Lehi in the Desert

As a child, I learned the Book of Mormon story of the prophet Lehi, who followed a dream to take his family into the deserts surrounding ancient Jerusalem. Now, as a university student, I am finding new depth to the story by reading Hugh Nibley’s book Lehi in the Desert. In this scholarly approach to a religious topic, Nibley explores the so-called “Egypticity” of the story of Lehi by investigating its historical and geographical background. By noting innumerable small coincidences, Nibley points out that The Book of Mormon, first published in 1829, is consistent with our cultural knowledge of Egypt.

Movin' Around

Going to San Diego with digital navigators is how
it's done today.

Hey everyone and greetings from San Diego! I'm writing on a bit of 'travel-lag' after 13 hours in a BYU van and little sleep, but the Sun is shining! As I was thinking about this post I wanted to incorporate the usefulness of travel and written knowledge. Today we use "written" (a bit more digital version now) knowledge to get from Provo on I-15 to Las Vegas to San Diego in half a day. The co-pilot (guy in the passenger seat) as soon as he settled in got out his inverter, his laptop, his Garmin GPS and his GPS on his smart phone. It was a mobile command hub in about 45 seconds! We had maps, routes, audio feeds into the speakers on the van so that the little phone gps could have "Ashley" (so the female talking voice is named) tell us the next exit coming up and when we merge where.

Pomponius Mela's Map from AD 43. Notice the
Three Major Continents known at the time arranged
in a circle

So what's the point with all this technology? It facilitates our transportation in a way unprecedented only fifteen years ago. Now let's go back in time to what was around fifteen hundred years ago and earlier. I'm going to use the argument that what stands the test of time is the most valuable to people and the advancement of knowledge. We have more advanced GPS devices and smart phones to tell us more detailed information about maps, navigation and directional knowledge. Cartography, or the making of maps have existed since knowledge was first written. Cave paintings of star charts, landscape drawings to point out land markers, or clay tablets with simple pictures identifying land markers all give evidence to the utilitarian value and significance of maps for early peoples. Maps were based in the past with emphasis on land markers and what oral tradition and experience would pass on.

Where a Roman Merchant Might Travel during the 2nd Century AD

Let's take an example, you are a merchant from a small island outside Naples during the height of the Roman Empire. The fact that you are a roman citizen helps you move around easily within the empire so business goes well. Which new route do you wish to try to pick up if it means doubling your money? How do you get there? Traveling can mean traversing fifty miles up the road or thousands of miles across seas. How valuable is someone who can get you there or a map with good directions? What if one of those directions is completely wrong? Jumping back quickly to the present, last night I took the van to a nearby pharmacy to get one of the guys some medicine, but due to a GPS error I took a wrong turn, just in time before the battery went dead. I was practically flying blind on the foggy I-5 interstate trying to get back to the hotel. I knew how important that knowledge was right then! Needless to say I spent an hour learning the nearby roadways and now I'm the most knowledgeable one of the placee. Today's transportation and technology make simple mistakes like this not so costly, but as a Roman merchant I may have wandered into dangerous territory or hazardous terrain. Mistakes were less merciful back then in my opinion. Like Sam's great article on the Polynesian sea-farers, anyone who wishes to move around must have the means of doing so.

Now, was there tourism like there is today? According to Tony Perrottet in a National Geographic article, Augustus was a sort of its founder in the Roman Empire when he created highways and rid the Mediterranean of pirates. The favorite places were the ancient ruins of Troy in Turkey, a place immortalized by Homer's Odessey and Iliad. There was a sense among the more elite class that you weren't cultured until you had been to see where Helen was battled over, seen the great pyramids and the tombs and had these adventurous journeys. It's interesting how writing helped to create a legacy for these areas. In addition to maps, stories were a written knowledge fueling transportation by creating interest in the minds of young and old to go see what they were missing.

Written knowledge incites and motivates us to reach out to the world. It provides us with the means to arrive there by way of maps outlining what we should look for, how long to pack, what to stay clear of and what to expect when we arrive. We have built upon the knowledge of the ancients to advance the industry of transportation and tourism in a way that helps us all see the world and experience life outside of our childhood neighborhoods.

Q & A with Dr. Toronto: A discussion on Written Knowledge

This past week I was able to interview Dr. James A. Toronto about the significance of written knowledge in the Middle East. Dr. Toronto has a Ph.D from Harvard in Islamic Studies and currently teaches at BYU. 

A Fighting Librarian?

They don't really seem to go together.

The case of the Mayan codices

History has left us clues about Mayan codices. What can we find out about Mayan codices from these clues?

VASES

Mayan vase depicting scribes. (Source.)

Parts of the writing on Mayan vases follows specific patterns which name the owner or patron of the piece and his titles. This pattern is also evident in the codices.

Additionally, some Mayan vases depict scribes making and writing on codices. We learn more about how Mayans made codices from these images.

SPANISH MISSIONARIES

Sixteenth-century Spanish missionaries in Central America deliberately destroyed codices they found. They were concerned that the presence of these books would distract the would-be converts or remind them of their "pagan past." Most codices sent back to Europe were damaged or discarded en route.
Additionally, Spanish book-making and the Spanish alphabet took over Mayan paper- and book-making processes. The missionaries placed great importance on the printing press to make books for proselyting.

1940s OBSERVATIONS

Von Hagen with his wife. (And a vicuña.) (Source.)

Antrhopologists Victor von Hagen and Hans Lenz in the 1940s independently observed descendants of Mayans making paper--the same way their ancestors did. They learned that paper was "bark-cloth"--a material made from tree bark fiber and solidified with oil.

CODICES

A page from a Mayan codex. (Source.)

There are only four Mayan codices left, and all of these are incomplete and partially deteriorated. Evidence shows that these four are probably copies, made when the condition of the originals were no longer sustainable. This suggests that Mayan codex-making is a more ancient practice than we realize.

We also learn from the surviving codices the page formatting. Long pages were folded to create many pages. The longest page of the four surviving codices measures over 22 feet, folding into 112 pages.

CONCLUSION

We still have much to learn about codices, but vases, the visitation of Spanish missionaries, modern observations, and surviving codices teach us much about the content, format, construction, and history of Mayan codices.

The Construction of the Codex...
Maya codices
Barkcloth

The Pe'a

Pen

Paper

Star light, star bright

Citizen AV3006-09E (Retail $1200).
Can't my star disk do this too?

The Great What if ...

As I perused through some of my favorite topics and how I might keep your attention for my limited space I jumped across at least ten topics before I was struck with that sense of 'we really have it good' in comparing today's amenities with those past. Take your wristwatch for example, how cool it would have been to show an ancient Egyptian the glow-in-the-dark button that tells you exactly what time it is. We would have glow in the dark Egyptian obelisks today! What a neat thing that they recorded numbers and data in places so that they could predict the time. Now, allow me to be your sales representative as we head off into the showroom floor and view some spectacular devices.