The Kinderhook Plates

The so-called Kinderhook Plates consist of six bell-shaped plates, said to have been excavated in 1843 from a mound at Kinderhook, Illinois. Almost straight away, Joseph Smith announced that they were authentic Reformed Egyptian, and he set about translating them. He was quickly embarrassed when the plates were shown to be forgeries made by locals intending to show Smith to be a fraud: the supposed ‘Reformed Egyptian’ letters that Smith claimed to recognise and read were simply poor reproductions of Chinese characters from the lid of a tea can!

This page was last updated on 9 April 2007
Written by: Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews