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Was the Liahona, in Part, a Magnetic Compass?
(Part 3-B)
By Alan C. Miner

In a book published in 1970, Bill Eyster[i] writes that anciently lodestone or magnetite was found more or less where any good iron ore was found.  Then he adds something interesting, especially for Book of Mormon readers. He writes:

The truth about lodestones is that they found man and not the opposite.  Some people believe that the particular man they found was a camel driver.  The ugly little brown stones that found him were stuck to the iron nails in his camel’s shoe.  Nothing can express righteous indignation better than a camel with little stones sticking to his feet and the camel let his driver know it in no uncertain terms! [ii]

Hugh Nibley, the Hiltons, the Astons, George Potter and Richard Wellington have all proposed that Lehi and Nephi traveled down through Arabia on the caravan trade route known as the Frankincense trail.  This trail had branches that conveyed this precious substance from Oman northward into Babylonia, Egypt, Israel, Asia Minor and other parts of the Near East. 

These routes not only brought trade, but communication to those living vast distances from one another.  In those circumstances, stories related by the numerous camel drivers about these lodestones could have reached to all parts of the trail.

Strangely Eyster discounts the idea that a compass would have any use in caravan trade, noting that the camels “went from one water hole to the next” and that “It is almost impossible to get the lead camel to do anything else,[iii] (an idea that LDS writers from the Hiltons [iv] to George Potter and Richard Wellington[v] to Nephi might argue against). 

Moreover, Eyster discounts the traditional idea that the rudimentary mariners compass consisted of a piece of lodestone floating on a piece of wood in a bowl of water.  While there were too many problems with this technique for him, Eyster notes that what really does work is simply suspending a piece of lodestone on a string – it will always point north – and that historians acknowledge that “At a very early time, the Chinese knew that.” [vi]    

But then he sarcastically states that, “There may have been a period of one thousand to five thousand years in which the lodestone was used for nothing except to entertain the kids inside the house on rainy days.” [vii]

The idea of a stone or stones helping in navigation sparked my search for clues.  The next bit of material came from Clate Mask, a friend of mine who I had accompanied on a number of trips to Central America related to the location of Book of Mormon lands. 

We had both been missionaries there and we both had an interest in Book of Mormon geography and culture, and so our mutual interest led us there in order to seek some perspectives and to renew our love for that region.  Upon returning from our trips we would write papers on various topics related to our experiences and exchange them. 

In one of his papers, Clate Mask noted the existence of a Central American Maya-Cakchiquel document called Annals of the Xahils that related their origins.  It explains that their original ancestors had a special instrument to help them in their travels: the Chay Abah, or Obsidian Stone, which speaks and tells them to go across the sea where they will find their hills and plains, their riches and their government. 

The translator says that the real meaning of Obsidian Stone is “Stone that Speaks” or “Oracle Stone.”  The translator calls the Chay Abah Obsidian Stone because the Maya-Quiche mistakenly called it that.

To avoid further confusion, he also calls it Obsidian Stone (but it really means “Stone that Speaks”). [viii]  

The Quiche-Maya Indians [also from Central America] had two histories with similarities to the Cakchiquel tribe.  Dated shortly after the conquest of Guatemala in 1524 A.D, they were written in their own language but with the European alphabet.  

However, both versions were hidden away and were not translated into English until the 1950’s.  The English translations of the titles are Title of the Lords of Totonicapan and Popol Vuh, the Sacred Book of the Quiche Maya. 

The two histories are complementary.  The Totonicapan version tells of four great leaders bringing their people from the other side of the sea, from Pa-Tulan, Pa-Civan.  The leader chosen was Balam-Quitze.  Before leaving he was given a present by the god Nacxit.  It was called the Giron-Gagal.  Taking it with him, by miraculous means Balam-Quitze was able to lead his people across the sea.  The Giron-Gagal, or sacred bundle, was a symbol of the power and majesty of the Quiches. [ix]  

As I read this material I asked myself, could a lodestone related instrument which “spoke” through magnetic movement have been what the Maya-Cakchiquel Indians of Central America referred to in their legends?  Could the Giron-Gagal, as the Quiche-Maya called it, have been the Liahona? 

