Internal evidence suggests ---

An Ancient North African Treasure

Trove in Southern Illinois

by Frank Joseph

December 1999

On an early spring afternoon in 1982, a man was slowly walking alone through a forsaken cemetery in southern Illinois. In his hands, he carried a common metal-detector. He hovered its saucer-like device about six inches above the ground, while watching its dial for the slightest movement, sure sign that something of possible worth lay just beneath the surface.

A resident from a nearby town, he was an avid collector hoping to find the occasional lost coin or even some shiny artifact from the Civil War era. This day, however, his meandering quest among the unvisited tombstones failed to elicit any response from the mineral-sensitive instrument until he neared the far end of the burial ground. The metal detector became increasingly agitated with every footstep, until it led him entirely out of the cemetery, down a shallow ravine and up the side of a steep hill. Its dial oscillated violently, as though the explorer were treading over Fort Knox.

He continued across the desolate country, waiting for the indicator to become still. Walking along the top of the hill, his eyes fixed steadily on the instrument. He suddenly fell into a perfectly vertical pit just wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. Shaken, but recovering his senses, he realized that he had landed on his feet on a soft dirt floor some eight feet beneath the surface of the ground. The metal detector had not followed him down. He remembered the small pocket-flashlight in his jacket. Fetching it our, the narrow but bright beam of light immediately revealed what appeared to be a chamber opening directly in front of him.

He cautiously entered the dank room. He saw stone statues, large urns and edged weapons scattered across the floor. The walls were covered with the sculpted friezes of Egyptian-like scenes. Moving to the far end of the chamber, he found an adjacent room, in which reposed a large sarcophagus of gold gleaming in the steady beam of his flashlight. There were more chambers, but the appeared to have collapsed and become inaccessible.

Returning to the first room, the now amazed explorer filled his pockets with strange, gold coins from small unlocked caskets. Nearby were stacked enormous piles of roughly hewn black stones, all engraved with the likeness of bizarre-looking men and women accompanied by written scripts of some kind.

His flashlight battery failing, he pushed outward wit his hands and feet against the walls of the narrow pit through which he had fallen, and clambered out of the subterranean darkness back into the sunlight. For the next 17 years, he stole thousands of artifact from the underground ancient burial site. Most of these have been the black stones engraved with singular portraits of largely non-Amerindian persons.

Although he sold them throughout the US, his steadfast refusal to reveal their place of origin led many investigators to conclude that they are modern fakes, and not the genuine artifacts of overseas' visitors to pre-Columbian Illinois. But collectors who pay high prices for these peculiar stones on the black-market, insist they are genuine for fundamental reasons. Approximately 7,000 examples are known to exist, far too many to have been manufactured by one man, even with assistance. More convincingly, they feature internal evidence in the form of esoteric and even arcane images far beyond the experience of the provincial man to have faked.

After nearly two decades, the controversy may be resolved in the near future, as excavation proceeds at what researchers believe is the previously undisclosed, underground location itself. If and when it is finally opened, the chambers' bizarre contents may prompt more questions than answers. But so many objects have already been stolen and examined, that a credible, even convincing interpretation of the site now seems possible. The chief argument against its authenticity may in fact be the most persuasive evidence on its behalf as a repository for indisputable, abundant, material proof of peoples from the Ancient World in the American Midwest.

That interpretation begins, not in 20th century Illinois, but on the other side of the globe, in a forgotten kingdom of North Africa once known as Mauretania. Encompassing the equivalent of today's Morocco and parts of western Algeria, it was governed by King Juba II, 2000 years ago. He and his people stemmed from ancient Caucasian stock: the Mauri, who were believed to have migrated from Asia Minor after the fall of Troy in the late 13th Century BC. They were thus culturally and racially different from the dark-skinned inhabitants who presently occupy North Africa.

Juba was a great statesman, who led his country to unprecedented heights of cultural splendor and material prosperity. When neighboring Numidians staged a revolution, Juba volunteered his army to defeat the unconventional guerrilla forces that had eluded Roman commanders. In gratitude, the Senate of Rome granted Mauretania virtual independence, the only state to have achieved a free status within the Empire.

A cultured monarch more interested in art and science than conquest. Juba was the author of twenty books (all in Greek) on such widely varied subjects as geography, geology, astronomy, mythology, music dance, painting and sculpture. He built a large library at the nation's capital, Caesarea (today's Cherchel, in Algeria), and sponsored several sailing expeditions down the west African coast, even to the Canary Islands.

