Was the Liahona in Part a Magnetic Compass?
(Part 2-A)
By Alan C. Miner
This begins the second part of a four-part series in which I have tried to present scriptural and historical perspectives that might shed light on whether or not the Liahona was, in part, a magnetic compass. And in presenting the material, I will hopefully convey to the reader the difficulty in trying to discern “true” history when it is portrayed so differently by various writers.
In Part 1, I reviewed some of the scriptural perspectives from the Book of Mormon and other Standard Works that might support the idea that magnetism was part of the Liahona. In Part 2, I will investigate whether or not the principles of the magnetic compass might have been known in ancient times.
Was the Magnetic Compass Known in Ancient Times?
While perusing a small anti-Mormon book printed in 1832, I came across a passage in which the author sarcastically wrote, “The mariner’s compass was only known in Europe about 300 years ago; but Nephi knew all about…the compass 2400 years ago,” 1 meaning that the mention of a “compass” by Nephi was an anachronism, and thus the Book of Mormon was false.
To be sure, the anti-Mormon author misstates the usually accepted time of advent for the magnetic mariner’s compass in Europe by a few hundred years, but that is not critical to his claim. The grand assumption that he does make, however, is that the Liahona worked on the principle of magnetism. For it is with this assessment that the debate enters very murky waters.
I could pass this author’s statement off by saying that the Liahona was quite different from the mariner’s compass, that according to the narrative itself the Liahona worked on the principles of “faith, heed and diligence” with no mention of magnetism, and that it also had writing that was changed from time to time. But like any self-respecting student of the Book of Mormon these days, I would at least want to know as much history as possible on the development of the magnetic compass.
So going to my computer and clicking on “Encarta,” I was referred to a number of recent articles on the magnetic compass and the following basic information came up on the screen:
The magnetic compass began to appear in navigation in about 1100 A.D. Early compasses consisted of a piece of naturally occurring magnetite [lodestone2] attached to one end of a wooden stick, then floated in a pool of water [3]. The magnetized stick oriented itself to Earth’s magnetic field, rotating until the end supporting the magnetite pointed north. The compass revolutionized navigation.4
In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, it stated that “The first European mention of the directional compass occurs in Alexander Neckam’s De naturis rerum (On the Natures of Things), probably written in Paris in 1190.”5
This source also noted that the Dream Pool Essay that was written by Chinese Song Dynasty scholar Shen Kua in A.D. 1086 “contained a detailed description of how geomancers magnetized a needle by rubbing its tip with lodestone, and hung the magnetic needle with one single strain of silk with a bit of wax attached to the center of the needle. Shen Kua pointed out that a needle prepared this way sometimes pointed south, sometimes north.”6
However, “the earliest recorded use of a compass in navigation lies in Zhu Yu’s book Pingzhou Ke Tan (Pigzhou Table Talks) of A.D. 1117: ‘The navigator knows the geography, he watches the stars at night, watches the sun at day; when it is dark and cloudy, he watches the compass.'” 7“As for the Arab world, Yemeni Sultan al-Ashraf appears to be the earliest confirmed mention of the compass in 1290, though some authors assert an earlier recording, as early as 1242.” 8
I also turned to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , where it gave me a little bit more information on “magnetite” or “lodestone” and confirmed the above information (although with slightly different chronology) with the following:
Sometime in the 12th century, mariners in China and Europe made the discovery, apparently independently, that a piece of lodestone, a naturally occurring magnetic ore, when floated on a stick in water, tends to align itself so as to point in the direction of the polestar. This discovery was presumably quickly followed by a second, that an iron or steel needle touched by a lodestone for long enough also tends to align itself in a north-south direction. From the knowledge of which way is north, of course, any other direction can be found.9
Given such information, I could have concluded at that point that modern science indeed teaches that the magnetic principle of the mariner’s compass was not discovered until almost 1700 years after the time of Nephi and Lehi. But I continued to search, and as I did so I was confronted with some conflicting data.
