What would ancient engravings in gold look like?
The 4/6/2010 article at Law.com which provided the pictures shown above is titled “German Museum Loses Attempt to Reclaim Artifact From Estate” – and it reads:
The gold tablet was found during an excavation around the city of Ashur, now Qual’at Serouat, Iraq, by a team of German archeologists led by Walter Andrae. The inscribed tablet, which was discovered in the foundation of the Ishta Temple, is actually a construction document, according to the judge. It dates to the reign of the Assyrian King Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243-1207 BCE) who expanded the Assyrian empire but was later killed by his son.
At the least, this is proof that ancient peoples in the Middle East engraved records in gold and that such records, even though they are engraved in a precious metal, could survive calamities and last up until modern times.
Though very small, the pictured engravings are not only beautiful, but helpful as an example of what the engravings on the gold plates might have looked like to Joseph Smith and to the other eleven witnesses of the gold plates.
The Louvre Museum in Paris has some ancient plates on display. Some are gold; others are made from other metals. They were discovered during the excavation of the palace of Sargon II, the Assyrian king from 721-705 BC. The site is known as Khorsabad, for the modern-day Iraqi city nearby. Here’s a photo of the gold plates:
http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=17591