I continued my search and came across a report of Mesoamerican research in which the following is stated:

Michael Coe of Yale University, a top authority on ancient Mesoamerica, has suggested that the Olmecs of Veracruz, Mexico, were using magnetite compasses already in the second millennium B.C.  This is based on Coe’s discovery during excavations at San Lorenzo-Tenochtitlan of a magnetite “pointer” which appeared to have been “machined,” and which Coe placed on a cork mat in a bowl of water in a successful test of its function as a true floater-compass.[x]
In view of these findings and the native legends, I asked, was this knowledge of magnetism at least by the second millennium B.C. internally developed in America or did it come from across the sea?   In the Middle East Gilgamesh epic dating from the third millennium B.C. there is a passage in which the sailor Urshanabi says to the king:
 “Gilgamesh, your own hands have prevented you from crossing the ocean; when you destroyed the things of stone, you destroyed the safety of the boat.”  Gilgamesh protests: “Why are you so angry with me, Urshanabi, for you yourself cross the sea by day and night, at all seasons you cross it.”  Urshanabi replies: “it was those very stones that brought me safely over.” [xi]

I asked myself, could pieces of lodestone have been the “things of stone” which were used by Urshanabi and destroyed by Gilgamesh many thousands of years ago? 

My mind also went back to the remark of Bill Ester concerning the Chinese that “There may have been a period of one thousand to five thousand years in which the lodestone was used for nothing except to entertain the kids inside the house on rainy days. [xii]   While it might have been flippant in nature, it still begged some questions:

  1. What were the specific reasons why a period of between one to five thousand years had elapsed between the invention of the compass in China and its use by the Chinese in navigation?
  2. Why didn’t this knowledge of the compass reach Europe before the 12th century? and
  3. Why is there a lack of ancient written contemporary Chinese sources on the subject? 

In my search for answers, I was drawn again to the writings of Amir Aczel.  In a similar manner to those authors that I have previously quoted in Part 2, Aczel writes of the ancient knowledge of magnetism by the Chinese:

The Chinese have known the lodestone and its mysterious properties since early antiquity.  And while the lodestone’s ability to attract metal was well known in the Mediterranean, the Chinese also understood the lodestone’s direction-seeking property.

An early story known to have been written about 806 B.C. describes the palace of Ch’in Shi Huang Ti.  The palace had what must have been the first metal-detection system in the world.  The entire gate of the palace was made of lodestone, and anyone who tried to enter the palace bearing concealed iron weapons would be detected because of the great magnetic pull of the gate and immediately arrested. 

The Iron Age in China began around 800 B.C.  During this period, bone needles were replaced by iron ones, and the Chinese first noticed that the lodestone attracted the iron needles.  Chinese authors have asserted that the understanding of magnetic phenomena led the Chinese to invent the magnetic compass as far back as the first century A.D., or even earlier. [xiii]

While Amir Aczel does not mention or comment upon some of the earlier dates for the use of magnetism that I have cited previously in this paper, he does seem to allow for the advent of the magnetic compass in China “as far back as the first century A.D., or even earlier.”   Nevertheless, the only dates that he can verify come from contemporary sources in the early 12th century. 

Thus despite the evidence that he himself gives for the ancient use of magnetism by the Chinese, Azcel has to state that “The first Chinese reference to the use of the magnetic compass in navigation appears only around [A.D.] 1111-17, in the book Phing-Chou Kho T’an, which refers to events from [A.D.] 1086 onward.” [xiv]   

In other words, as Aczel himself demonstrates, one of the problems in extending knowledge of the lodestone in navigation back to ancient times is the lack of contemporary sources or manuscripts.  Preserving metal is one thing, trying to preserve paper is quite another. 

