View source for Question: What do we find when we turn to the records of the ancient (i.e. before A.D. 400) Americas?

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==Question: What do we find when we turn to the records of the ancient (i.e. before A.D. 400) Americas?==
===Of the approximately half dozen known written language systems in the New World only the Mayan language can be fully read===

Understanding that a written record (epigraphic or iconographic) is necessary for building archaeological context, what do we find when we turn to the records of the ancient (i.e. before A.D. 400) Americas?

Of the approximately half dozen known written language systems in the New World (all of which are located in Mesoamerica), only the Mayan language can be fully read with confidence. Scholars can understand some basic structure of some of the other languages, but they cannot fully understand what the ancients were saying. In other words, there is a problem with deciphering the epigraphic record. According to the experts, “the pronunciation of the actual names of the earliest Maya kings and other name-glyphs from other writing systems is not known with certainty.”<ref>Hamblin citing Joyce Marcus, ''Mesoamerican Writing Systems'' (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), 212&ndash;220 and Linda Schele and David Freidel, ''A Forest of Kings'' (New York: William Marrow & Company, 1990), 440, n28.</ref>
 
For the time period in which the Nephites lived, scholars are aware of only a very limited number of inscriptions from the entire ancient New World that can be read with any degree of certainty. Even with these fragments, however, scholars are still uncertain from these inscriptions just how the ancients pronounced the proper names and place names (toponyms). Four of these readable inscriptions merely give dates or a king’s name&mdash;a very limited cultural context. Another five inscriptions contain historical information and proper names&mdash;the mention of the cities Tikal and Uaxactun (for which the ancient pronunciation remain uncertain) and five kings from these two cities (whom we know by iconographic symbols and whose ancient pronunciation remains uncertain).<ref> See Hamblin, posted 29 January 2004 in thread, “What Would Be Proof of the Book of Mormon,” on Zion’s Lighthouse Bulletin Board (ZLMB){{link|url=http://p080.ezboard.com/fpacumenispagesfrm67.showMessage?topicID=213.topic}}(accessed 10 April 2005).</ref>

With such sparse epigraphic information, how could we possibly recognize&mdash;even if they we discovered archaeologically&mdash;that we had found the location of cities we know as Bountiful and Zarahemla, or if the religious rulers were actually named Nephi or Moroni? The critics like to claim that there is no archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon, but the truth is that there is scant archaeological data to tell us anything about the names of ancient New World inhabitants or locations&mdash;and names are the only means by which we could archaeologically identify whether there were Nephites in ancient America.
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[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Qué registros existen de las antiguas Américas antes del año 400?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: O que existem registros das antigas Américas antes de 400 dC?]]
[[Category:Questions]]