These voyages of discovery were part of the Phoenician tradition that pervaded Mauretanian life. A few centuries before, Phoenicians from Carthage built important cities at Tangier, Lixus (modern Larache) and Mogador (Essaoira) in what later became Mauretania. Juba also believed in religious freedom, and early Christians flocked to Caesarea. So did many Jews, who brought their wealth with them. But the predominant religion of the Mauri was a synthesis of Phoenician and Egyptian beliefs and practices. Skilled at international diplomacy, Juba established cordial relations with his southern neighbor, the black kingdom of Senegal, well known for the boat building abilities of its shipwrights.

When he died an old man in 24 AD., Juba was succeeded by the Queen, Cleopatra Selene, who maintained his wise policies. She similarly groomed their son, Ptolemy XV, to one day rule his country in the same enlightened fashion. Meanwhile, Mauretania became a center for great wealth and cultural opulence. Relations with the Empire were exemplary, so much so, prosperous Romans often vacationed in the sun-kissed North African land, and many stayed to form their own community.

But these halcyon days of high civilization were about to come to a catastrophic end. In 40 AD., the new Emperor Gaius Caligula, invited Mauritania's popular leader to a party in Rome. Such an invitation was not to be turned down, so young Ptolemy sailed for Italy. There he was magnificently feted by Caligula, who referred to him as his brother and loaded the Mauretanian monarch down with costly gifts. However, on his way to Ostia, the port of Rome, where a ship was waiting to take him home, Ptolemy was suddenly stabbed to death by members of his own Roman guard.

The killers fled, but botched their escape, and were apprehended soon after by centurions. The murderers confessed under interrogation that they had been commissioned by none other than Caligula himself. The Emperor, having drained the imperial purse through his grandiose debaucheries, planned to blame Ptolemy's death on Numidian assassins, then pose as the avenger of the betrayed king and the protector of his people by occupying Caesarea and seizing its royal treasure. But when the plot was exposed, the Mauri rose in angry revolt against Rome.

Before he could do anything about it, Caligula was himself assassinated. His successor was a sane and liberal hearted man, Claudius, who wanted to make amends with the Mauritanians and restore them to their previous position of friendly semi-independence within the imperial system. He was unanimously opposed by both the Senate and his generals. They argued that colonized peoples elsewhere would interpret any lenience toward Mauretania as proof of Roman weakness and stage their own revolts. Soon, the whole Empire would be aflame with insurrection. Moreover, the Mauri, in their wrath at the death of Ptolemy, had gone too far, and massacred innocent Romans peacefully residing in their country.

There was another consideration, now more palatable, given the nature of the situation: Claudius had inherited a bankrupt imperial purse, thanks to the profligacy of his lunatic predecessor. Seizing the Mauretanian treasure, as standard practice in any such punitive operation, would have a salubrious impact on the royal household's financial affairs.

But the Mauri were not some colonial exotics to be pacified by the mere sight of a Roman standard. They operated a large navy whose vessels bested Roman warships in the open seas of the Atlantic Ocean. Their army, trained and equipped by the Romans themselves, had never lost a battle. Claudius was forced to dispatch an entire army to Mauretania in what soon developed into full-scale warfare for seven months, involving 20,000 troops and several corps of chariotry.

Although the Mauri slowed the Roman invasion, the could not stop it. Defeat seemed inevitable to the wealthy men who initially backed the revolt. They were confronted by two alternatives: Await the Romans, who would execute some and over-tax the survivors, or flee. But to where? Rome controlled the world to the north. To the east sprawled the largest desert on Earth, the Sahara. In the south was Senegal, within easy reach of Claudius' legions. The braid ocean, which the landlubber Romans feared as the "Pasture of Fools," rolled westward, the Mauretanians' only escape route. In short, they could only hope to survive as "boat people."

Perhaps the scholarly Juba, in his long-since lost geography texts, described distant territories on the other side of the sea -- lands he learned of from the Phoenicians, who used North African ports for their commercially secret, transatlantic voyages. Indeed, the Canary Island Current runs like an underwater conveyor-belt from the Mauretanian shores of North Africa, westward across the Atlantic Ocean, straight into the Gulf of Mexico. It seems unlikely that the scholarly Juba or Phoenicia's prodigious seafarers knew nothing of this obvious phenomenon. After all, it was the same current used nearly 1500 years later by another sailor, Columbus, as his direct route to America.