Interestingly, in relation to this lack of contemporary sources, Aczel brings to light a number of other contributing factors, one of the more interesting being secrecy.  He writes:

Although the evidence we have shows that the Chinese used the compass in divination before they used it for navigation, we might not have the full story.  It is possible that the compass was used in navigation long before the first records we have found of such use.  We know that the Chinese considered their invention of the compass secret …  [Thus] the Chinese may have kept their uses of the compass aboard ships secret until late in the eleventh century [A.D.]. [xv]   

Another factor has to do with lack of communication.  Azcel notes that from the days of Alexander the Great (4th century B.C.) there were no connections between the West and China.  The Crusades further impeded communications.  On the other hand, he writes that “Arab mariners sailed to China until the closing of Chinese ports in 878.” [xvi]  

Aczel notes that perhaps one overlooked factor related to the lack of knowledge concerning China’s ancient use of the magnetic compass has to do with its connection to divination.  In other words, because the compass was used by the Chinese in divination, much of the information about the compass was destroyed.  He clarifies:

Unfortunately, much knowledge about … the compass, which could have helped us greatly in understanding Chinese culture, has been lost forever.  This happened because of the interference in Chinese affairs by a foreign entity–the [Catholic] Church.  The Jesuits, who exerted control in China in the early seventeenth century, prohibited the reading of books on many subjects, including feng shue [divination arts which included magnetism], and Jesuit missionaries went so far as to order that books on these topics be burned. 
Thus, many immensely valuable Chinese books fell prey to the conflict between Western ignorance and Chinese learning.

Li Ying-shih, who was converted to Christianity in 1602, was a distinguished scholar who had amassed an impressive library with many books on divination on divination and feng shui.  He possessed important ancient manuscripts, which he had procured at great expense.  These books no doubt had much information on China’s civilization and culture and very likely contained details about the invention and use of the magnetic compass in divination. 

It took three days to burn all of Li Ying-Shih’s books.  Even the carved plates used in printing such books were burned by the Jesuits–to ensure that the banned books would never be printed again.  Thus the European ideal of “holy ignorance” closed forever the doors to knowledge about the origins of the greatest invention China has given the world. [xvii]

Thus, many “plain and precious things” written in manuscripts concerning the magnetic compass might have been purposely destroyed.  Other paper manuscripts might simply have decayed with time.

Aczel also adds an insightful glimpse into what hazards awaited information on the compass once it reached the European area (which by now had proclaimed itself the inventor of the magnetic compass).  He writes:

The historian Joseph Needham lamented the Western bias against the Chinese, saying, “there has also been the usual tendency to presuppose that nothing of real importance could have started outside Europe.”  He quoted a British source of the 1800s referring to the ancient Chinese descriptions of a compass as “legends,” while calling the late-twelfth-century European reference to the compass “science.”[xviii]

Thus, European bias, religious persecution, and pride, coupled with Arab and Chinese secrecy could have combined to prevent knowledge of the compass from flourishing in the West.

Concerning the advent of the compass in the European part of what would have been the biblical Western world, Aczel remarks that the compass was first mentioned in A.D. 1187, in the writings of an English Augustinian monk, Alexander Neckam (1157-1217). [xix]  

From St. Albans, Neckam described the workings of the compass, but provided no details on where or how he came by this information.  The first detailed description of a compass is said to have been made in A.D. 1269 by Petrus Peregrinus de Marincourt, a French Crusader.   He described a floating compass and a compass with a pivot point. [xx]    Aczel also gives some insights on how the tradition of the compass being invented in A.D. 1302 by an Italian at Amalfi came to be [xxi]

One more thing about the advent of the compass in the Western world before I summarize.  In order to give some additional perspective to the matter of early navigation and the compass, Aczel writes on the history of directions.  He notes that the first set of directions are known from the Bible.  There were four basic directions and they related to the geographical positioning of those lands and seas north-south-east-west from Israel. 

As maritime activity increased in the Mediterranean with the Phoenicians, these four directions expanded to eight, but were tied more to wind direction as the wind not only determined the direction from which power came to push their sails, but also the source and nature of the storms they encountered.  The number of directions changed from eight to twelve in classical antiquity.  These directions were depicted on what has come to be called a “wind rose” card, which was adopted as the background for the compass needle. 

The invention of the twelve-direction wind rose has been credited to Aristotle Timosthenes (250 B.C.) who was chosen by Ptolemy II, king of Egypt, to be the chief pilot of his navy.  Yet scholars have known that after the compass came into use, the wind rose was transformed to include sixteen directions, but they have not been able to trace those changes to a source.  Aczel cites the studies of Italian scholar Bachisio Cotzo, who in 1947 connected the sixteen-direction wind rose chronologically and culturally with the Etruscans in the Mediterranean. 

