Posted on 12/23/2025 9:56:34 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Wayne May tells the story of two 4000 year old Cuneiform Tablets made from the same era found in America. One by Native American Chief Joseph and the other by a woman in Georgia who found it while gardening.
Chief Joseph and his 4000 year old tablet | 3:09
Hidden in the Heartland | 5.76K subscribers | 234,927 views | Premiered December 17, 2025
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YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows:
YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.aiChief Joseph, he was, I believe, probably other than the seinal, probably one of the last Native American chiefs to succumb to the US government and surrender. I believe he was taken hostage. Uh, it was either Wyoming or Montana territory, almost got to the Canadian line to cross over somewhere in that area. They put him back to a fort. They, they, they bottled him up and they decided to put him on a reservation.
Well, during all this hubbub, he, like most chiefs, wore a medicine bag around his neck. It was very, very normal. Nothing real big, but it was around his neck. This little leather pouch. One of the soldiers took that away from him. And inside the bag, there's a lot of stuff, but the one thing that was really unusual, a little 1 in x 1 in clay square, and it had lettering on it, and the lettering happened to be cuneiform. Now, cuneiform was in full usage around 3000 BC in the Fertile Crescent. Hittites used it, the Babylonians used it, the Akkadians used it, the Sumerians used it, and the Hebrews knew how to use it because that was the language of the day if you wanted to do business.
So the first question is, what is an Indian in North America doing with a little square cuneiform tablet in his medicine pouch? Well, asking him what this was, and he repeated, "This is something from my ancient ancestors, and that's why I hold it dear." And they asked him, "Can you read it?" and he said, "No." So you don't know what it says? He says, "No, I don't know what it says." That cuneiform tablet is at West Point today; you can go there and see it. Now, I've been there twice. The first time it was on display; the second time it had been removed, and if you ask for it, and if the curator of the day is in a mood, he'll let you see it. Uh, sometimes, you know, that happens. They say, "I'm too busy," and they won't pull it out. But they do have it. So, it still exists, thank goodness.
Now, what's interesting, it was translated, and I don't have the actual translation here to read to you, but it was a bill of sale or like a receipt for sheep or goats or both. And it took place around 2040 BC. Uh, and they mention Ur; it mentions the Babylonians. I mean, this is wild. And then in 1963, Mrs. Hearn, she's near Columbus, Georgia. I don't remember the exact town she was in. An old lady out doing her garden, and lo and behold, up turns a little square cuneiform tablet. Well, it got passed along to the proper authorities, and it too is a receipt for sheep or goats, and it dates at 2042 BC. All this has been the transcribing and the interpretation all done by professional academics in the universities.
So how do you explain that? I don't know what to say, but there it is; it's here in North America, and it's not supposed to be here, but yet it is.
Cuneiform in America 4000 years ago | Knitting It Together | March 24, 2016Judging from the artifacts they left behind, the Assyrians and Sumerians made quite an extensive voyage to the Americas about 4000 years ago. This the first installment of a three entry blog that presents the evidence.
The most famous piece of evidence passed down among the Nez Perce tribe of Montana was a strange cuneiform tablet known to us as the Chief Joseph Tablet. Housed in the museum at West Point, this tablet was photographed by Warren C. Dexter in 1991, the tablet was taken from—some say gifted by—Chief Joseph when he was captured in 1877.
Chief Joseph, best known for his statement, "I will fight no more forever," claimed he inherited it from his white ancestors and that it had been in his family for generations. He carried the inch square baked tablet in a medicine pouch with the Star of Ashur, an Assyrian symbol, on it. (That is the subject of my next blog.)
Translated by Professor Robert Biggs of the University of Chicago, the Chief Joseph tablet reads, "Nalu received 1 lamb from Abbashaga on the 11th day of the month of the festival of An, in the year Enmahgalanna was installed as high priestess of Nanna." That would be 2042 BCE.
Now, some websites claim this tablet is a forgery, to which I would reply: Really? Chief Joseph knew the Assyrian language and wrote in cuneiform, you say. And he knew the history of the priestesses of Nanna, too. So tell me how Chief Joseph came by that knowledge in the 1880s? (That in itself is a good mystery—especially since cuneiform was first deciphered in 1857 in Britian.)The Hearn Cuneiform TabletThe Hearn tablet was discovered in Georgia in 1963. It is a receipt for sheep and goats intended as sacrifice to the sun god Utu and the goddess Lama Lugal. The scribe, Enlila, states it was the 37th or 38th year of the reign of King Suigi of Ur, Sumeria. That dates this tablet to 2040 BCE, two years prior to the Chief Joseph tablet.
