a mystery that remains unsolved today.

August 10, 2006 8:51 PM

Burrows stopped to eat his lunch on a bluff that overlooks an (Illinois) valley. He stood up and stepped on the edge of a flat, round rock. His weight on the side of this rock flipped it as if on a pivot, and Burrows found himself falling into a pit below the rock. What happened next is told in his own words: [More inside]
posted by boo_radley (35 comments total)

Burrows found himself in a cave housing 13 burial crypts, adorned with Egyptian friezes, containing amazing artefacts; axes made of stone, confounding petroglyphs depicting Roman, North African and Egyptian priests and warriors. And of course, there was the gold...

He began to sell off the relics he found in that cave, which he produced in quantities too large for one man to have counterfeited. The writing on some of the petroglyphs was confirmed by a Viennese linguist to be Indus, a language prevalent in ancient South Asia and India. This confirmation provided the artefacts with a certain claim to authenticity. Other appeared to depict Jewish portraits, also vetted through scholarly confirmation of ancient languages. What did this mean for prehistoric America? Burrow's discovery implies that America was well travelled by explorers from around the globe long, long before 1492.

Something so baffling invited nothing but skepticism from professional archaeologists, and soon cover-up and scandal plagued Russell Burrows. In a fit of pique, he dynamited the entrance to the mysterious cave. He never revealed the location of the entrance, never opened it for examination or critique, and the location remains a mystery to this day. Many people question his claims, some with . Supporters claim the horde is the just property of King Juba, ruler of Mauretania, and great friend to the Roman Empire. Others see in proof of Jesus' passage to North America in the images portayed in the silent testimonies of the mysterious carvings.
posted by boo_radley at 8:52 PM on August 10, 2006

Pff, sounds like a scam to me. Maybe he had other conspirators.
posted by delmoi at 9:07 PM on August 10, 2006

Is this something I'd need a tinfoil hat to get?
posted by rusty at 9:08 PM on August 10, 2006

delmoi: conspirators familiar with Indus (and ancient Hebrew) would be in short supply, don't you think?
posted by boo_radley at 9:11 PM on August 10, 2006

This is actually Oblivion fanfic, right?
posted by bob sarabia at 9:11 PM on August 10, 2006

Wouldn't the logical conclusion be that this was the hoard of a 19th century plunderer...err... gentleman archeologist?
posted by Muirwylde at 9:20 PM on August 10, 2006

This has Mormon scam written all over it.
posted by mullingitover at 9:28 PM on August 10, 2006

Wait, so he didn't want to tell where the site was because he hadn't made arrangements with the land owner, but he was fine with taking a shitload of artifacts out of it and selling them?
posted by bob sarabia at 9:32 PM on August 10, 2006

This is my "pull the other one" face.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:39 PM on August 10, 2006

delmoi: conspirators familiar with Indus (and ancient Hebrew) would be in short supply, don't you think?

No, not really.
posted by delmoi at 9:44 PM on August 10, 2006

Muirwylde's explanation would certainly be the easiest to incorporate into archeological curricula. But it doesn't seem likely to be a hoax, per se.

I wonder if, in addition to being too much for one man to counterfeit, the artifacts amount to more than one man could surreptitiously collect, especially in the absence of air travel.

The Mormon theory is also somewhat plausible.

bob sarabia- That's WHY it mattered to him that he hadn't made arrangements with the property owner.
posted by owhydididoit at 9:44 PM on August 10, 2006

Hmm, I seem to have contradicted myself. Pardon.
posted by owhydididoit at 9:47 PM on August 10, 2006

Sounds like someone's been using the Stargate again without permission.
posted by shoepal at 9:51 PM on August 10, 2006

He had encounters with 'visitors'? I thought only women had that once a month. . .
posted by mk1gti at 9:52 PM on August 10, 2006

If I was Bill Gates, I'd know whether this man was a fraud or not, even if I had to hire Guido and Nunzio to find out.
posted by Chasuk at 10:16 PM on August 10, 2006

May I politely point out that stories like this have a great deal of interest even if you believe that the information presented in them isn't in fact literally true?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:17 PM on August 10, 2006

You know who else was an ancient visitor to America? Hitler.

The main link is to a neo-Nazi site, for crying out loud. This is all utter nonsense, flapdoodle, poppycock, and fraud. Flagged.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 11:55 PM on August 10, 2006

Flapdoodle? Awesome!
posted by blacklite at 3:33 AM on August 11, 2006

Thanks for potentially getting me in trouble with that first link.
posted by D.C. at 3:45 AM on August 11, 2006

conspirators familiar with Indus (and ancient Hebrew) would be in short supply, don't you think?

Probably not.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:13 AM on August 11, 2006

The Barnes Review
posted by extrabox at 4:51 AM on August 11, 2006

The metal- detector became increasingly agitated with every footstep, until it led him entirely out of the cemetery, down a shallow ravine and up the side of a steep hill. Its dial oscillated violently, as though the explorer were treading over Fort Knox.

