Anthon Transcript

In 1828, this paper was delivered to Charles Anthon, a well-known classical scholar of Columbia College, for an expert opinion on the authenticity of the characters and the translation.

Some adherents to the Book of Mormon claim that Anthon attested to the characters' authenticity in writing to Martin Harris but then ripped up his certification after hearing the story of Smith and the plates.

The import of what I wrote was, as far as I can now recollect, simply this, that the marks in the paper appeared to be merely an imitation of various alphabetical characters, and had, in my opinion, no meaning at all connected with them.

"[10] In the 1841 account, Anthon described the characters as "arranged in columns like the Chinese mode of writing .. (g)reek, Hebrew, and all sort of letters ... intermingled with sundry delineations of half moons, stars, and other natural objects, and the whole ended in a rude representation of the Mexican zodiac."

Anthon provided a third account in an August 12, 1844 letter and indicated, referring to Harris, "I told the man at once that he was imposed upon and that the writing was mere trash."

[citation needed] Both Mormon apologists and critics, however, indicate that it is not certain that the Caractors Document is the original Anthon Transcript, since Anthon had described that the characters on the slip he saw were arranged in vertical columns and ended in a "rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Aztec calendar given by Humboldt," (1834) or "a rude representation of the Mexican zodiac" (1841).

[12] In 1956 a request for review of the Caractors Document was made to three recognized egyptologists: Sir Alan Gardiner, William C. Hayes, and John A. Wilson.

Wilson added that "it does not conform to the normal pattern of cursive," and that because it was purported to be altered it may "remove this context from the professional analysis by the Egyptologist.

The "Caractors Document" was sold in 2024 to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as part of a larger transfer of physical property between the two organizations.