Question: What was the size of each of the gold plates?


Question: What was the size of each of the gold plates?

Each plate was approximately 6 to 7 inches wide and 7 to 8 inches long

  • "7 inches in length, 6 inches in breadth" [1] - Quoting Oliver Cowdery
  • "six inches wide by eight inches long"[2] —Joseph Smith Jr.
  • "seven inches wide by eight inches in length"[3] —Martin Harris
  • "seven by eight inches"[4] —Martin Harris
  • "about eight inches long, seven inches wide"[5] —David Whitmer
  • "about eight inches square" - quoting David Whitmer [6]
  • "six or eight inches square" - Critical newspaper[7]
  • "The plates were each about 7 by 8 inches in width and length." - Parley P. Pratt [8]
  • "about eight inches long, and six wide" - Lucy Mack Smith (allegedly)[9]
  • "Each plate was about six by eight inches"[10]
Notes (click to expand)
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  1. ↑ A.S., “The Golden Bible, or, Campbellism Improved,” Observer and Telegraph. Religious, Political, and Literary, Hudson, Ohio (18 November 1830): 3, quoting Cowdery. off-site
  2. ↑ Joseph Smith Jr., "Church History [also known as the Wentworth Letter]," Times and Seasons (1 March 1842), 707. off-site GospeLink
  3. ↑ Martin Harris interview, Tiffany's Monthly, May 1859, 165.
  4. ↑ Martin Harris interview, Iowa State Register, August 1870, as quoted in Backman, Eyewitness Accounts, 226.
  5. ↑ David Whitmer interview, Chicago Tribune, 24 January 1888, in David Whitmer Interviews, ed. Cook, 221.
  6. ↑ ED Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 15; attributed to David Whitmer off-site
  7. ↑ “Mormonism,” Fredonia Censor (New York) (7 March 1832). Reprinted from the Franklin Democrat (Pennsylvania) circa March 1832. off-site
  8. ↑ Parley P. Pratt, "Discovery of an Ancient Record in America," Millennial Star 1 no. 2 (June 1840), 30–37. off-site
  9. ↑ Henry Caswall, The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842, 2nd ed. revised and enlarged, (London: J. G. F. & J. Rivington, 1843), 26. off-site
  10. ↑ W. I. Appleby, A Dissertation of Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream... (Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, 1844), 1–24. Full title
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