He notes that the first Etruscan contacts with the Phoenicians and the Greeks were made in the eighth century B.C.  From this culture emerged mystic cults in which priests were believed to hold magical powers and were able to prognosticate events.  In determining the origin (and execution) of these events, a sixteen-part directional system was developed in the Mediterranean area which dated to at least the 5th century B.C. and possibly as early as the eighth century B.C. 

These mystical practices became linked with the use of a magnetic device and thus the development of the compass came about.  “The instrument in its advanced form, used from the late thirteenth century onward, was based on a sixteen-point wind rose.” [xxii]    

So to sum up what I have covered in Parts 2 & 3, while the European invention and implementation of the sophisticated mechanical mariners compass is “scientifically” tied to the twelfth century, and the navigational use of lodestone by the Chinese (as far as contemporary records are concerned) is tied to late in the eleventh century, there are “legends” that supply cultural and chronological support for saying that magnetism might have reached Arabia by 600 B.C. – and thus perhaps played a part in the workings of the Liahona. 

To have a magnetic Liahona in the Book of Mormon might not be an anachronism after all. 

Furthermore, there is a probability that open sea vessels had been sailing the seas of the Indian Ocean (and perhaps beyond) since the third millennium B.C. and that those peoples on the southern coast of Arabia who were knowledgeable in navigation were associated with the brother of Jerah (Ophir) who came from the Tower of Babel.  Such information would also support rather than undermine the Book of Mormon narrative. 

However, in evaluating these “legends” against “science,” I am faced with the dilemma of trying to decide what is “true.”  In trying to solve this dilemma, I have come to the same questions, over and over: Have authorities missed some “facts”?  Can I trust “science” without question?  Have “facts” been overlooked or even destroyed in the name of authority?  Have some “facts” from ancient China or ancient America been dubbed “legends” and dismissed long ago by European scholars? 

On the other hand, have “facts” been fabricated by those who support the “legends”?  Can the “legends” be authenticated?  Do the secluded libraries in the Arabian peninsula or China hold any clues that might be brought to light?  At present I lack all the answers.  But while the puzzle of the Liahona may not yet be complete, at least for me, this investigation has opened up a number of possibilities for understanding the culture and geography of the Book of Mormon narrative relative to the Liahona.  And so the work goes on. 

(Continued In Part 4)

 Notes


[i] . Bill Eyster, Thataway: The Story of the Magnetic Compass.  South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1970.

[ii] . Eyster, Thataway: The Story of the Magnetic Compass, p. 27.  On page 28 Eyster has a nice picture of a camel illustrating this point.  The caption reads: “Nothing can express righteous indignation better than a camel with little stones sticking to his feet.”

[iii] . Eyster, p. 30.

[iv] . In their book, In Search of Lehi’s Trail, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976) the Hiltons write:

(1) The Liahona pointed ‘the way whither [they] should go into the wilderness’ (1 Nephi 16:10) as an indication to Lehi’s party that they should keep going south-southeast rather than embarking on the sea at that point or going east into the mountains.  This direction coincided with the relatively safe Frankincense trail. (2) However, the trail was as wide as the coastal plain-up to forty-eight miles at its widest point.  Caravans seeking camel fodder would, of course, use its entire width … [p. 73]

We should note that the word trail  is apt to be misleading.  It does not refer to a well-defined, relatively narrow path or roadway, but to a more general route that flowed through this valley, that canyon, etc.  The width of the route varied with the geography, ranging from a half mile to a dozen (even at one point up to fifty) miles wide.  Travelers could thus camp great distances from one another and still be at the same point on the same trail.[p. 32] 

[v] . George Potter and Richard Wellington, Lehi in the Wilderness, Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort Inc., 2003.

[vi] . Eyster, p. 29.

[vii] .  Ibid., p. 29.    Eyster’s reasoning in this last statement leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

[viii] .  Clate Mask, “And They Called the Place Tulan,” p. 4

[ix] .  David A. Palmer, In Search of Cumorah, p. 157.  See also Conference Report, 1954, p. 111;  Conference Report, April 1956, p. 52;  Conference Report, April 1970, p. 101.