Meanwhile, the invading Romans announced their intentions of reducing Mauretania to indentured, colonial status. It was clear, too, that their immediate objective was to seized the Mauretanian treasury. It had been moved from Caesarea, ever further southward, ahead of their advancing columns. The Mauretanian royalty, into whose keeping the treasury had been entrusted, fled toward the Senegalese border.

All the events described up to this point in our narrative comprise the historical record, as documented by several Roman writers, including Plutarch and Dio Cassius. What follows is speculation based on their factual accounts.

Faced with imminent seizure, the supporters of Mauretania's revolution appealed to their admirals for help. But the navy could spare no ships in its life or death struggle against Roman armadas. Instead, the admirals assigned a number of marines, sailors, captains and shipwrights to the Mauri leaders. Perhaps they could induce the boat builders of neighboring Senegal to construct a make shift fleet. Continued resistance against the Romans bought time for the Mauri and their commissioned Senegalese laborers, working under the direction of Mauretanian naval architects.

With military catastrophe looming in the nearby future from the north, the newly completed ships were boarded by survivors of the noble land owners, oligarchy, aristocracy and of course Jewish financial brokers with their bodyguards and Holy priests to conduct their rituals. Many Senegalese mariners were also on board but held under careful watch. Trusting their lives to the God Neptune and the eternal open sea rather than facing certain death or enslavement on land, they saw the African Continent gradually fade away with every lunge their ships took over the surging waves.

Sailing by the stars and coasting westward in the invisible grip of the Canary Island Current, the refugee fleet of some forty vessels was at sea for perhaps three months. But even if they all succeeded in crossing the Mare Atlantic, landing opportunities in the Americas were more than hazardous. Putting in at somewhere along the coasts of Florida or Cuba. Warring cannibal tribes of the Arawak and Carib Indians, respectively, mad settling there impossible.

Pushing on to Mexico, the Mauretanians would have had to confront native peoples intent on human sacrifice, in which beating hears were extracted with care and precision using obsidian knives from tens of thousands of victims. Further to the south, in Yucatan, even the Maya (generally characterized as gentle heart extractors, until the decipherment of their written language showed them otherwise) were prone to ritual evisceration and emergency incision.

The Mauretanians learned to avoid these bloody native peoples through bitter experience, or were forewarned by information preserved in the annals of previous Phoenician visitors to the Americas. In any case, the only route open to the African refugees was through the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Up it they sailed until they came to the Ohio River. Steering northward, the traveled the Little Wabash River into the heart of southern Illinois, where the peaceful Illini Indians, after whom the state was later named, welcomed them. Here the Mauretanians excavated a series of subterranean chambers, into which they placed their precious cargoes. a long, arduous quest from the destruction of their homeland and transatlantic crossing culminated in a prehistoric American refuge, around 45 AD.

The factual story of Mauretania and the undocumented but possible consequences of its defeat are remarkably reflected in the thousands of artifacts found by the man exploring in 1982. The bizarre, apparently contradictory and generally unrecognizable variety of cultures his stolen illustrated stones depict has even led many Diffusionists--expecting evidence of Vikings or Iberians in pre Columbian America -- to reject all the items as fakes. The mix of white European, black African and Middle Eastern Semitic faces seems incomprehensible to them.

Yet, these are the every elements unique to the 1st Century AD refugees from Mauretania. The Mauri were an Indo-European people heavily influenced by Roman Civilization; hence, the stone portraits of Caucasian men and women dressed in Roman and quasi-Roman styles. Their religion was an import from the mystery schools of the Nile Valley, which may explain why persons un-Egyptian in appearance are shown performing arcane Egyptian rituals.

Less frequently represented are Jews and Christians, who were welcomed to Mauretania and established themselves there. The incised stones depict other Semitics--Phoenicians. They still lived in North Africa and spoke their language as late as the 8th Century AD. The blacks portrayed on artifacts from the Illinois site often evidence ritual scarification, the same facial mutilation West African Senegalese still practice. Theirs is a living tradition going back to 45 AD, when their ancestors helped build and sail the ships in which the Mauri leaders sought escape. At least one of the stolen tablets shows a black man wearing a sailors' cap with a ship in the back ground.

This odd, even disparate collection of peoples and religions depicted on the Illinois stones could only fit Mauretanian events of the early 1st Century, but they comprise a nearly perfect fit. And there is another, although still missing piece of evidence that may some day be the most dramatic confirmation of the Illinois Tomb.

