Angel Moroni

According to Smith, the angel Moroni was the guardian of the golden plates buried near his home in western New York, which Latter Day Saints believe were the source of the Book of Mormon.

An important figure in the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, Moroni is featured prominently in its architecture and art.

[2] Initially, when talking about his receipt of the golden plates, Smith referred only to "an angel" without identifying its name.

[5][failed verification] Among those angels, the revelation listed "Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel; to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim".

[5] Around this time, Cowdery was writing a history of Smith in which he identified the angel as the prophet Moroni from the Book of Mormon.

Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, as a resurrected being, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them.

[8] In this text, Smith's scribe erroneously identified the angel as "Nephi", which is the name of the Book of Mormon's first narrator.

[16] In the version of Smith's 1838 history published by the LDS Church, as well as the portion canonized by that denomination as the Pearl of Great Price, the name "Nephi" has been changed by editors to read "Moroni".

Moroni then finished writing on the plates and concluded the record, presumably burying them in the hill Cumorah in western New York.

The image of the angel Moroni blowing a trumpet is commonly used as an unofficial symbol of the LDS Church.

[41] According to Latter-day Saint scholar Hugh Nibley, the use of "mor" in the Book of Mormon is an Egyptian word, and means "beloved, good, everything nice and desirable.

Dallin's design is a dignified, neoclassical angel in robe and cap, standing upright with a trumpet in hand.

It stands 3.8 meters high, was molded in hammered copper from the plaster original, and was covered with 22-karat gold leaf.

On March 18, 2020, the trumpet held by the statue of Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake Temple fell to the ground as a result of a 5.7 magnitude earthquake.

It has Native American features, wears a Mayan style cloak, and holds the gold plates in its left hand.