[x] . J. B. Carlson, “Lodestone Compass: Chinese or Olmec Primacy?” Science 189 (September 5, 1975): 753-60; R. H. Fuson, “The Orientation of Mayan Ceremonial Centers,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 59 (September 1969): 508-10; E. C. Baity, “Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoasatronomy So Far,” Current Anthropology 14 (October 1973): 443.  As quoted in John W. Welch, “Lodestone and the Liahona,” in Reexploring the Book of Mormon, SLC: Deseret Book Co. and Provo: FARMS, 1992, p. 45 “based on research by Robert F. Smith, March 1984.”)

[xi] . Jim Bailey, Sailing to Paradise: The Discovery of the Americas by 7000 B.C., New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994, pp. 48, 50.

[xii] .  Eyster, p. 29.    Eyster’s reasoning in this last statement leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

[xiii] .  Aczel, p. 78. 

[xiv] .  Ibid., p. 86.

[xv] . Ibid., p.90.

[xvi] . Ibid., pp. 111-112.

[xvii] . Ibid., pp. 88-89.  I might comment here that with the devastating principle of “holy ignorance” came the rejection of additional truths – “A Bible, A Bible, We have a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.”  (2 Ne. 29:3-10)  For me, a student for 20 years of ancient America and the writings on Indian origins, I found the parallels here between the destruction of Chinese “religious” writings and the destruction of Mesoamerican codices to be profoundly similar.  The enlightened reasoning here is that if the evidence is destroyed, then there is no foundation for belief, and by classifying what little remains as “legend” and “unscientific,” it can be dismissed as the fables of an unenlightened people. 

[xviii] . Ibid., pp. 77-78.

[xix] . Neckam’s book, De Naturis Rerum, contains the following description:

The sailors, moreover, as they sail over the sea, when in cloudy weather they can no longer profit by the light of the sun, or when the world is wrapped up in the darkness of the shades of night, and they are ignorant to what point of the compass their ship’s course is directed, they touch the magnet with a needle.  This then whirls round in a circle until, when its motion ceases, its point looks direct to the north.

Neckam’s text gives no hint as to where or how he might have seen or heard about the magnetic compass.  (Aczel, pp. 29-30).

[xx] . History of Magnetism.National Imports. Magnetic Products Division. Internet 

[xxi] . Amir Aczel tells of traveling to southern Italy to the coastal town of Amalfi to find out if this legend was true.  In the center of town he found a plaque with the following inscription:

All of Italy, and Amalfi, must give credit to the great invention of the magnetic compass, without which America and other unexplored places would not have been opened to civilization.  Amalfi commemorates this pure Italian glory with special honors to its immortal son, Flavio Gioia, the fortunate inventor of the magnetic compass.–1302 (Amir D. Aczel, The Riddle of the Compass: the Invention That Changed the World.  New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001, pp. 4-5)

However, upon going to the Amalfi cultural center he was handed a pamphlet which quoted the following words from the Italian historian Padre Timoteo Bertelli:

Flavio Gioia never existed.  He represents only a kind of myth, created late after his presumed lifetime, and hence suspect.  He is a fantasy produced by the fertile southern imagination of the people of Amalfi and elsewhere …  (Ibid., p. 6-7)

Aczel continued to investigate.  While he found that the inventor (variations on the name appeared in a variety of sources: Flavio Goia, Giovanni Gioia, Francesco Gioia or Goia or Giri, John Gioia or Goia or Goe) was most probably ficticious and the result of misinterpretation of documents, there is good evidence for the port of Amalfi being a power in the Mediterranean at one time. 

In the thirteenth century A.D.,  Amalfi rose to great wealth through maritime trade under the Norman Kingdom of southern Italy.  Amalfi’s code of maritime law became universal throughout the whole Mediterranean from the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries.  This period was important because during this time navigation became more efficient and scientific with new technology, and Amalfi became a primary source for those innovations.  In respect to the compass Aczel writes:

Then, between the years 1295 and 1302, a true innovation took place in Amalfi.  According to medieval and modern sources, the people of Amalfi attained a “perfection” of the magnetic compass, transforming it from a needle floating in water or supported in air into the compass we know today: a round box in which a compass card with a wind rose and a division into 360 degrees rotates, attached to a magnetic element. (Ibid.)

[xxii] . Aczel’s full illustrated discussion is found on pages 39-52.


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