View source for Source:Roper:Swords and "Cimeters" in the Book of Mormon:JBMS 8:1:a strange double-curved weapon held in the left hand of the warrior figure on the Loltún cave relief

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|title=Roper: "a strange double-curved weapon held in the left hand of the warrior figure on the Loltún cave relief might be considered a scimitar/cimeter"
|category=Book of Mormon/Weapons/Scimitars
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==Roper: "a strange double-curved weapon held in the left hand of the warrior figure on the Loltún cave relief might be considered a scimitar/cimeter"==
Matthew Roper: <ref>{{JBMS-8-1-6}}</ref>
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The possibility has been suggested that a strange double-curved weapon held in the left hand of the warrior figure on the Loltún cave relief might be considered a scimitar/cimeter.<ref>William J. Hamblin and A. Brent Merrill, "Swords in the Book of Mormon," in ''Warfare in the Book of Mormon'', ed. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1990) 343.</ref> Its two blades curve in opposite directions from the ends of a central handle. Grube and Schele consider the object to be a weapon, and it looks something like a special version of the short-sword discussed above. We recall that the date for the figure at Loltún falls within the Book of Mormon period. Moreover, the Izapan art style in which the figure is carved originated in Pacific coastal Guatemala or southern Mexico. That region includes the territory thought by most Latter-day Saint researchers to have been the Nephite and Lamanite heartland. Thus the weapon shown at Loltún has a good chance of being one of the arms that Lamanites and Nephites were using during the central segment of Book of Mormon history. In fact, at Kaminaljuyu, the great ruined city in the valley of Guatemala, which many consider to have been the city of Nephi (or Lehi-Nephi), Stela 11 shows a warrior figure holding a curved object similar to that on the Loltún portrait. It may be even earlier than the one at Loltún, dating to the early Miraflores period (250 to 100 BC). Some Mesoamerican experts consider that the curved object on Stela 11 was the equivalent of the double-bladed weapon at Loltún.<ref>Antonio P. Andrews, "El 'Guerrero' de Loltún: Comentario Analítico," Boletún de la Escuela de Ciencias Antropológicas de la Universidad de Yucatán 8–9/48–49 (1981): 42; Lee A. Parsons, ''The Origins of Maya Art: Monumental Stone Sculpture of Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala, and the Southern Pacific Coast'' (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1986), 78–79.</ref>
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