonstrated, and in fact
proven their meaning in a general sense, something that Henriette
Mertz was not able to do.  Of course I would not have been able to do
what I did without her pioneering work... As you know, these artifacts
have a bad reputation, but as I have demonstrated, they are genuine" -
- a rather modest statement considering the magnitude of his
endeavors.

Only recently Evan Hansen, after several years pursuit along a paper
trail, received a letter from the Mormon (LDS) Church stating that
they do, in fact, hold Michigan Relics.  The letter, dated 23 March,
1992: "Dear Mr. Hansen: Elder Lorin C. Dunn, to whom you have written
two letters, has asked that I respond to you....The Church Historical
Department has the material which you have described in your letter,
though presently it has not been fully processed for our collection.
We anticipate that this material may be available for research before
the end of this year.  Please contact us again several months from now
concerning this matter." It is signed by Ronald O. Barney, Archivist,
Sr.

This is a major part of the Savage Collection which Dr. Mertz had,
from hearsay, traced to Notre Dame University.  I have copies of
several other letters which the recipients do not give me permission
to reproduce but they show that the LDS Church received 1,027 items of
the Savage Collection from Notre Dame in 1960 and have them still.
One letter states, current research shows that they are able to prove
and support Talmage's discreditation of the Tablets.  However, this
suggests that other major assemblages may still exist elsewhere.

One item of positive research on some atypical copper tools from the
Perkins Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society was undertaken
by the New York Testing Laboratories, Inc.  These were subjected to
microanalysis, hardness test and X-ray examination.  Rather than being
the crude cold-hammered tols made by Native Americans as was always
accepted, they were shown to have been produced by a society quite
advanced in metals technology.  The results are finely detailed by
Mallery in Rediscovery of Lost America and one of the octagonal
chisels, bearing the Mystic Symbol is included in the Mertz
Collection.

The clay Tablets in the Mertz Collection are each broken, probably
from previous careless handling.  Of the Luke Tablet, someone has
crudely patched together several sections using what appears to have
been a cellulose type glue.  I wonder, were these tablets kiln-fired
or sun-baked?  I suggest both for this reason: A cross-section of the
broken Luke Tablet shows a distinctly different inner and outer layer.
It is possible that a tablet might have been formed and baked as a
core, or blank, and later a second covering of wet clay added, the
inscription pressed in, and thence a second baking in the sun.  This
Luke Tablet shows two different colors of clay, a gray inner layer
[Munsell = 7.5YR-4/1] and a yellow outer layer [Munsell = 7.5YR-6/4].

When received, the Luke Tablet had some small fragments broken off
from one of the middle sections, six pieces each the size of a pea.
When Dorothy Hayden took the collection, I kept these six fragments.
Under the microscope they show the fabric to be quite loose or porous.
I sent one fragment to an independent researcher (Jon Rolfe) and the
other five to a ceramic expert at Harvard with the question: Can any
test confirm kiln-fired versus sun-baked?  I have not yet received a
report but when it comes, the fragments will be sent to another expert
for confirmation, and these fragments will also be ready for
thermoluminescence, if indicated.

Now, what of the Mertz Collection?  (Please understand that the
following is only my personal view.)  Herbert Mertz, in hindsight,
seems to have made two bad decisions.  I was appalled at the thought
of Henriette's files going into the trash.  In her 29 or so years of
research, she would have comiled a vast collection of pertinent
papers, study-notes and correspondence, which, altogether, may have
been among the most extensive corpus of work on this subject.  Given a
choice, I would rather have had the files than the artifacts.
Herbert's decision to lodge the collection with AIAR has ultimately
proved to have been a decision not in the best interests of the study.
AIAR has produced some random newsletters about the collection and
circulated some research papers by contributors.  However, they do not
do, nor allow, any physical research on the pieces and, although
copper and some of the smaller solid slate items can travel safely in
the mails or shipping containers, as when Herbert sent copper tablets
to me they refuse to put any pieces into the hands of responsible
scholars on loan.  They have no organization for display of the
artifacts, no resources for specialized research, and, being a closed
group refusing to interface with other groups, they do not attend
conferences where the collection could be shown, although they do
supply some photographs of the collection.  In Dorothy Hayden's
farmhouse at Mt. Vernon, New Hampshire, they are as effectively buried
as if they were back in the ground.  Queried about display of loan
Leon Morrill, Chairman of the Board of AIAR, stated in a letter to Joe
Furtado that the items were centuries old and if they are not
circulated for more years it doesn't make much difference.

