Newark Holy Stones

[1][2] The site where the objects were found is known as the Newark Earthworks, one of the biggest collections from an ancient American Indian culture known as the Hopewell that existed from approximately 100 BC to AD 500.

The display now allows visitors to see the exhibits from all four sides, includes an iPad kiosk with close-up photos, Google Earth geolocations, and "basic facts surrounding the discovery of the stones, and their connection to the other exhibitions in the same gallery, which covers socio-economic changes in the United States, specifically in Ohio, during the late nineteenth century.

[6] The black rock was identified as limestone by geologists Dave Hawkins and Ken Bork of Denison University.

The inscription begins on the front at the top of an arch above the figure of a bearded man who is wearing a turban and robe, and appears to be holding a tablet.

[7] Additional photos of the front and back can be found in an article published in the Epigraphic Society of Occasional Papers [8] In 2014, Bradley Lepper of the Ohio History Connection discovered that a fragment of the wooden burial platform underneath which the Decalogue Stone was found had been preserved at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.

[9][10] The Newark Holy Stones are an archaeological fraud used to support the "Lost Tribes" theory, which posits an ancient Israelite presence in Ohio.

[11] The idea that there is a connection between the ancient Hopewell mound builders and Jewish settlers that were in the Americas before Columbus is a form of pseudoarchaeology.

In July 1860 Abraham Geiger wrote in the New York Times that "the bungling work of an unskilled stone mason and the strangeness of some letters as well as the many mistakes and transpositions was his fault.

Brad Lepper, of the Ohio Historical Society who has extensively studied the Hopewell culture, suggests that the artifacts might have been scientifically forged to help advance the theory on monogenism.

Prior to his discovery, Wyrick supported the belief that the Lost Tribes of Israel were the ancestors of ancient mound builders in Ohio.

Wyrick spent a great deal of time searching a number of excavation sites at various mounds attempting to find supporting evidence of this belief.

Beverley H. Moseley, Jr., former art director of the Ohio Historical Society, compared the carving of Moses on the stone to Wyrick's woodcut copy.

Whittlesey concludes at the time that the stones were a hoax, and assumed that the Bible was Wyrick's source of inspiration for the inscription.

Elijah Sutton was a stonecutter with no other direct link to the event other than his part in carving Wyrick's headstone when he died.

"[17] Archaeologist Brad Lepper believes that the inspiration for the Decalogue stone was Austen Henry Layard's book Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon.

[19] Epigrapher Rochelle I. Altman believes that "The evidence is quite clear: the artifacts were indeed stolen from a European settler, as Fischel surmised, and deposited at these sites earlier in the nineteenth century."

[17] Additionally, a teacup sized bowl made from the same stone material was found nearby by one of the persons accompanying Wyrick.