Merry Christmas and the latest news

Several things are happening right now. You may recall that the ominous date of 21 December 2012 is almost here. What will the end of this cycle of the Maya calendar bring? (spoiler: nothing, really) Daniel has been invited back to the PRT Paranormal Talk podcast to talk about it on this auspicious night. The host, Phillip Pearse, has a copy of An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica to give to a lucky caller. Tune in to listen to the show live this Friday at 9:00 pm Pacific time.

Jeff Lindsay of the Mormanity blog has written a nice review of our latest book, An LDS Guide to the Yucatán. Click here to read it. Mormanity is a nice site with thought-provoking articles about Book of Mormon and other general Church topics.

For those of you who were not able to attend the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum's conference this year, it was recorded and the videos have been uploaded to YouTube when they are ready. Daniel's presentation took a while because there were so many graphics to include along with the video, but he has been working with the video editor and it appears to be ready. Click here to watch his presentation on Hard Evidence for Horses in Ancient America.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all! Remember that Daniel's headlining cruise with CruiseLady to the Yucatán earlier this year that was canceled has been reschedule. If you would like to go, plan on September of 2013. That should give you some time to get ready. More details will be forthcoming.

Click here to listen to Paranormal Talk.
Click here to read the book review on Mormanity.
Click here to watch Daniel's presentation at this year's BMAF conference.

Radio spots this month

November has been a busy month for Daniel. A lot of radio and podcast shows had him scheduled to appear as a guest. On the 2nd, he appeared on the Spiritually Raw podcast as part of on episode entitled Alpha to Omega. A number of guests were scheduled for short interviews about their particular specialties. Daniel was up first and fielded some challenging questions. That episode is now online and listeners vote for which guest they want to have back on for a full-length interview. If you would like to hear Daniel back on, go to the website and vote!

On the 23rd, Daniel was invited to be a guest on Tehilla Radio in Trinidad and Tobago. The show is called The Truth Forum with host Irvin Paddier. This is a Caribbean Christian radio show, working at spreading the word of God in that part of the world. The appearance had been scheduled earlier in the month, but had to be changed because of some technical difficulties. This was Daniel's first time on a radio show broadcast from outside the U.S. Aside from some minor audio snags, it went fine and was an interesting experience. We do not know if this interview was recorded and will be available later, but we will let you know if we receive any new information.

Earlier this week on Monday the 26th, Daniel was on PRT Paranormal Talk, a podcast based in Riverside, CA with Phillip Pearse. As you might guess from the name of the show, it deals just with paranormal and other mysterious topics. Phillip was curious to hear the Mormon view about topics like hauntings, cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, and other such things. Obviously, we have something to say about some of these subjects, but others are left to speculation. Daniel and Phillip had a great conversation and we will be sending Phillip a copy of An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica for him to give away in a contest that he holds between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Click here to listen.

As you can see, the appearance on Strange Days Indeed was just the last in a long line of spots Daniel did this month. Currently, nothing new is scheduled, but several of these guests have asked him if he would be willing to come on again and hosts from other shows have expressed interest as well. As always, we will keep you updated on what eventually happens.

Click here to listen to Alpha and Omega on Spiritually Raw.
Click here to register and vote for Daniel.
Click here to listen to PRT Paranormal Talk.

More radio show guest spots

Tonight, Daniel is scheduled to appear on the podcast Strange Days Indeed with host Cara Marie. This appearance was planned quite a while ago, so he is excited that it is finally here. The show can be found at the Blog Talk Radio website. Strange Days Indeed Radio is dedicated to exploring how God and Spirit work in our lives. Cara  has a lot of questions and topics she wants to talk about, so Daniel is looking forward to having a stimulating discussion with Cara and her listeners.

Daniel has been quite busy with radio and podcast interviews these days, including one a few days ago to The Truth Forum, a show broadcast from the country of Trinidad and Tobago. As these shows get archived and available, we will post links to them so that you can listen at your convenience.

Click here to listen to Strange Days Indeed Radio with Cara Marie live.