What of the bits of information with this collection carefully saved
by Shirley Royal?  Item: "Tablets found 67 miles Northwest of St.
Louis in mounds on Pine River, on farm of John Hysted October 15,
1902".  Item -- a tag hand-written: "4 specimens found Sept. 14th by
Jas. J, McClaren on his farm near Roland Isabella Co., statement of
Mrs. McClaren".  It has always been stated that there were never any
human remains found with artifacts.  Item -- a hand-written tag:
"Found by Levy Bachalder, H D Leighton, A C Castle, and others in a
mound 40-feet diameter 10-eet high Sept. 19th 1891 Remnants of 7
Skeletons in mound".  Item: "Found near River Rouge north of Ann Arbor
inter Urban Road 1909 find".

In all of the current research, it is never suggested that there still
may be artifacts in the ground or that anyone is actively digging for
more.  If the objects are genuine, has everything been found?  The
prime area worked by Scotford and Talmage near the Oldsmobile factory
is now covered by square miles of concrete but these tantalizing bits
of information, along with many more to be found for the searching,
may suggest areas for further excavation.  A single, new find would
provide charcoal which now can be dated.

Talmage notes sending tablets to the Smithsonian and it is possible
that these may yet be tucked away in their archives.  He mentions a
clay tablet in the Ohio State Museum.  Such institutions do not throw
things away; they are filed.

Dr. Barry Fell's book, America, B.C., shows a hinge-ogam inscription
at Monhegan Island, Maine.  It is translated as a signboard for "cargo
ships from Phoenicia".  There are actually several more of these
inscriptions which have not received wide attention and it is most
likely that Monhegan was one of the major ports in antiquity for
Mediterranean shipping.  Our illustrated example was found by Augustus
C. Hamlin of Bangor and is recorded in Transactions Royal Society of
Canada , 1898.  This inscription carries the Mystic Symbol no less
than thirteen times, the 'all-seeing eye', and several lines of script
which contain both runes and hieroglyphs, as reproduced on the
Michigan Tablets.  This may be one of the very first records of the
strangers who made the Mounds Tablets at a place where they entered
our continent.  This inscription may very well record an event in
history which was only repeated many centuries later when the Pilgrims
stepped ashore at Plymouth, in 1620.

Did Scotford, or others, make fake artifacts?  There is reason to
suspect that they did.  If so, common sense would suggest that these
could not be many and he certainly did not make forgeries and bury
them over five states, nor go and cut one on a rock at Monhegan before
he was born.  Even controversy must be reasonable.

Deliberately keeping the major extant artifacts out of circulation,
for whatever reason, is closely akin to the situation where for over
40 years a small group kept the major corpus of Dead Sea Scroll
fragments hidden from the scholars who had the will and specialized
knowledge to further the study.  We have seen in the last two years
the acceleration of progress after this situation was corrected.

One further question should be formally raised. The thousands of
Michigan artifacts are the manifestation of what would sem to be a
large group of peoples.  Such a group had to live, work, eat and sleep
over a long period of time, and they could not have done so without
leaving major evidence of habitation sites. Have some of these already
been found and not properly ascribed culturally?

I have summarized two major periods of the history of these artifacts;
from the beginning to Dr. Mertz and the subsequent positive studies
until now.  My own small part, here recanted, is merely as a hyphen
between the two.  After some years of fretful hope, I am now sure that
the study will progress on its present, positive path, and will
eventually rewrite some few pages of our history books.


Bibliography:

CLIFFORD, Don, The Mongolian Connection, Dragon Treasures, Stonehenge
    Viewpoint, 1989

CLIFFORD, Don, Commentary on Mertz Clay Tablets, Louisiana Mounds
    Society, #33, July, 1990

CLIFFORD, Don, Letters to me, 1990-1993

CORNELL, M E, Prehistoric Relics of the Mound Builders, Battle Creek,
    Michigan, 1892

DEAL, David A, The Mystic Symbol De-Mystified, The Ancient American,
    #5, March/April, 1994

ETZENHOUSER, Rudolph, Engravings of Prehistoric Specimens From
    Michigan, John Bornman & Sons, Printers, Detroit, 1910

FELL, Barry, America, BC, 1976

HANSEN, Evan, Exchange of letters with LDS Church, Louisiana Mounds
    Society, #48, June, 1992

MALLERY, Arlington & Harrison, Mary R, The Rediscovery of Lost
    America, Dutton, 1979 [Appendix A, Great Lakes Copper Culture]

MERTZ, Henriette, The Mystic Symbol, Global Books, 1986

MOORE, Ken, Six Clay Tablets From the Mertz Collection, Louisiana
    Mounds Society, #33, July, 1990

TALMAGE, James E., The Michigan Relics - A Story of Forgery and
    Deception, Deseret Museum Bulletin, Salt Lake City, 1911,
    [reprinted in Epigraphic Society Occasional Publications, Vol. 17,
    1988]

TALMAGE, James E., Field Notes and Journal, Reproduced in Holograph,
    ESOP, Vol. 17, 1988



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