Searching
for the Jaredite City of Lib
By
V. Garth Norman
Note:
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Foundation (AAF) is pleased to present AAF Notes: a series of
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“Welcome
to the World of the Book of Mormon!”
The above
announcement is conceivable in the not too distant future with
advancing Mesoamerican and Book of Mormon historic archaeological
research. That landmark goal will be reached only if and when
a specific Book of Mormon city is pinpointed with the record in
the proper place, time, and culture, required by the text, and
the city’s name is recovered from the ruins. Full confirmation
must of course rest on similar discoveries of neighboring puzzle
pieces in Book of Mormon historic geography exploration. No single
discovery can stand in isolation. It is gratifying to see speculative
searches at long last progressing toward genuine exploration discoveries
that are bringing the Book of Mormon world to light.
Identification
of the city of Lib is realistically possible in my view from its
specific location described by Moroni, if we can understand his
words correctly. Without question, we must start with specific
identifiable locations based on the text. Moroni seems to know
where Lib is located, because he adds a descriptive detail that
means nothing to the text, unless his geographic description is
identifiable. I submit that the text will become clear when we
locate Lib’s city. Let’s look at the text details.
Lib’s people
succeeded in killing the poisonous serpents that were blocking
passage into the wilderness filled with wild animals across the
narrow neck. Mormon also identified that wilderness as the Nephite
land Bountiful, which was filled with wild game of every kind
(Alma 22: 31), doubtless tropical. We previously identified Bountiful
in the state of Tabasco, and showed evidences for that name meaning
“bountiful” among the indigenous people, and its survival from
the two Hebrew words for bountiful: Tob and shoa
(Norman 2004). Lib’s people crossed into that wilderness and
built a great city by the narrow neck of land. Moroni then adds
that the location was “by the place where the sea divides the
land” (Ether 10: 19-20). What does that mean? No other reference
to the narrow neck of land in the Book of Mormon has that description,
so it has to be a specific feature by the narrow neck of land
within the wilderness where the sea literally cuts into the land.
We now know
that one of two great Olmec cities from Jaredite times, San Lorenzo
and La Venta, located on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec about fifty
miles apart, qualify. (See Map.)
click
to enlarge
Considering
Lib’s great city ruled his empire, there are no other possibilities
within this limited territory. The question is whether archaeological
remains and inscriptions can identity Lib and his ancient Near
Eastern cultural roots, which will be considered in Part 2 of
this paper.
I previously
speculated in a 1984 paper that the division place could mean
the wide mouth of the Rio Coatzacoalcos affected by Atlantic high
tides, but there is no big Olmec city there. I then speculated
that San Lorenzo located 40 miles upstream by a river island could
be the place, but it is a river and not the sea that divides that
land, so there would have to be an error in translating the river
as sea to qualify. Archaeologically, San Lorenzo qualifies in
every respect for Lib’s city. It dates to the right time. Lib
in the 14th generation is in the mid generation of
Jaredite history around about 1400 to 1200 B.C., when San Lorenzo
was built. Political change reflected in the excavation record
also fits Jaredite history.
The geographic
drawback is that San Lorenzo belongs to the densely populated
Gulf Coastal Olmec region of southern Veracruz. Note the 8 other
cites within 25 miles, and others farther northward, where “the
whole face of the land northward was covered with inhabitants
(Ether 10:21). San Lorenzo is on the major trans-isthmian communication
route along the Coatzacoalcos to the Pacific side that doubtless
was never closed to traffic for any length of time. I had also
speculated that the large lagoons on the Pacific coast is a place
where the sea divides the land, but there is no big Olmec city
in that region, and no tropical forest leading into the land southward.
Besides, the evidences favor that Tehuantepec plain as being the
“narrow pass.”
All of the
clues in the final analysis have led me to the great Olmec city
of La Venta. It is only 25 miles east of the Rio Coatzacoalcos,
so it is literally “by the narrow neck” crossing point along the
Rio Coatzacoalcos.
But where
at La Venta is there a distinctive feature where “the sea divides
the land?” While researching for this paper, I turned to a La
Venta excavation report (Drucker 1952). As I read the Geographical
Setting section, I was stunned by something I had never seen nor
heard before. I knew La Venta was on high ground near rather
extensive swamp lands like other cities in the vast coastal flood
plain of Tabasco that becomes inundated and impassible during
the rainy season from the Tonala and Grijalva rivers. What I
did not know as I read brought Moroni’s description into broad
daylight. It is so significant that it deserves quoting.
The traveler
in the region cannot but be impressed by the sudden change from
the rolling red earth hills of Minatitlan which are a gradually
descending extension of the foothills of the Tuxtla Mountains,
and the high sand dunes around Puerto Mexico (Coatzacoalcos),
to the flat swamp plain, just barely above sea level, that extends
for miles to the eastward, along the coast. This whole swamp
zone must have been formerly open sea — a great bay that gradually
silted in. Oil geologists working in the La Venta zone have
told me that testing and drilling operations show a layer of almost
a hundred feet of swamp muck extending downward from the present
surface, with, here and there, beds of marine or brackish-water
shells. Potsherds and fragments of figurines often come from
considerable depths in this muck. We can be certain that these
objects do not represent ancient horizons buried by modern swamp,
but are undoubtedly things lost overboard from canoes at a time
when there was more open water than at the present day.”
(Drucker 1952: 4)
Geological
studies in the region show a land subsidence in the La Venta district
as opposed to a rising farther eastward along the Tabasco coast.
Also, a broad ancient channel from the Rio Grijalva use to drain
past La Venta to the Gulf Coast, which must have expanded the
inland sea during the rainy season, adding to waters from high
tides, and building up siltation deposits through time, which
may have contributing to the river channel rerouting eastward.
I am now convinced that La Venta, the southeastern most great
city of the Olmec, literally built in “the place where the sea
divided the land,” is where we must look to identify the city
of Lib, which will be considered further in Part 2 of this paper.
References
Bernal, Ignacio.
The Olmec World. University of California Press, 1969.
Drucker, Philip.
La Venta, Tabasco; A Study of Olmec Ceramics and Art. Smithsonian
Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 153. Washington,
1952.
Norman, V.
Garth. “San Lorenzo as the Jaredite City of Lib.” Newsletter
and Proceedings of the S..E.H.A. No. 153. June. Provo, Utah:
SEHA, 1983.
Norman, V.
Garth. “Where was the Land Bountiful? Possible Place Name in
Mesoamerica with a Biblical Prototype.” AAF Notes, www.ancientamerica.org. 2004.
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