Get our new book for Kindle, or not

An LDS Guide to the Yucatán is now available as a direct download for Kindle from Amazon.com. We were very excited to receive this news; now both books can be downloaded digitally. However, we must admit that we were a bit disappointed with the results. Viewed on a Kindle Fire, the download from Amazon.com leaves a lot to be desired. All of the information is there, but it seems that the Kindle format is not so great for graphics-intensive publications. Many of the pictures are distorted, some are incorrect, and the whole look of the original book is lost. If you buy the Kindle version, hoping it looks like An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica, you'll be in for a bit of a surprise. Our original files look good, but something happened in the conversion process for the Kindle format.

They are supposed to be correcting some mistakes, but until they do some major improvements to the format, it just won't look that good on Kindle. If you already have our first book, then getting the Kindle version so you can have the info with you digitally is a good idea, but to really see An LDS Guide to the Yucatán as we intended, we recommend you purchase and download it directly from Cedar Fort. They will e-mail you a PDF, so it can be viewed on any device, even on a (gasp) computer. The PDF keeps all the correct formatting and you can zoom in to see more detail on the pictures and graphics. If you haven't already done so, buy it and enjoy it today! For those of you interested in Daniel's presentation at this year's BMAF conference, much of it is found in the chapter on the Caves of Loltún.

Click here to buy the book as a PDF from Cedar Fort.
If you must, click here to buy the Kindle version from Amazon.com.

Ancient Maya golden tablets lost in Guatemala?

During his recent visit to Utah, Daniel heard about a German researcher who says that texts in ancient Mayan tell of a record on gold tablets. Dr. Lund also mentioned it as part of his keynote address at the recent BMAF conference. Supposedly, gold tablets on which the Maya recorded their laws are now buried under the waters of Lake Izabal in Guatemala. This amazing information comes from writings in the Dresden Codex and was deciphered by Joachim Rittsteig.

A story this revolutionary bears further scrutiny, so Daniel decided to check it out. Described as an expert in Mayan writing and professor emeritus at Dresden University, Joachim Rittsteig has been studying the Dresden Codex, one of only four books in Mayan that survived widespread destruction and book-burning by Diego de Landa and other early Catholic priests during the conquest. After 40 years of study, Rittsteig claims that page 52 of this folded Mayan book, named for the city in which it currently resides, holds the key to the location of 2,156 gold tablets, weighing a total of eight tons and buried in a stone box. Rittsteig believes the tablets were housed at the mythical city of Atlan on the shore that sank into Lake Izabal during an earthquake in AD 1224. Amid a considerable amount of controversy, he headed an expedition in 2011 to the lake, but ended up not finding anything significant.

Joachim is actually a retired math professor, who has had a lifelong interest in Maya history and has written about it. His study of the codex has been on his own, apparently without any formal training. The Dresden Codex was discovered in 1739 in the possession of an anonymous rich man in Vienna. It was donated to the Saxon State Library in Dresden, and is considered the most complete of the Mayan codices and the oldest known book from the Americas. It was written in the 11th or 12th centuries AD around Chichén Itzá and may be a copy of an original text from 300 or 400 years earlier. Many credentialed Maya scholars have condemned Rittsteig and his methods. The general scholarly consensus is that the codices contain religious and calendric information. Its astronomical tables are very accurate and many of its signs are numeric, but no one apart from Rittsteig believes it is a treasure map. Because of damage during WWII and reconfiguring of the pieces, there is some confusion as to the correct page numbering. As best as we can tell, page 52 is shown here.

On the topic of the codices and how much they can tell us of ancient Maya culture, we turn to the words of Michael Coe, a very accomplished and renowned Maya scholar, whose quotes have often been used by critics of the Book of Mormon as evidence against it. In his book, The Maya, he wrote, "Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim's Progress)."

So, did the late-Classic Maya of the Yucatán write their laws on golden tablets that were kept in a city in central Guatemala? Would they have written about it in a book with tables for the Moon and Venus, locations of the Rain God, and ceremonial instructions? That remains to be seen. While we find the whole idea a bit suspect, the the idea of important writing on gold tablets in Mesoamerica from a non-LDS source is worth considering. If not from deciphering the codex, where did he get that idea?