In a 1902 RLDS publication, A. H. Parsons writes: “Donnelly says: ‘In A. D. 868 it [lodestone] was employed by the Northmen.’ (The Landnamabok, vol. 1, chap. 2).10
The Stone of Attraction
According to another source, the Talmud [A.D. 200-500] speaks of lodestone as “the stone of attraction;” and it is alluded to in the early Hebrew prayers as Kalamitah, the same name given it by the Greeks, from the reed upon which the compass floated. 11This would mean that the principle of magnetism associated with lodestone was known by the Hebrews (and possibly by the Greeks) at least by A.D. 500. Just when the Greeks gave it a name associated with a floating reed is not stated here.
Additionally, in an 1841 book concerning American Indian origins, the author writes the following concerning early navigation and the use of the magnetic compass:
Mr. Klaproth has traced the communication of the use of the magnetic needle in Europe to the Arabs in the time of the Crusades, and from the Arabs to the Chinese. The latter nation appears to have been acquainted with the attractive power of the loadstone at a remote date; and its property of communicating polarity to iron is noticed in a Chinese work finished A.D. 121, and in another work it is stated that ships were steered to the south by the magnet so early as A.D. 429. 12
So according to the above, by at least A.D. 500, the power of lodestone (a naturally magnetic rock) was known to the Hebrews and possibly the Greeks, but at an earlier time about A.D. 429 Chinese ships were said to have been using a magnet to steer ships. And as early as A.D. 121 the Chinese apparently discovered that this stone could magnetize iron.
If these “facts” were correct, I reasoned, then there might be a difference in how people refer to the advent of the compass. Indeed, in order to make some sense out of the arguments on the origins of the compass, I found that I had to first distinguish whether the writer was talking about the origins of just the principle of magnetism (as found in lodestone), or the origins of the navigational use of lodestone.
These arguments diverged further when writers talked about the origins of the early primitive navigational “compass” with a floating iron needle versus the much later navigational origins of a more sophisticated instrument called a “compass” with a windrose background and special casing. I further found that I had to distinguish whether the writer was talking about the advent of the compass in China (the East) or the advent of the compass in the European-Mediterranean area (the West).
In other words, I realized that in my search for perspectives, instead of limiting my focus to the fact that a refined instrument called the “mariner’s compass” had finally come into use in the Western world by A.D. 1100, I might gain some insight into a “magnetic” Liahona by studying the Chinese and other peoples who apparently used the principle of magnetism or a primitive magnetic compass in sailing at a much earlier time. So I continued to search.
Chinese History
My search proved interesting in this regard. Going back to the Internet I was amazed at the diversity of dates I found for the Chinese knowledge of magnetism and the magnetic compass. I first found an illustration of a Chinese Box Compass. The caption read as follows:
Most historians agree that the magnetic compass originated in China. A Chinese scholar described a magnetic compass in a text dated about 83 A.D. The first magnetic compasses designed for navigation were probably developed in the 11th century by navigators in China and Europe. 13
So on the one hand this Internet reference was admitting that the magnetic compass was part of the Chinese culture at an early date (here as early as A.D. 83). Yet at the same time, this same Internet reference was not giving the Chinese credit for using this magnetic principle for navigation any earlier than the 11th century A.D. I pondered the question, How could a civilization like the Chinese, bordering on an ocean, have knowledge of magnetism for more than a thousand years without adapting it for navigational purposes?
This same question was asked by Josiah Priest just after the publication of the Book of Mormon. In 1831-32 Josiah Priest published a book on American antiquities. 14It was much like the 600-page series of articles that he had compiled and published in 1825 and then again in 1826. 15In that earlier book he presented about 140 short accounts or stories concerning people and cultures and lands from various parts of the world. In the 1832 book he focused more on American antiquities.In an article entitled, “Voyages and Shipping of the Mongol Tartars, and Settlements on the Western Coast of America” (author not cited) I found the following:
In view of the above information I asked myself, could the principle of magnetism not only have been known in China at a very early date, but used to aid in direction, especially in navigation at the time of Lehi (600 B.C.)? I searched again on the Internet and found more of the same diversity of dates.In A.D. 1275, the Tartars, under their general, called Moko , undertook the invasion of the Japan empire, which lies along adjacent to China, between the western coast of North America and China, with a fleet of 4000 sail, having on board two hundred and forty thousand men. But the expedition proved unsuccessful, as it was destroyed by a storm, driven and scattered about the Pacific Ocean. (Kempfer’s History of Japan ? Rankin.)