Caligula wanted the Mauretanian treasury; that was why he had King Ptolemy assassinated. It became one of the chief objectives of the invasion launched by Claudius shortly thereafter. But the Romans never found it. The Mauri removed their gold reserves from Caesarea ahead of the enemy legions until it disappeared from history.

When ground-penetrating radar sensors were brought into lay at the suspected location of the subterranean chambers last summer, they detected an unusually large concentration of gold far beneath the surface. If the instrument readings have been properly interpreted, then the Illinois site may feature not only unquestionable proof of overseas visitors to our continent nearly 1500 years before Columbus; it might also contain the fabulous Mauretanian treasury, rescued from military disaster in North Africa and brought across the ocean to eternal safekeeping in distant America, almost 2000 years ago.

Note from Harry: The browser must remember while reading this article that it came from the magazine Ancient American. How? Why? Isn't all this paradoxical? It is obvious that Frank Joseph copied our work in detail and with the help of Psycho Covey, this article was created. Frank is no historian and neither is the Psycho. Would they have ever thought to feature Mauretania at all if we had not come on the scene? Most likely not. But did you see any reference or thanks to Harry and Paul for showing them the light? Of course not. To prove that Joseph is no historian at all, one simply has to read this article in its original form. Joseph never correctly spelled "Mauretania" always rather as "Mauritania" which is the modern country. I took the liberty of making the correction, as well as many others, to make the article more correct. The browser must also be aware that what Psycho and Joseph call "true" or "Classical" history, is on the contrary, not verifiable by the ancient authors they allegedly recite.

THE MYSTIC SYMBOL AND JESUS:

Another Piece to the Burrows Cave Puzzle

by Dr. John White III

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to present important artifact themes from the alleged Burrows Cave of Southern Illinois, namely the occurrence of Christianity, the so called Mystic Symbol, and possible portraits of Jesus. The Mystic Symbol style on the Burrows Cave artifacts is nearly identical with that of the Michigan Plate Culture. The only reasonable interpretation of this find is that the Michigan Plate Culture journeyed from the Egypt / Mediterranean region to the Burrows Cave area and later moved on to the northern destination in present day state of Michigan. I have searched the Christian culture for possible clues about the meaning and use of the Mystic Symbol.

My results strongly support the conclusion of Mertz that the Mystic Symbol is the continuously used Greek abbreviation of the name Jesus, namely IHC as a Greek form and IHS as a Latinized form. We argue that the Mystic Symbol was probably a Secret Symbol of these Christians needed to aid their survival in the pre-Christianized Roman Empire. The occurrence of the Burrows Cave Mystic Symbol on a Sun emblem is a key finding. These results are thought to contribute positively to the historical viewpoint that the Burrows Cave Culture is legitimate and had a major impact on the great Algonquin Indian Empire as it existed circa 100 AD.

INTRODUCTION

The Mystic Symbol is a term applied to a combination of three unfamiliar letters in style incised prominently on a large quantity of archaeological plates found largely in the State of Michigan. Figure 1 is taken from the cover of the brochure printed in 1910 by Rudolph Etzenhouser of Detroit. This is a close-up of a black slate "ceremonial axe" shown on page 30 dug up in Wayne County, Michigan June 24, 1909. It was at that time in the collection of Dr. William Mills of Columbus, Ohio.

The dominant symbol in the center of the Sun circle has been called the Mystic Symbol and was usually written with five wedge-shaped strokes, similar to the cuneiform writing of ancient Sumeria, Akaddia, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persian. This symbol occurs frequently on a collection of black slated plates found scattered over the state of Michigan starting about 1850, although we have no proof. Mertz gives a good history of this archaeological episode.

These plates portray a great number of scenes with people, portraits, writing with unusual scripts, and many ancient symbols. The more noticeable themes represented are late Egyptian, Old Testament stories, and early Christian beliefs. Looked upon as possibly reliable archaeological artifacts from America, these plates are thought to describe a small culture of migrants led by Christianized Egyptian refugees from the late Roman era.

The Christianity portrayed has Persian elements, and the art has some pagan themes integrated with it. This culture would have migrated to survive both Christian and Roman tyranny and not as some combination of explorers, conquerors, developers, or traders. Most of the transport would have been provided by freelance Phoenician sailors, who are thought to have flourished to some extent until the sweep across North Africa by the forces of Islam.