Click here to read an article about Rittsteig and his expedition.
Click here to see a German page with a description of the gold tablets.

Back from this year's BMAF conference

Daniel and Derek were at this year's Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum's annual conference. There were some great speakers this time and some very insightful information was shared. The conference was held at the Salt Lake Sheraton again, but this time the room was expanded for a larger audience. Daniel was the final speaker and his presentation on Hard Evidence for Horses in Ancient America was well received. The event was recorded, and video is being made available on the Internet. We will let you know if any of Daniel's talk will be uploaded and viewable.

The day before the conference, Daniel had a full schedule, meeting with LDS travel agencies, visiting the office of a new online bookstore, and being interviewed by Mills Crenshaw on his radio show, Drive Time Live. Among the callers was Carl, a self-professed atheist or ex-Mormon who was rather antagonistic toward any suggestion that there was any supporting evidence for the Book of Mormon. Daniel did his best to answer the barrage of accusations thrown his way, but did it make any difference? Probably not. Listen to the show and decide for yourself.

The first video to be completed is of Kirk Magelby's presentation on the history of Book of Mormon research. John Welch joined him for an interesting exchange.

Click here to listen to Daniel on Drive Time Live with Mills Crenshaw.
Click here to watch Kirk Magelby and John Welch's presentation.

What's in our books

We've had some questions lately about what is in the new book, An LDS Guide to the Yucatán. Is the information new? If you already have An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica, do you need the new one? Our answer is yes. The new book is about a completely different trip to Mexico, concentrating on sites just in the Yucatán Peninsula. It also has some good supplemental info. Here is a list of the sites covered: Ek Balam, Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Loltún Caves, Kabah, Xpujil, Calakmul, Becán, and Cobá

There are also chapters on traveling in Mexico, 2012 and the Maya calendar, a pronunciation guide and timeline specific to this area, and appendices with information on sites and studies we have done since this visit.

In addition to the chapters about why we look to Mesoamerica as likely Book of Mormon lands, historical similarities, a pronunciation guide and timeline specific to this area, and info on traveling in Guatemala and crossing its borders into neighboring countries, An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica contains chapters on these sites: Kaminaljuyú, Lake Atitlán, Yaxchilán, Bonampak, Palenque, Tikal, Yaxhá, Quiriguá, and Copán

Nothing has been duplicated; it's all new! Hopefully, this clears up any confusion.

Daniel scheduled to be a guest on a Utah radio show

On Friday 19 October, Daniel is scheduled to be an in-studio guest on Mills Crenshaw's radio show, Drive Time Live. The show airs at 3:00 pm Mountain Time on KTALK AM630 in Utah. This opportunity came about because the producer for the show heard and called in to speak with Daniel during his appearance on Mormon Miscellaneous in August.

He is looking forward to talking about the new book, his latest research, and the BMAF conference the next day. This will be his first time in a radio studio, so it should be an interesting experience.

Click here to see the schedule on Mills Crenshaw's blog.

Daniel speaks on Simply Spiritual Solutions

Recently, Daniel was contacted and asked to be the guest on an Internet radio show called Simply Spiritual Solutions. The host is Dr. Lisa Hurtt and she discusses spiritual and paranormal topics with her guests. There wasn't time to make a new post about it, because the request came with short notice, but Daniel is always eager to accept these opportunities, so he said yes. There wasn't much time to prepare, but he had a very enjoyable time talking with Dr. Hurtt about LDS doctrine and teachings concerning the pre-existence, the spirit world, and our purpose on earth. We are always surprised by the amount of interest that exists in what are really just basic doctrines of our church. More radio show hosts and producers have contacted Daniel to schedule him on future shows, so we will keep you informed when that happens. Even though the topics covered don't relate directly to our studies into Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon, Daniel is still more than happy to talk to anyone who will listen (as usual).

Click here to listen to an archive of the show.

An LDS Guide to the Yucatán is now available!

We are pleased to announce that our new book, An LDS Guide to the Yucatán, is now available for download as an e-book from Cedar Fort's website. It is a multi-page, fully formatted color PDF, so it can be read on most computers, tablets, and mobile devices. As you can see, Cedar Fort's designers have once again produced a beautiful cover, worthy of the exciting information contained inside.Those familiar with the beautiful images and informative graphics from our first book should easily recognize and appreciate our latest effort, which continues with the same look and format.