From this we discover the perfect ability of the western nations, that is, west of America, to explore the ocean, as suited their inclinations, in the earliest ages; for we are not to suppose the Tartars had just then, in 1275, come to a knowledge of navigation, but rather, the greatness of this fleet is evidence, that the art had arrived to its highest state of perfection.
But had they a knowledge of the compass? This is an important enquiry. In the year 2037 B.C., or 307 years after the Flood, under the Hia dynasty, embassies were sent to China from foreign countries beyond the sea, who came in ships to pay homage to the Hias or emperor.
If a knowledge of the magnet, and its adaptation to navigation, was known before the Flood, as appears from this writer’s remarks, who derives this discovery from a perusal of the Chinese histories; it was, of necessity, divulged by Noah, to his immediate posterity, who, it is said, went soon after the confusion of the language at Babel, and planted a colony in China, or in that eastern country; as all others of mankind had perished in the Flood, consequently they were none else to promulgate it to but this family.
But it may be inquired, if the knowledge of the magnet and its application to the great purpose of navigation, and surveying, were understood in any degree, how came one branch of the descendants of the family of Noah, those who went east from Ararat, to have it; and the others, who went in other directions, to be ignorant of it, and had to discover it over again in the course of ages.
We can answer this, only by noticing that many arts of the ancients of Europe and of Africa are lost; but how, we cannot tell; but in the same way this art was lost. Wars, convulsions, revolutions, sweeping diseases, often change the entire face and state of society; so that if it were even known to all the first generation, immediately succeeding the Flood, a second generation may have lost it, not dwelling in the vicinity of great waters; having no use for such an art, would of necessity loose it, which remained lost till about A.D. 1300. 16
One source speculated “that in 101 BCE Chinese ships reached the east coast of India for the first time with help from the navigational compass pioneered by the Chinese.” 17One source noted that “the magnetic compass is an old Chinese invention, probably first made in China during the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.) 18Another source stated that Chinese mathematicians invented the magnetic compass in 271 B.C. 19Still another stated that the Chinese had discovered the orientating effect of Magnetite, or lodestone as early as the 4th century BCE. 20In accordance with this last dating I came across the following:
The Chinese may have been aware of magnetism since the second millennium B.C., since houses of the Shang dynasty are aligned with magnetic north, but the first mention in writing is from the fourth century B.C.: “When the people of Cheng go out to collect jade, they carry a south-pointer with them so as not to lose their way.” 21
This information, if correct, pushed the date for the knowledge of magnetism (not to mention open-sea navigation) back almost 1500 years from the original stated invention of the mariner’s compass. But my research findings were still not complete. In 1832, Josiah Priest wrote the following:
On this subject we have the following from the pen of the most learned antiquarian of the age, C. S. Rafinesque 22, whose writings we have several times alluded to in the course of this work. This author says, that in the year of the world 1200, or 2800 B.C ., or 450 years before the flood, the magnetic needle was known and in use, and that under the Emperor Hoangti, which was about 130 years nearer the time of the Flood, reckoning from the Creation, ships began to be invented. He even gives the names of two ship builders, Kong-ku , and Ho-ahu , who by order of the above named emperor, built boats, at first with hollow trees , and furnished them with oars, and were sent to explore places where no man had ever been.
In Goodrich’s Life of Columbus , I also found reference to this early time period. He writes:
In the year 2700 B.C. the Emperor Wang-ti placed a magnetic figure with an extended arm, like the Astarte of the Phoenicians, on the front of carriages, the arm always turning and pointing to the south, which the Chinese regarded as the principal pole. 23
A 1902 RLDS publication by A. H. Parsons adds the following to this event:
Earliest references to the use of the compass are to be found in Chinese history, from which we learn how, in the sixty-fourth year of the reign of Ho-ang-ti (2634 B.C.) the Emperor Hiuan-yuan, or Ho-ang-ti, attacked one Tchi-yeou, on the plains of Tchou-lou, and finding his army embarrassed by a thick fog raised by the enemy, constructed a chariot (Tchinan) for indicating the south, so as to distinguish the four cardinal points, and was thus enabled to pursue Tchi-yeou, and take him prisoner. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 6, p. 226.) 24
In an 1895 publication (also on American Indian origins) the author H. B. Root brings up more information to support an ancient knowledge of magnetism. He writes:
We know that the magnetic qualities of metals were known to the Phoenicians, for Sanchoniathon ascribes to Chronos the invention of “Batulia,” or “stones that moved as if they had life.” Chronos lived 2,800 years before Christ; the earliest date the compass was known in China was 2,604 B.C. and was called “Tche chay,” or “directing stones.” 25
The above quote was supported by another publication three years later in 1898:
. it is interesting to note that while compasses were not generally known to the world at that early period [Lehi’s time], they were not entirely unknown, either. That hundreds of years before the Christian era, the compass was used by the Chinese in making long journeys by land. Article “Compass,” in Chambers’ Encyclopedia , says, “It appears … on very good authority, that it was known in China and throughout the East, generally, at a very remote period.” 26
The next commentary I ran across came from an anonymous blogger adding some insight to an internet article entitled “Early history of the compass” 27 posted on November 24, 2005, in which the original author had traced the compass back to the use of lodestones by the Chinese fortune tellers as early as A. D. 200.
Feng Shui
The blogger writes, “Actually the history of the compass is much older and more interesting than the author’s version.” 28He then connects the principle of the compass with an ancient Chinese belief system called Feng Shui. (I will note here that from a search of other sources on the Internet I found that Feng Shui addressed the placement and orientation of buildings to achieve harmony with the environment. All capital cities of China followed rules of Feng Shui for their design and layout. “The tombs of Shang kings and their consorts at Xiaotun lie on a north-south axis, ten degrees east of due north. These orientations were first obtained by astronomy, not by the magnetic compass.” 29The oldest known Feng Shui devices are called Liuren astrolabes. They consist of a two-sided board with astronomical sightlines. These devices are the ancestor of the shi or shipan, which was the first magnetic compass.30)
The blogger mentioned above continues with the following comments:
The shipan consisted of a metal plate with a “south-pointing spoon,” also cast of metal. The spoon was designed to point south (it requires a long discussion to explain why). The shape of the spoon was designed to reflect the shape of the Ladle constellations (the most recent being Beidou, what we call the Big Dipper), because these were astronomical timekeepers for Chinese (and had been for millennia).
The Liuren astrolabe may date back to the Zhou era [278 BC – 209 BC], but the earliest sightlines seem to date to practices noticed by archaeologists at Banpo (approximately 4000 BC, in Yangshao culture), because those practices have a continuity that’s displayed to the present.
Liuren from Qin-era [ c. 280 BCE ?] tombs display the same markings found thousands of years earlier on jade carvings; the shi and shipan share them as well. In fact, elements of the compass rose design look suspiciously like those carved into a piece of Chinese jade dated c. 3000 BC.
And all of these devices were the tools not of “Chinese fortune tellers,” but of astronomers and other officials in the administrations of rulers. 31
So once again I assessed my findings. Here was a difference of approximately 3,700 years or more between the date science acknowledged for the advent of the mariner’s compass and the discovery of the working principles of lodestone which were the heart of that compass.
I asked myself, if the Chinese used the compass to direct them on land “hundreds of years before the Christian era,” then why would the compass not be used in ocean navigation “at a very remote period” also?
I can only speak for myself, but it didn’t take much “horse sense” for me as a young boy to realize that a magnetic compass could help me with directions whether I was on water or land. So it is hard for me to accept the idea that the Chinese went centuries without adapting the magnetic compass to navigation.
But even conceding the idea that the principle of magnetic navigation was known anciently in China, did that knowledge ever reach the Near East by 600 B.C.?
