Bat Creek Inscription - Recent Commentary

Recent Commentary

In their earlier work, Mainfort and Kwas had suggested that Emmert planted the stone (with his own attempt at an inscription) to amplify his own credibility, because he recently had been fired and rehired by the Smithsonian. Cyrus Thomas had been working on a pet theory that stated that the builders of prehistoric mounds in America were ancestors of the Cherokee, and Mainfort and Kwas suggest Emmert planted the stone with this in mind (i.e., a Cherokee-esque inscription in a pre-Cherokee tomb). They also presented evidence showing Thomas may have doubted the stone's authenticity. In 2004 they published an article in American Antiquity showing an inscription in an 1870 Masonic reference book that bore striking similarities to the Bat Creek inscription. The Masonic inscription was an artist's impression of how "Holy to Yahweh" might have appeared in Paleo-Hebrew. Mainfort and Kwas suggested that Emmert probably based the Bat Creek inscription on this earlier Masonic inscription. The following year, McCulloch (in an article published on his website) noted that while there were similarities between the two inscriptions, they weren't exact matches, and that there was evidence that inscriptions similar to the Masonic inscriptions occurred in ancient times.

Mandel Cook released a book in 2011 through POL Publishing entitled Bat Creek Stone: At a Glance, which discusses the possible identity of those accused of being the stone's forger. It includes information based on historian Lowell Kirk's theory of local engraver Luther Meade Blackman creating the stone.