An LDS Guide to the Yucatán will soon be available directly for Kindle, Nook, and other formats. We will keep you informed as to when that happens. And for those of you who are already into digital books, An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica is now available for Kindle, directly from Amazon.com.

Click here to purchase An LDS Guide to the Yucatán from Cedar Fort.
Click here to purchase An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica for Kindle.

A busy October

There is a lot to announce this month. First is the Book of Mormon Annual Conference on the 20th. Daniel has been asked to be the final speaker. His topic will be Hard Evidence of Horses in Ancient America. Originally, he had planned on headlining a cruise to Book of Mormon lands this week, but that has been rescheduled for next year. However, for him speaking at the conference is almost as much fun. Click the image for a larger view of the program.

As you can see, there are some great presenters this year, as always. The keynote speaker is LDS author and scholar John Lund, so this will be a great event. Afterwards, Daniel and Derek are putting together a fireside at Derek's home in Bountiful.

Daniel is scheduled to be an in-studio guest for a Utah radio show on Friday the 19th, and there is news on the new book's availability. More to come soon.

Click here for more conference details and registration at the BMAF website.

Radio show archives are up

Daniel's spot as a guest on Mormon Miscellaneous is archived and available to listen or download. He had a good time answering questions from various callers that evening. Some unusual ideas were presented and some callers were very adamant about their positions. It just goes to show that many conflicting theories are out there among members of the Church. There is still a lot of opportunity to share the latest scholarship for discussion and comparison.

Click here to listen to the show.

Daniel on an LDS radio show this Sunday

Daniel has been in touch with Van Hale, host of the Mormon Miscellaneous Talk Show on K-TALK 630 AM and has been invited to be his guest this Sunday. The show airs 26 August at 5:00 pm, Mountain Standard time. It should be an interesting time as Daniel will be talking about our new book and a lot of the research that went into it. Also, expect somewhat of preview of the topic he will be sharing at this year's Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum's conference in October.

Be sure to tune in. If you are not in Utah, the show can be accessed from the station's website.

Click here to listen to K-TALK 630 AM on the Internet.

Some bad news and some good news

First, the bad: the tour with Cruise Lady this year has been cancelled. The ship was filling up and the lower rate was lost for this excursion. But Cruise Lady is still interested in having Daniel headline a cruise, so they have scheduled one for him next year in September. If you had wanted to go on this one but did not have the time now, start thinking about next year! It should be very fun and informative.

Also, the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum had invited Daniel to give a presentation at this year's conference. Initially, he had to turn it down because it conflicted with the cruise, but since he now has that time open and the BMAF still has a spot available, he will be speaking there this year. This will be a good time to let people know about An LDS Guide to the Yucatán, which should be ready and out by then. We have finished our initial layout and sent the files to our publisher, Cedar Fort. They are now working on proofing and editing the text. We are very excited to have completed this second book and look forward to getting the word out and talking to all those who are interested. Our contact at the publisher has some good ideas about promoting it, so stay tuned for more info.

New article about Cancuén

The Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum has published an article written by Daniel from our upcoming book. It is taken from from the chapter on the Guatemalan site of Cancuén. A full PDF can be downloaded from our blog, but the BMAF's site has a nice, condensed page where you can quickly get an overview of this interesting site.

Daniel has also been asked by the BMAF to give a presentation on horses in ancient America at their conference this fall. Stay tuned for more info.

Click here to read the Cancuén article at the BMAF's website.

Native American traditions about horses

Things on the blog have been quiet as we are furiously working on finishing up our new book this month. But here is some information we felt was important to share. Daniel has been gathering research that supports the existence of horses on the American continent for much longer than is commonly believed. Look for the chapter on the Loltún Caves in An LDS Guide to the Yucatán for data on horse bones, including radiocarbon dating, stratigraphic excavations, and more.

But perhaps an overlooked area of support for indigenous ancient American horses is found in Native traditions about them. Many Native American tribes adapted very quickly to the use of horses once they were reintroduced by European conquerors. Was this something they were already familiar with culturally?

