Archaeology began with a strong bias toward exploring the lives of the ruling class in ancient
civilizations. Archaeologists are aware of this bias and try to compensate for it and work around
it.
Many of them continue to assume, however, that the evolution of a society from "chiefdoms" to
"states" involves the development of an elite social class.
The site at Çatalhöyük, in Turkey, one of the earliest cities ever found, has proven to be a
challenge precisely because there are no elite markers.
The whole site is like one enormous apartment building, with the houses right up against each
other and doors only in the roofs. The houses are all modest, a pattern that is also seen in some
early sites on the Pacific coast of South America.
Since elite markers eventually developed much later, it is tempting to speculate that these
societies may have been communal or otherwise egalitarian. I certainly had no trouble fitting a
version of the law of consecration into what I learned about Çatalhöyük in a class I recently took
from the Great Courses.
But that's just guessing -- fun but not significant. Still, the Mormon perspective does help us
break out of assumptions that are common to most people who don't have the advantage of
knowing about other ways to organize a prosperous high-population society.
When there are no markers of high status, archaeologists find it hard to recognize a social pattern
that we would call a "state," if only because we know of no historical examples of an organized
state that doesn't have people of high rank who clearly distinguish themselves from common
people in their dress, housing, property, or burial.
How can you have a state without a ruling class?
My mind immediately jumped to Mormon life today. While we partake of all the social status
markers of the societies we live in, the fact is that within our highly-organized LDS life we have
almost no status markers.
That's because we rotate our leadership positions. How could you distinguish a bishop from a
Sunday school teacher or a clerk, a Relief Society president from a camp counselor or Primary
teacher, if you didn't have something written down?
The Book of Mormon, as a historical record, may very well be showing us a society that would
be almost unrecognizable to archaeologists. The dates of the Book of Mormon are very clear,
and with the recently acquired ability to translate Maya writings, we have solid information
about some aspects of the history of Maya cities contemporaneous with portions of the Book of
Mormon.
Before those earliest Maya writings, though, a pivotal event took place: the merger of the people
of Nephi with the people of Zarahemla. Amaleki, writing in the book of Omni, tells us that
Mosiah I (father of Benjamin) was warned by God to flee from the land of Nephi.
Led by the Lord, the Nephites came upon the people of Zarahemla, who claimed Israelite
ancestry, though they had lost their language. Then something truly astonishing happened:
The people of Zarahemla, or Mulekites, though they outnumbered the wandering Nephites,
accepted them so completely that they learned the Nephite language and accepted the Nephite
king, Mosiah I, in place of their own king, Zarahemla (Omni 12-19).
The two peoples retained their separate identities for at least two generations: Under Mosiah II,
"all the people of Nephi were assembled together, and also all the people of Zarahemla, and they
were gathered together in two bodies" (Mosiah 25:4).
This separation may be at the root of many other events in later years. Who were the King-men,
for instance, if not (perhaps) descendants of the old ruling family or ruling class of the
Mulekites? After all, the Mulekites had previously been torn by "many wars and serious
contentions" (Omni 17), and many later Nephite problems may have had their origins in
Mulekite history.
Why did the majority Mulekites learn Nephite language and except the Nephite king?
It seems that the people of Zarahemla behaved very much like what the archaeology and history
of Mayan cities show us: Frequent war between groups, with occasional civil wars and coups
within the ruling class.
The rich and powerful were clearly marked in Mayan culture, and perhaps in Mulekite culture
also. Maybe this is why King Benjamin felt it so important to address his people -- Nephite and
Mulekite alike -- and point out to them that he was just like them (Mosiah 2:10-11).
He reminds them that he has "not sought gold nor silver nor any manner of riches of you"
(Mosiah 2:12) -- no elite markers for the king, and no tax structure!
He has not imprisoned anyone, or allowed slavery to exist; in fact, as he catalogues the things he
has not done, he is also listing things that were common in Maya city-states, and probably in
Mulekite culture before the coming of the Nephites.
When Benjamin reminds them that he has labored with his own hands, instead of taxing them, he
may be telling us exactly why the Mulekite people embraced Nephite leadership!
Then, as part of the gospel of salvation, King Benjamin lays out a set of social rules based on
providing for and sharing with others (Mosiah 4:16-19, 23-26).
Through the rest of the Book of Mormon, we see a constant struggle against the development of
elites. When the people become wicked in their prosperity, it almost always takes the form of
the rich persecuting the poor.
One has only to think of money-loving Ammonihah and the elitist Zoramites to get the point --
these cultures were distinct from the Nephite people who were actually living the gospel, but
they no doubt would look perfectly ordinary to archaeologists of today.
When the gospel is lived in its perfection, elites disappear entirely (4 Ne 3, 16-17). The end of
the golden age is marked by the reestablishment of distinctions between the rich and poor (4 Ne
24-26).
In other words, when Nephites are at their best, they would virtually disappear as a state from the
archaeological record.
Add to that the fact that "none other people knoweth our language" (Mormon 9:34), which may
refer only to the language in which they kept their records, and we might find that Nephite
culture does not show up in any distinctive way to archaeologists.
Nephite culture overlaps with Mayan history only in the era right before Mormon's own time,
after the collapse of the egalitarian golden age that began with the coming of Christ. At that
time, the great city of Teotihuacan in Mexico ("the land northward"?) imposed its power over
one of the greatest Mayan cities of the time, deposing a king and replacing him with a puppet.
At that time, the "Nephites" (remember that this term no longer had its pre-Christ meaning) had
close connections in the land northward; it was in the land northward that Ammaron had hidden
the ancient records that he entrusted to Mormon.
Might it not be possible that, like the ancient Israelites in Egypt during the Hyksos era, the
Nephites had become closely tied with a foreign ruling class? When Mayan kings threw off the
rule of Teotihuacan and drove them back into the "land northward," might that not be a part of
what we're seeing in the life of Mormon?
The Nephites might have taken refuge in the land northward, where they had allies; but by the
time they tried to retake their southern homeland, Teotihuacan might have been so reduced in
power that the Nephites had only themselves to rely upon as they were ground up under the
conquering king Jacob of the Lamanites.
Once the Nephites ceased to exist as a nation, their memory would be expunged from Mayan
history as if they had never existed -- there are precedents.
The politics of the various Lamanite cities would have been meaningless to Mormon; he was
telling the history of the Nephites and their relationship with God. My point is merely that it is
easy to fit known Nephite history into Maya history during the few centuries when they overlap.
A society whose ideal was to keep even their kings from being distinguished by wealth, and
which then proceeded to replace kings with ordinary citizens elected to judgeships, is one that is
not going to show up very easily in the archaeological record.
Particularly if they otherwise looked like everybody else -- using the same tools, agriculture,
and building patterns.
And yet it is precisely that cultural difference that Mormon and Moroni stress for our benefit in
their abridgment. "Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing," says Moroni
(Mormon 8:35), and this may be the reason Mormon made sure we were told again and again
how destructive it is when the rich become puffed up in their pride.
Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's
Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and
younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools.
Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary
fantasy (Magic Street,Enchantment,Lost Boys), biblical novels (Stone Tables,Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker
(beginning with Seventh Son), poetry (An Open Book), and many plays and
scripts.
Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and
Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s.
Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs
plays. He also teaches writing and literature at Southern Virginia University.
Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife,
Kristine Allen Card, and their youngest child, Zina Margaret.