Source:Nibley:CW06:Ch2:9

Writing on plates is difficult

Writing on plates is difficult

Writing on plates was, as the Book of Mormon reports (Jacob 4:1), a difficult business:

An interesting fact revealed by this plate is the way in which copperplates were inscribed. The matter was first written out in ink on the plate, and when the ink dried the engraver cut the written letters into the metal. . . . Here the engraver was manifestly incapable, for only the first line has been carved and most of the letters in it are bungled. There can be little doubt that, as his work was so unsatisfactory the incision of the rest was given up and the plate was accepted as it was, written only in ink.[1]

Notes

  1. Hugh W. Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 3rd edition, (Vol. 6 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by John W. Welch, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), Chapter 2, citing Frederick E. Pargiter, "A Copperplate Discovered at Kasia, and Buddha's Death Place," JRAS (1913), 152—53..