Click here for a page with articles supporting the idea that horses were here before Columbus.

Guest on a paranormal radio show

In a surprising turn of events, Daniel contacted a paranormal-themed radio show based in Massachusetts, Spooky Southcoast. His purpose was to see if they were interested in an LDS perspective on topics like ghosts, hauntings, life after death, angels, and so on. They responded quite quickly and thought it would be a great idea for a show, since Mormons are in the news a lot these days and no one seems to know what our take on these topics is.

He was invited to be the guest on their 7 April live show. Daniel was kept on for an hour and a half, answering many questions on the origin of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, missions, the Word of Wisdom, temples and other core LDS beliefs, instead of many of the topics he had prepared. There was still a substantial amount of time to discuss the nature of spirits, the pre-existence, ministering of angels, life on other planets, and so on, but there seemed to be a great deal of interest in our basic beliefs. Daniel was also able to talk about the books and the experiences and research that led to them. We hope this was an enlightening experience for all involved. Daniel had a good time and the hosts were quite pleasant and sincere. In fact, he wouldn't mind doing this again.

Click here to listen to the audio archive.
Click here to listen to a podcast in iTunes.

Evidence for horses receives attention

Daniel's recent article about horse bones from the Yucatán has been attracting attention on the Internet. Someone posted it on the LDS Freedom Forum and got a response from Steven Jones, who used to be a professor at BYU. He and another professor, Wade Miller, have done research including DNA testing and Carbon-14 dating on other ancient horse remains from the Americas. The findings show that horses unrelated to the European varieties brought by the Spanish were here before Columbus. There is some good information in these posts and links to other helpful articles as well.

Daniel registered with the forum and added some replies to the topics being discussed. He is also in contact with Professors Jones and Miller to see what other work they have done in this area. A lot is coming to light these days that supports the existence of horses in ancient America for a long time, not just before the last Ice Age.


Click here to read the posts at the LDS Freedom Forum.

Come on an adventure in Book of Mormon lands

We have some exciting news to announce. Daniel has been contacted by Cruise Lady, an LDS tour company, to headline their cruise and tour to Book of Mormon lands this fall. The cruise ship leaves from Port Canaveral in Florida on 13 October and returns on the 20th. The ship stops at ports in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, and Honduras. Maya sites visited will be Tulum, Lamanai, and Chacchobén. While at sea, Daniel will be giving presentations and firesides on these lands and their connection to Book of Mormon themes.

If you have ever thought about taking a cruise to these areas, this October is your chance! The presentations will be great opportunities to bring up and discuss all your questions and comments on these topics. Daniel will also be offering free, signed and personalized copies of An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica to the tour guests, one per household. He will also be discussing our new book, which will be out as an eBook by that time.

Daniel will accompany the group on all tours and activities on land to add insights to the sights we visit. This promises to be a great vacation and learning experience. The cruise price is based on double occupancy and the prices are quite reasonable. In order for this tour to happen, enough people need to sign up, so we are trying to get the word out. If you know someone who would like a trip like this, let them know as well. Click the image above for a larger view of the trip's details and prices.

Click here for a detailed page on this tour at Cruise Lady's site.

Continuing research sheds new light

We have been working on updating and writing new content for the new book, as the deadline is quickly approaching. In looking into hard-to-find scientific publications about the digs and excavations at Loltún and other caves in the Yucatán, Daniel has found some fascinating information about the large animals that lived in the Americas anciently. It is now known (or should be) that animals like horses and early elephants (mammoths), lived in this hemisphere during the last Ice Age. The common belief is that they all died out around 10,000 BC as the result of climate change, but additional findings keep contradicting that date and it keeps getting later and later. The Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum sent out an excerpt taken from the chapter on the Loltún Cave that will be in An LDS Guide to the Yucatán. Here is the article as written by Daniel:

In 1895, Henry Mercer explored 29 caves in the Yucatán looking for evidence of prehistoric habitation. In the Loltún Cave and others he found the bones of many ancient animals, but no fossils. Between this dig and 1977, ancient horse bones have been found in the Huechil Grotto at Loltún. Exactly how they got there is unknown, but it is probable that they were brought there by ancient inhabitants, since it is believed that early man hunted native horses. Because these bones are not fossilized, there is a limit to how old they might be. A tantalizing (but rarely mentioned) sidenote is that the horse remains in some caves were found alongside potsherds and other man-made artifacts. 

