“A Model of the Plates,” New Era, July 2007, 32
A Model of the Plates
This facsimile of the plates was made for an exhibit at the Museum of Church History and Art. In an attempt to be as accurate as possible, all known statements about the plates were compiled and compared. Unfortunately, there was not space in this article to include all of the descriptions.
The process of making and using the model of the plates taught us more about them and led to some logical deductions. The difficulty in making the plates would encourage a scribe to be careful to fill the whole page and not waste any space. We learned how difficult it is to turn soft metal plates over loose metal rings. You have to lift each one carefully or they bind against the rings. Pliable metal changes with the pressures of movement; it becomes brittle and breaks. The holes have to be an elongated shape larger than the rings and cannot be too close to the edges or they tear out.
Even though we have presented an image of what the plates may have looked like, many exact details are still lacking.
For more about the making of this replica of the plates, see “A Golden Opportunity,” New Era, Feb. 2006, 34.