::: Zanthu Tablets :::

[Dan Clore]

This fascinating information was discovered at:
http://www.fishnet.net/~lemieux/Library.html

The Zanthu Tablets A Conjectured Translation

This slim, 32-page brochure was printed in 1916 by the Sanbourne
Institute for Pacific Studies in Santiago, California. Written by the
noted American archaeologist Harold Hadley Copeland, it purports to be
the translation of carvings found on a series of twelve black jade
tablets discovered somewhere on the Plateau of Tsang in Indo-China. The
author claims that the carvings are hieratic Nacaal [sic = Naacal --
DC], the high language of ancient Mu. The text briefly discusses the
stones and the methods used to translate them. The translated text,
which takes up most of the book, contains a running commentary by the
author.

Originally written by the wizard Zanthu, in whose tomb the tablets were
found, the tablets comprise a partial history of the lost Pacific
continent of Mu. They describe in detail the worship of various Muvian
deities, including Therifuge, Karnala, and Shaklatal. Certain other
passages hint at the existence of insubstantial beings called the
Vhujunka, who act as servants to the Muvian pantheon of deities.

The "Zanthu" File

This folder contains a number of newspaper articles, an excerpt from
Who's Who in Archaeology (1910), and several biographic references
regarding Pacific archaeologist Harold Hadley Copeland.

Copeland was an archeologist educated at Cambridge University who won
great fame in his explorations and excavations of some remote parts of
India and China in the 1890's. After publishing travel logs of his
adventures, he turned his attentions to Asia and Polynesia. Copeland's
fast book was a little known volume, Polynesian Mythology [according to
Danial Harms, "Polynesian Mythology, with a Note on the Cthulhu
Legend-Cycle -- DC], with a Note on the Muvian Legend Cycle, published
in 1906. Copeland spent several years doing anthropological work in
Micronesia, publishing a second book, The Prehistoric Pacific in the
Light of the Ponape Scripture in 1911. In May of 1913, he led the
Copeland-Ellington expedition into Central Asia. The expedition vanished
without a trace. Many months later, Copeland emerged from the jungles of
Burma alone, emaciated, exhausted, and raving. He carried with him
twelve black jade tablets he claimed to have found in an ancient tomb
somewhere in Indo-China.

Copeland returned to the U.S. and wrote a partial translation of the
tablets, claiming that they were produced in the lost continent of Mu
and described Muvian society and the worship of hideous gods. Copeland's
work was met first with skepticism, then later with outright contempt,
by his colleagues. Once considered the finest Pacific ethnologist in the
field, Copeland was publicly humiliated at symposia and conferences.
Undaunted, Copeland undertook a thorough survey of the myth patterns of
the Pacific, hunting down traces of what he called the "Xothic Myth
Cycle." Upon his return to America Copeland bequeathed the whole of
his Pacific artifacts collection to the Sanbourne Institute for Pacific
Studies, in southern California The Copeland bequest consisted of a
dozen steamer trunks full of notes and artifacts, as well as both the
Zanthu Tablets and the infamous Ponape figurine. Copeland suffered an
emotional breakdown, and was institutionalized in a Camario asylum in
1925. A report from the asylum tells how on May 15, 1926, Copeland burst
his restraints while being shaved, overpowered an orderly, and slit his
own throat with a straight razor.

The file also has clippings and brochures regarding the Sanbourne
Institute for Pacific Studies. The Institute was founded in 1875 or 1876
by Philip Sanbourne, fishing magnate, to house and came for his late
father Carlton Sanbourne's magnificent collection of Polynesian and
Pacific artifacts. The Institute is located on the shoulders of Santiago
Peak, near Los Angeles, California. After attaining a prestigious
reputation, the Institute later ran into mysterious difficulties later
in the twentieth century.

In 1928, the institute's curator of manuscripts, Dr. H. Stevenson
Blaine, went insane after trying to catalog the Copeland bequest. Local
newspapers, still reveling in the hoopla of King Tut's curse. attributed
his madness to the accursed influence of the infamous Ponape figurine.
The strange idol was also rumored to be the cause of Copeland's madness.
The Institute, hoping to capitalize on the scandal, set up an exhibition
of the Copeland bequest in 1929. The very next year, Blaine's successor,
Arthur Wilcox Hodgkins, also went insane. Obsessed with the Ponape
figurine, Hodgkins killed a security guard and set fire to the Institute
to prevent the idol from being exhibited. The Ponape figurine was lost
and the grounds damaged in the fire. The coming Depression sealed the
Institute's fate. Financially devastated, the Sanbourne Institute closed
its doors in 1933, many feared for good.

In more recent years, the Institute has risen again thanks to
contributions from Kathleen Lewis, a wealthy philanthropist. By 1980 the
Institute had reopened its old museum and was offering funding to
Pacific anthropological projects. The file contains a new brochure,
complete with the Institute's address and phone number.

Finally, there is a letter to Kyle Woodson from Dr. Samuel Turner,
director of the Institute. The letter states that the Zanthu Tablets
were stolen from the Institute in 1933. The Institute does still possess
Copeland's original translation notes, which
contain detailed drawings and a complete facsimile of the tablet
inscriptions Turner invites Woodson to come by and study them any time,
mentioning that it has been a long time since anyone showed any interest
in Copeland's tablets.

Linguistic Linkages between Archaic Asian Pictograms and the
Hieroglyphics of the Yucatan Maya, With Particular Emphasis On The
Zanthu Tablets

by Paul Matthews

Written to satisfy the thesis requirement for a Master's degree in
Archaeology at UCLA

Submitted September 17, 1930.

This long-winded, dry document details the uncanny similarities between
Mayan glyphs from ruins all over the Maya area and the strange glyphs
found on the so-called "Zanthu Tablets" discovered by Harold Hadley
Copeland in 1913. Matthews briefly sketches Copeland's tale: how he
found the black jade tablets in an ancient tomb in Indo-China and was
the only survivor of his ill fated expedition. Matthews mentions
Copeland's attempt to translate the glyphs, published as "The Zanthu
Tablets; A Conjectural Translation". Copeland's translation, as well as
his theories about the tablets' origins on the lost continent of Mu, are
dismissed as "inherently dubious".

Various glyphs taken from inscriptions all over the Maya area are then
compared to the glyphs on the tablets, with shocking results. Matthews
makes no attempt to translate either the Zanthu or Mayan glyphs, but
does prove rather conclusively that many elements in the two scripts are
identical. Matthews cannot find other examples of Mayan glyphs in Asia.
Instead he launches into a survey of symbols resembling Mayan glyphs in
such rare occult tomes as the Book of Dyzan [sic = Book of Dzyan -- DC],
the Ponape Scripture, and Von Junst's [sic = Von Junzt -- DC] Nameless
Cults. Less concrete correlation can be drawn between Mayan glyphs and
these symbols, however.

At the end of the work is a special acknowledgment to Professors Morgan
and Armitage for allowing Matthews access to UCLA's Restricted
Collection. The text, particularly drawings of the glyphs and the titles
of rare books, has been annotated by Woodson.

--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....

The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"