It should be recognized that on the subject of horses, the Book of Mormon was actually ahead of its time. If it had been written according to the knowledge of the day, horses would not have appeared within its pages at all. From time to time, apparently ancient horse teeth or bones had been found in North America, but they were usually dismissed or ignored. The existence of ancient, indigenous horses on the American continent was only first accepted in 1848, when Richard Owen described a fossil horse from South America. The first scientific paper on ancient horses in the Americas was published that same year by Joseph Leidy. But now, horse fossils, bones, and teeth have been found in North, Central, and South America. Many varieties of ancient American horse are known, including the Western Horse (Equus occidentalis), the Mexican Horse (Equus conversidens), the Yukon Horse (Equus lambei), Scott’s Horse (Equus scotti), and the Complex-tooth Horse (Equus complicatus). Some of these varieties were quite large, growing to the size of modern species. The remains found in the Yucatán have been classified as E. occidentalis and E. conversidens. All of these horses are now extinct, but the question of when and why they became extinct remains. It is now believed that horses, elephants, and other large animals evolved in the Americas first before migrating over the Bering Land Bridge to Asia long ago. Why they flourished there and died out here is still a mystery, especially for horses, which have thrived in the wilds of North and South America since being re-introduced by Europeans.

The bones and artifacts found in 1977 in two lateral extensions of the Huechil Grotto in the Loltún Cave, known as El Túnel and El Toro, have been described by Dr. Peter Schmidt of INAH as ‘problematic’ and ‘complicated.’ Unfortunately, very few details about the findings have been published. Most of the data come from stratigraphic excavations in El Toro. Labeled I to XVI, the levels represent the caves’ chronology, with I being the most recent and XVI the most ancient. Bones and bony fragments of Pleistocene megafauna have been found in most of El Toro’s levels, but the only published radiocarbon dating comes from levels VII and VIII. Taken from various pieces of charcoal, the date is 1805 bc, with an error of +/- 150 years, well after the Ice Age. But this is not all. ‘Sadly,’ as Dr. Schmidt laments, 44 horse bone fragments have been recovered from levels VII to II, all supposedly from earlier time periods and also containing Maya Classic and Preclassic ceramics! His article exclaims that something has happened in Loltún that is still hard to explain: The survival of extinct animals like the Mexican Horse may need to be extended to the beginnings of the ceramic era, which would not please paleontologists.

This and other hard evidence of pre-Columbian horses means that we should not be too apologetic about their appearance in the Book of Mormon, nor do we have to go to extraordinary lengths to explain them. There are still some controversial elements in the scriptural record that we may never be able to explain, but the existence of horses in Ancient America is not one of them. 

The BMAF also linked back to an earlier article on their site Daniel had written for them about horses and the Book of Mormon. These articles are apparently getting a lot of positive attention. This and much more, including photos and graphics, will be in our upcoming e-book, due out this spring. Daniel is also working on a new exciting venture that we will let you know about soon. 2012 should be an exciting year!

Click here to read the article on horses at the BMAF website.

What awaits us in 2012

Happy New Year! The year of the end of the world is upon is! Or is it? Many things are being said about 2012, but is there really a reason to worry? What did the ancient Maya believe about the upcoming date of 21 December 2012? Not to share the secret too early, but we are not that concerned. Rather, we are quite excited about this year. The Book of Mormon is the topic in Gospel Doctrine classes this year and our new book, An LDS Guide to the Yucatán, will be coming out in electronic format this spring.

One of its chapters will deal with Maya dates and the significance of 2012. For those who can't wait, the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum has published the content of this chapter on their website. It has some really good information, based on the research of prominent Maya scholars, about this topic. It also gives some clues that suggest the Maya calendrical system may have been in use by Book of Mormon peoples.

To read the article at the BMAF's website, click here.