(Continued in Part 2-B)
Notes
1. Alexander Campbell, Delusions. An Analysis of the Book of Mormon; With an Examination of Its Internal and External Evidences, and a Refutation of Its Pretences to Divine Authority. Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1832, p. 13.
2. For a picture of magnetite along with some details, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodestone
3. For a model of an ancient Chinese water compas using contemporary materials see https://lambcutlet.org/gallery/
Zheng_He_and_Maritime_Asia_Exhibition/A_model_of_an_ancient…
4. MSN Encarta-Navigation”
5. “History of the navigational compass,” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. “Compass,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica , 15th edition, volume 3, pp. 502-503.
10. A. H. Parsons, Parson’s Text Book , Lamoni, Iowa: Herald Publishing House, 1902, p. 46. Parsons also writes:
“Chinese invented the mariner’s compass eleven centuries before Christ.”–See Light in Darkness, by J. E. and A. H. Godbey, p. 289.
Chambers’ Encyclopedia: “It appears, however, on very good authority, that it [compass] was known in China, and throughout the east generally, at a very remote period.”–Vol. 2, p. 546.
11. Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, 1882, part V: The Colonies of Atlantis. (Chapter 9: The Antiquity of Some of Our Great Inventions)
12. The Chinese, etc, by John F. David, vol. ii, p. 218, as quoted in Alexander W. Bradford’s American Antiquities and Researches into the Origin and History of the Red Race , New York: Dayton and Saxton, 1841, p. 230.
13. Although I have lost the Internet address for this caption, I found another illustration of a Chinese box compass with the following similar quote:
Developed in China around 200 B.C ., the compass was first used as a fortune telling device. Iron Ore, or Magnetite was used for compass needles. It naturally aligns itself in a North/South position. These needles were first floated in water on a reed, but later more elaborate compasses were used with markings for the constellations. First believed to be satanic when introduced in Europe, compasses were widely used for navigating in both Europe and China by the 11th century. (https://www.lakesideschool.org/studentweb/worldhistory/
GlobalContactsb/Seagoing Inventio… )
14. Josiah Priest, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West , Albany: Hoffman & White, 1834. (4th ed.) Copy published by Ancient American Archaeology Foundation, Printed by Hayriver Press, Colfax, Wisconsin, 2004.
15. Josiah Priest, The Wonders of Nature and Providence, Displayed , Albany: Hoffman & White, 1825.
16. Josiah Priest, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West , Albany: Hoffman & White, 1834. (4th ed.) Copy published by Ancient American Archaeology Foundation, Printed by Hayriver Press, Colfax, Wisconsin, 2004, pp. 279-281
17. www.computersmiths.com, “History of Chinese Invention – Invention of the Magnetic Compass.”
18. “History of the Magnetic Compass and Navigation Instruments,” Internet
19. History of Science and Technology: timeline (Internet)
20. (www.computersmiths.com, “History of Chinese Invention ? Invention of the Magnetic Compass.”)
21. Maritime Asia, Internet, citing The Book of the Devil Valley Master , quoted by Robert Temple, The Genius of China , p. 151. Interestingly, in another part of the same Internet article it noted that “After collapse of the Shang dynasty [c11th BCE ], Chinese general You Houxi led 240,000 troops to the South Pacific and the Americas” – (Quanzhou museum caption).”Asian maritime & trade chronology to 1700 CE ,”
https://www.maritimeasia.ws/topic/chronology.html
In another article, “How Many Times has America been discovered?,” in the journal of the Northern Archaeology Group. Reprint of the Sunday Telegraph, 12th December 1999.