There are alleged to be several thousand of these Michigan Tablets in existence, sometimes called the Soper Plates. The largest available collection is probably the one store in the Mormon archives in Salt Lake City. Most of the plates tell stories in pictures and strange writing relating to a form of Egypto-Christianity featuring a Good Son / Bad Son form of trinity, i.e., with Jesus as the Good Son and Lucifer as the Bad Son.

Some of the people associated with the discovery of the Michigan Tablets were Professor Edwin Worth, Thad Wilson, Phillip Schupp, and many others.

The principal opponent to the legitimacy of the Michigan / Soper Plates, denouncing them as fraudulent, was Kelsey, Professor of Latin at the University of Michigan. He inspired a large number of alleged scholars to voice similar sentiments that the writing on the Soper Plates (which couldn't be deciphered) was a hodge-podge of letters and symbols slapped together by unidentified, incompetent amateurs.

The discovery of the Soper Plates led to a major episode of Establishment denial, following the pattern of the Grave Creek Stone and the Newark Holy Stones. The simplest solution was to claim fraud by persons with an unknown agenda, unspecified source of funds, unspecified source of motivation, and unspecified education. *SEE HOST NOTE AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE!

Subsequently, none of the fiddle solvers for these mysterious cultural incursions have been successful in resolving a convincing portion of this story. New forms of scientific evaluation are the best hope for obtaining truth in this matter.

The initial phase of the Soper discovery faded away in the early 1930's after most of the principals had died. The Mormon Church acquired many of the plates for posterity, and they are thought to be available for bonifide research. The origin story of Mormonism includes a Rochester, New York area scenario that parallels the Soper scenario in some aspects. Etzenhouser was a general missionary and Bishop of the Reorganized Mormon Church who devoted a great deal of his time to the defense of the Michigan / Soper / Savage / Detroit Plates (all the same) and their advocates. If by now you have speculated that there is a substantial parallel between the Soper Plate scenario and the Burrows Cave Artifact scenario, then you are a genuine, red-blooded amateur (FOOL) archaeologist. Stay tuned in on this issue!

Now there is also a parallel between Prof. Kelsey's "proof" of fraud and that of much of the Burrows Cave opposition. If I may be allowed to oversimplify, I view the relevance of "social-science-proof-of-fraud" versus "hard-science-proof-of-fraud" much like I view the difference between night and day. The apparent truth to me is that the thinking world is dominated by those people who have facility with the mathematics of calculus. Isn't it obvious that Professors of Latin are not likely to be prepared to determine the fraudulent aspects of previously unknown cultures? Turned around, my question asks how should we distinguish a valid, obscure culture from an invalid one? Isn't this situation a basis for a charge of racism to infer that the familiar cultural element is greatly preferred to the unfamiliar cultural element to the extent of discrediting their mere existence?

The fallacy of the soft-science community is the idea that if the Burrows Cave artifacts and the Soper / Savage Plates have a current shortage of hard science data to verify their authenticity, then they assert it is meaningful to put forward any assortment of opinions as a version of the truth. (NOTE: But isn't this precisely what you have done Dr. White?? -- Harry) Further, the use of opinion as a method is thought to justify nastiness, insults, discrimination, and impugning of character. Both the US Constitution and the US legal concept that an accused person is "innocent until proven guilty" express an elevation of the worth of opinions. Burrows Cave is simply and archaeology project under evaluation. It is neither proven nor disproved!

It is astonishing that so many of the major US fraud-making combines have taken up obscure scenarios for the greater Ohio Valley. The recent colonists who came to this region were mostly minimally educated farmers and woodsmen from western and northern Europe. Given the needs for survival in early 19th Century America, it seems more logical that Mediterranean-oriented frauds would have been orchestrated in the environs of greater New York City by recent immigrants from the Mediterranean region with contacts back home that could be depended upon for sources of materials, books, languages, legends, and advice. The low level of New York City activity in this regard is a good measuring device for the truth about this sort of unsubstantiated argument. If the archaeology Establishment in this country lacks the skills to accurately unravel these mysterious ancient cultures, why are we wasting our time speaking of some class of brilliant fraud-making mischief's, who really don't exist?

There are some serious questions about Burrows Cave. And one of the more important ones is this: If Burrows Cave is shown scientifically to be fraudulent, we will be shocked at our lack of ability to recognize the existence of some modern human talent (knowledge of obscure ancient history, culture, and languages) capable of designing the artifacts.

