<bron179.htm>     [Bronze Age Text]

 

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          Main features of the Grave Creek tumulus, near Moundsville, West Virginia.

 

          The lower chamber, with a long axis directed north and south, length 12 feet, height 7 feet, contained remains of two skeletons. The upper chamber, of the same proportions, but directed east and west, contained a single burial, accompanied by grave goods that included the tablet of stone shown earlier.  Rafn of Copenhagen University recognized the script as being Iberic, and Henry R. Schoolcraft, who visited the site and made a mold of the stone tablet, from which he later published the illustration, checked the exact form of the letters.  Despite these early evidences of Iberian penetration into North America, archaeologists still have difficulty in accepting the reality of the Iberian and other Old World inscriptions being found today with other grave goods on ancient cemetery sites, in various parts of North America (Fell 1982).

 

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