The Hearn tablet is made of lead, not clay. There are other lead pieces found on the Hearn property dated to the same time. So it would seem at least this tablet may have been created here in the Americas. Lead smelting and the need to create a receipt for goods exchanged, I would say, indicates a larger presence than just a handful of explorers...
So we have one tablet (2042 BCE) that is Assyrian, one tablet (2040 BCE) that is Sumerian and one that is carved stone related to either Sumer or Assyria. All three can be related to one single era—just before the Akkandian rule of both Sumer and Assyria.
Brave search: Chief Joseph tablet west pointThe West Point Museum in New York houses a single cuneiform artifact known as the "Chief Joseph tablet" (P414454), an administrative text from Drehem.
This tablet is a baked clay tablet, approximately one inch square, inscribed with cuneiform script.
It is popularly associated with Chief Joseph, a leader of the Nez Perce tribe, who surrendered to U.S. Army forces in 1877.
According to various accounts, the tablet was found in Chief Joseph's medicine bag at the time of his surrender and was later transferred to the West Point Museum.
However, the connection between Chief Joseph and the tablet is widely regarded as unsubstantiated by historians. Contemporary records of the surrender mention only the transfer of Joseph's rifle, with no credible documentation of a cuneiform tablet being handed over.
The narrative linking the tablet to Joseph appears to have emerged in the late 1970s or later, with no verifiable evidence supporting the claim that he possessed or gifted it.
Furthermore, the physical characteristics of the tablet suggest it was likely baked recently, a practice typically performed by conservators or epigraphers, not by indigenous peoples in antiquity.
Unbaked clay tablets exposed to the elements would have deteriorated long ago, making a 4,000-year-old journey from Mesopotamia to North America implausible.
The tablet has been translated by Professor Robert D. Biggs of the University of Chicago, who interpreted the text as a receipt for one lamb, dated to 2042 BCE during the reign of high priestess Enmahgalanna of Nanna.
Despite this translation, the provenance of the tablet remains uncertain, and the attribution to Chief Joseph is considered a modern myth without historical foundation.
The tablet's current ownership and display at West Point are confirmed, though access may be restricted depending on the curator's discretion.
AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts.
I'm sure I'd never before heard of this ephemera.
Interesting. I have speculated in the past that perhaps the American Indians also came to this land from somewhere else. But I have to be honest, I didn’t put much stock into my supposition. I thought perhaps they came from what are now Asian nations. Were there other peoples here when they arrived, still remains the question, and evidence seems to suggest that there were other peoples inhabiting the land here.
Could have been trade as well. I’ve got something else on deck, hmm, it’ll be from here somewhere:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bay+of+jars+robert+marx
and already in the FRchives:
https://freerepublic.com/tag/bayofjars/index?tab=articles
https://freerepublic.com/tag/robertmarx/index?tab=articles
Phoenicians?
Then there is the mundane possibility that some more recent traveller brought the tablets over to the States...
England started systematically collecting cuneiform tablets in the mid-19th century. One early collection was in 1849. The peak years of collection were between 1850 and 1920.
Chief Joseph lived from 1840 to 1904.
So it is more likely that some intrepid English explorer picked up the tablets from over there and brought a few of them to the States.
There was probably a network of global travel back then.
They’ve also found Roman coins in places like Ohio.
Seems more reasonable than someone schlepping a receipt for a couple of goats around for thousands of years.
Tyhe SUmerians actually were here way before Columbus, before the Vikings and way before the Chinese fleet off the West coast.
So why were they purchasing sheep and goats from each other in America? It means the Sumerians were here,had settled and had trade among each other?
Interesting questions, or did native AMericans join with the Sumerians to learn cuniform in an ancient colony in America, established by Sumerians?
I’ve often wondered …… How much technology had been attained/achieved, then lost, over the thousands of years prior to the present …… boggles the brain cells if one does the digging and looks upon the clues (imho).
I don’t think so, but the Mormons love it.
Here is an old article on it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2BYkIpRvuaQZU1ZMDFLNTgzZUU/view?resourcekey=0-_p_O7G-dC4S4YBzhfLj7xQ
Reminds me of Sequoyah . In 1821 he created a written language for the Cherokee from scratch. This is why much of the Cherokee culture has survived to this very day.
Unless all the goats and sheep died out after the Sumerians left or that that the Sumerians used the term goat or sheep for an indigenous native American animal like a deer or buffalo then the receipt makes no sense.
Goats and sheep need to be protected from predators. Both wolves and indians were predators and also migratory scavengers. The sheep never stood a chance after the fall of Sumer ~1800 BC.
Wouldn’t any longer term settlers in the Americas have brought their diseases with them? The way small pox ran through the Native American community after the Spanish arrived you might imagine exposure 1,000 years earlier would have inoculated the population.
Grok needs to decode the tablet.
It would be nice if it is a peace or trade agreement.
Oops. it was translated.
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