THE MYSTIC SYMBOL AT BURROWS CAVE

The Soper Plates are too numerous and the Christian scenario too obscure for a general case of fraud. The trickle down of this Christianity within the greater Algonquin Empire has not been properly emphasized, and only Professor Scherz and Wayne May have mentioned the phenomena in connection with some New England Indians.

It should be clear that the lack of a base of operations for some evidence for a model of how the Soper Plate Culture came into being in North America is a much needed piece in this prehistoric puzzle. The Burrows Cave Culture is the best game in town for tying together the major elements of foreign incursion into the Algonquin Empire during the first millennium AD. These elements include Burrows Cave, the Serpent Mounds, the Hopewell Culture, the Soper Plate Culture, the Grave Creek Stone, the Newark Holy Stones, and the foreign language content of the Algonquin languages. This is the essence of the grand essay "Ohio Valley Crucible" by Professor Psycho Covey.

When I first heard about the existence of Christian related artifacts in Burrows Cave, I agonized over the burden of dealing with so many complications. But that is what a good model for the fierceness of the expansion of the Roman Empire should demand of our data based on the discovery of migrating survivors. And as luck would have it, the Burrows Cave Christianity is not just some conventional variety, it is, in fact, the Michigan Tablet Christianity all over again!

The Burrows Cave fraud-makers had to be rather intelligent to appreciate the implications of such internal consistency. I mean, if you were an educated fraud-maker of about 1980 and knew that the Soper Plates were judged to be garbage from about 1850, would you have included a trace of the Soper Plate Culture in your brand new fraudulent Burrows Cave Culture? (NOTE: Only if I planned on selling the fake artifact to Dr. White for a really high price!) There may be a few archaeologists who wish to appear ridiculous, but most of us want to be taken seriously by some element of the present culture.

DESCRIPTION OF ARTIFACTS

Figures 2-10 give a good introduction to the Mystic Symbol related artifacts available from my Burrows Cave Artifact collection. I have no specific data to quote or steal from Harry and Paul, but I estimate that these are 10-25% of the artifacts like this known.

Figure 2 shows two small gorget-sized pieces, one having the Mystic Symbol incised and the other with the Prominent Burrows Cave insignia we know as "Helios". Notice the presence of the nail heads which were obviously added later by Russell Burrows. These examples and others imply that there is only one collection and that the Mystic Symbol stones are not artifacts from a second source. The obverses are blank.

Figure 3 is a major find for the Burrows Cave Culture. The Mystic Symbol is given at the top and a Helios Symbol meaning the "Sun" is seen at the bottom. The portrait is a simple but elegant carving of a man in his 20's with a beard and a small "Semitic" braid. In the general European culture, we rather universally call this type of portrait a "Jesus" figure. The obverse is blank

Figure 4 portrays the traditional crucifixion story of Christianity. A man nailed to a cross is shown at the top with the Mystic Symbol, Son of the Left Hand and Helios under the right arm. A cave or burial vault is shown to the right. A likely male figure wearing a loose gown is shown at the bottom, probably portraying a resurrection. The Mystic Symbol is carved above this male figure.

Figure 5 is the portrait of an African man with the Mystic Symbol poorly carved at the top, possible a Christian, maybe even a funerary stone.

Figures 6 and 7 are two photos of "Jesus" stones. The obverse of Figure 6 has a Mystic Symbol located at the top and the Helios symbol at the bottom with additional letters which have not been deciphered. Figure 7 has both Michigan symbols displayed on the Burrows Cave stone above and below the frontal face suggesting a strong identity as "Jesus."

Figure 8 is probably a general Christian message that has not been translated at this time. This stone shows usage of the cuneiform writing for more than just the symbolic use.

Figure 9 is a gorget with carvings similar to Figure 2. Additionally, there are snakes and symbols similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics.

DISCUSSION OF ARTIFACTS

The symbol, style and selection of these artifacts is harmonious with the Soper Plates, making it clear that the Mystic Symbol Culture probably cohabited with the Burrows Cave Culture when it arrived in the Ohio Valley, 200 to 600 AD. The imagery described on page 18, and Figure 4 are those of traditional Christianity, making it clear that the Mystic Symbol Culture is Christian. The three candidate "Jesus" images on Figures 3, 6 and 7 each have suitable Mystic Symbols and Helios Symbols nearby to confirm that Helios is really Jesus.

NOTE: WHEW, I'M GLAD YOU MADE IT THROUGH THAT ONE! HH

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