https://www.n-a-g. freeserve.co.uk/ DOCUMENTS/ISS14_
11JAN2000.htm, the following appears:
In August Xinhua, the Chinese press agency, reported that similarities between almost 300 markings found on pottery, jade and stone at unspecified ancient native sites in central America closely resemble 3,000-year-old Shang dynasty characters for the sun, sky, rain, water, crops, trees and stars. American and Chinese pictographs in 56 matching sets were shown to senior academics at a symposium in Anyang, former capital of the Shang dynasty … Shang legends state that a King led his people on a journey to the east …
In another article, “A Link Between Chinese and American Cultures? The Olmec and the Shang,” https://www.sinorama.com.tw/en/8605/605006e1.html, we find the following:
Last year, in a book entitled Origin of the Olmec Civilization , Professor Mike Xu, a Chinese who teaches in the foreign languages department at the University of Central Oklahoma, proposed a hypothesis which aroused a storm of controversy in archaeological circles. In Xu’s view, the first complex culture in Mesoamerica may have come into existence with the help of a group of Chinese who fled across the seas as refugees at the end of the Shang dynasty. The Olmec civilization arose around 1200 BC , which coincides with the time when King Wu of Zhou attacked and defeated King Zhou, the last Shang ruler, bringing his dynasty to a close… Xu had “explosive” evidence in the form of the written word. Over the past three years he has found some 150 glyphs on photographs of and real specimens of Olmec pottery, jade artifacts and sculptures.
In still another article, “The Olmecs and the Shang,” https://members.tripod.com/%7Ekon-artz/cultures/olmshang.htm, the following appears:
The Shang dynasty began around 1600 BC and ended, when king Zhou was defeated around 1100 BC by the upcoming Zhou people under their leader Wuwang. . . . In order to reach the American shores (assumed they had no powered boats), they needed to pick up an ocean current. Appropriate currents exist at the northern part of the Pacific and they flow from the southern Yellow Sea, past Japan and the Aleutes, right to the coast of western Mexico (and return eventually to the Asian side on a southern route).
22. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque published two works in 1824 ( Ancient History, or Annals of Kentucky; with a Survey of the Ancient Monuments of North America. Frankfort, KY, 1824. Also “Ancient History of North America” Parts 1-6, in the Cincinnati Literary Gazette , Vol. 1, Feb. 21-May 29, Cincinnati, 1824. In these publications Rafinesque maintained that America was populated after the Flood by way of the lost continent of Atlantis.
23. See Goodrich’s Columbus,” p. 31, etc. as quoted in Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World , 1882, part V: The Colonies of Atlantis. (Chapter 9: The Antiquity of Some of Our Great Inventions) This information is also quoted by RLDS author A. H. Parsons, Parson’s Text Book , Lamoni, Iowa: Herald Publishing House, 1902, pp. 46-47.
. A. H. Parsons, Parson’s Text Book , Lamoni, Iowa: Herald Publishing House, 1902, pp. 46-47.
25. H. B. Root, “A Review-No. 1- Did the Phoenicians Discover America?” in Autumn Leaves, Vol. 8, No. 5 (May 1895) pp. 197-200. As to where H.B. Root obtained his information he doesn’t say, however I came across similar information from an 1882 book by Ignatius Donnelly. He writes::
In Goodrich’s “Life of Columbus,” we find a curious history of the magnetic compass prior to that time, from which we collate the following points: . . . We find in Sanchoniathon’s “Legends of the Phoenicians” that Ouranus, . . . devised Baetulia, contriving stones that moved as having life, which were supposed to fall from heaven.” These stones were probably magnetic loadstones.” [Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly, 1882, part V: The Colonies of Atlantis. (Chapter 9: The Antiquity of Some of Our Great Inventions) ]
26. “Study Course: Landing and First Settlements of the Nephites,” in Autumn Leaves , Vol. 11, No. 7 (July), pp. 310-311. This information is also quoted by RLDS author A. H. Parsons, Parson’s Text Book , Lamoni, Iowa: Herald Publishing House, 1902, pp. 46-47.
27. “Early history of the compass,”
www.jestcaching.com/2005/11/early-history-of-compass.html
28. “Early history of the compass,”
www.jestcaching.com/2005/11/early-history-of-compass.html
29. Patti Farley, “Five Elements Feng Shui,”
www.elements-five.com/HistoryofFengShui.htm
30. Patti Farley, “Five Elements Feng Shui,”
www.elements-five.com/HistoryofFengShui.htm
31. “Early history of the compass,”
www.jestcaching.com/2005/11/early-history-of-compass.html
