Nephites in the Heartland of USA - Part 1

This summer we were fortunate to take an amazing trip with Rod Meldrum to the heartland of America, meaning the middle of the United States of America - not mesoamerica!  We flew into Columbus, Ohio and started our tour there.  We flew home a week later from St. Louis, Missouri.  Here are some of the photos of what we saw and experienced. I will post photos in groups (by the day) for what we saw:

 The picture above is of an ancient indian throwing what is called Atl-atl.  The writing is a little blurry, but it is a spear or arrow about 5' long. At the end of the spear is a hole where a wooden point off the 2nd paddel he is holding is inserted. With a whip action of the wrist one can launch it about 300 yards with perfect accuracy! They added weights to it allow further force.  These are deadly.  I got to practice throwing one for about 20 minutes - I loved it.  I got better each time!

 We went to Flint Ridge. This is the area where most the of the indians got their Flint for their arrowheads. When you put heat to it they turned beautiful colors. Here is a photo of one of the arrows that a man was able to replicate. Beautiful!

 The above photo is of a survey that Squires and Davis did back in mid 1800's of all the mounds they found throughout Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, etc... and mapped each one. Today most of them are missing.  We got to see the Circle on the bottom right and the circle and square on the upper left.  This distance between the two circles is about 6 miles.  A subdivision and city sits in the middle of this now.  The circle and square (called the Great Octagon) in the upper left has a golf course through it all - so that is how it is being preserved.  These type of mounds are considered religious. In fact more like Temple grounds.  The designs were mounds of dirt 3 times taller than man and were massive!

 Here we are walking on the top of the ring of the circle. You can see the embankments on each side.

 Here we are standing on one of the shapes.  This is where they feel the Bountiful Temple could have been. You can really sense a strong spirit there.

 Here is where the University of  Cincinnati took the great octagon and mapped it with the moon. They knew astronomical alignments, etc...

Here are some religious artifacts found at the religious mounds. The stone in the middle is called the Decalogue Stone. It has block Hebrew around the outer edge on the back. It translates to the 10 Commandments. It was found in the case (on either side of it) in perfect condition.  The front left stone is a "key stone" they found. Once again writing on each side was in Hebrew and translates to :The Holy of Holies", "King of the Earth", "The Word of the Lord", and "The Laws of Jehovah".  These stones date back to 100 - 400 AD.