Metal detectors only work like that in cartoons. I wish I could believe any of this. Fun post, though.
posted by Leon at 5:22 AM on August 11, 2006

The second page of the second link shows a purported 'Jewish prayer stone' with a six-pointed star on it. I believe that's an anachronism; the six-pointed star didn't start symbolizing Judaism in the Old World until the medieval era.

And, speaking as a lifelong Latter-day Saint, if a Mormon ran a scam of this sort it would almost certainly involve at least two of the following: (1) Extended fraudulent texts, rather than short inscriptions; (2) Obvious attempts to 'prove' Book of Mormon historicity by 'verifying' popular conceptions of Book of Mormon culture (conceptions that really don't stand up to a close reading of the text); or (3) Blatant profiteering by appeal to greed (invest now, get rich quick!). Subtlety, sophistication, and self-control, though highly regarded in Latter-day Saint scripture and doctrine, are not a strong point of faked-up Mormon crap. See also Hoffman, the Dream Mine, any of the MLM coming out of Utah, and various major and minor apostates and schismatics through the years.

Derail: I draw distinctions among Latter-day Sainthood (a personal religious status), ethnic Mormondom (an identification with the community of Latter-day Saints and an adoption of their history as personal myth), and participation in the so-called Mormon Culture (whence come the sickly overpiety, the naivete, and the greed that I mention above). I believe the three are more or less separable, and I hope the weirdness and serious problems of the non-mandatory Mormon Culture will not dissuade you from serious testing of the experiential claims of the Latter-day Saint religion.
posted by eritain at 5:27 AM on August 11, 2006

Thank god he didn't bring long-haired Tom Hanks along.
posted by thanotopsis at 5:28 AM on August 11, 2006

May I politely point out that stories like this have a great deal of interest even if you believe that the information presented in them isn't in fact literally true?

You may certainly say it, but "point out" implies it's true, which it isn't. The world is chock-full of bullshit, and "stories like this" are just one more dumpsterload.
posted by languagehat at 5:54 AM on August 11, 2006

Sweet fancy moses, I had no idea the Barnes Review is as repulsive as that. Mea culpa.
posted by boo_radley at 6:11 AM on August 11, 2006

Mormons, indus and land-owners aside; look at the art.
Unless the Egyptian authors had regressed horribly since they left the Nile, this is a terrible set of fakes.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 6:49 AM on August 11, 2006

The second page of the second link shows a purported 'Jewish prayer stone' with a six-pointed star on it. I believe that's an anachronism; the six-pointed star didn't start symbolizing Judaism in the Old World until the medieval era.

Anyone know where I can find out about how Jews self-identified before the star of David became universal?
posted by parmanparman at 7:23 AM on August 11, 2006

if a Mormon ran a scam of this sort it would almost certainly involve at least two of the following: (1) Extended fraudulent texts, rather than short inscriptions

[blink]

Er, isn't that basically the foundation of the church? An extended fraudulent text, run as a scam?

I'm not entirely sure how you can write that sentence and simultaneously claim to be an LDS.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:48 AM on August 11, 2006

parmanparman , Wikipedia says the first reference to it comes from the 12th century. IIRC, Robert Pinksy has a an appendix on its history in his book on David, but I haven't read it.
posted by rogue haggis landing at 7:49 AM on August 11, 2006

Actually, parmanparman, I obviously completely misread your question. But the Pinksy book will still likely help you out.
posted by rogue haggis landing at 7:50 AM on August 11, 2006

Oh, come on.

Anyone who looks at this picture and doesn't immediately think it's fake is delusional.

I'm prepared to believe that it's a recent hoax fabricating a story about something that happened in 1982. This would allow for the images to be photoshopped.

Also, 1 [phone], Ancient American's phone number, is busy.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:16 AM on August 11, 2006

The article is from 2001. Shouldn't we have heard more about this by now? The thing that gets me though is if any explorers came through to Illinois before Columbus, hell even before the 1800's, how and why did they transport thousands of pounds of gold with them? This was well before wagon trains and it's doubtful they even had horses. Olney, IL is not even near any major navigable rivers so boats are out of the picture too.
posted by JJ86 at 8:41 AM on August 11, 2006

If these relics are real, and this asshole melted down 15 million dollars worth of the gold artifacts, he ought to be thrown in a pit and torn apart by starving dogs. One limb per week until he bleeds out.

Oh, hell, even if he didn't melt any down, he still should be coated with honey and staked out on a fire ant hill, for removing any artifacts at all, obliterating any chance for real archaeologists to of examine them in context.

Fake or real, this guy's an ass, a destroy of history one way of the other. WHAT A JERK.
posted by orthogonality at 9:13 AM on August 11, 2006

Man, I can just barely tell what's going on in that first article. It slips in and out of first person, jumps around a lot, describes in vagaries... It reads like it was written by a C-level junior high school English student. (This, coming from a mechanical engineer!)

No idea as to the veracity of any claims; I gave up after about 10 paragraphs.
posted by LordSludge at 9:15 AM on August 11, 2006