My dear Sukuun!
My dear Sukuun! (Brethern)
It’s my pleasure to bring you this article today, which discusses one of the most tangible evidences in the Book of Mormon, namely :
Sac Bej
The plural Sacbejo’ob in Mayan or Sac bes in Spanish, it’s about a straight and elevated road or highway, without bumps and paved, built by the ancient Mayans.
The word Sac bej comes from the Mayan language and means Sac=white and Bej=road.
These were elevated roads and were covered with white stucco or lime plaster.
In general, the sac bejo’ob were between 4 and 20 meters wide, but there are some as long as 300 kilometers!
Straight Mayan road 186 miles long from present-day Merida to Puerto Morelos.
The roads and highways built by the ancient Mayans were used to connect central plazas and temples, but others connected between ancient cities.
The longest roads were used for trade, commerce, communication, and some appear to have been used to transport fertile soil.
Back in the days of the Book of Mormon, the Prophet 3 Nephi, almost as a premonition of an impending destruction, provides an amazing and detailed description of the cities and cultural conditions in the land at that time, while doing so he ran into the subject of roads and highways and mentioned:
3 Nephi 11
8 And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place.
Results of great interest that he mentioned roads and highways in the same verse making a clear distinction of the use, purpose and nature of each.
The familiar reader of the Book of Mormon knows that the next few chapters give precise details of the misery and desperation in which the people lived as earthquakes shook the land, vapors of darkness covered the earth, and lightning and thunder were present at every moment of the day.
3 Nephi 11
5 And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land.
6 And there was also a great and terrible tempest; and there was terrible thunder, insomuch that it did shake the whole earth as if it was about to divide asunder.
7 And there were exceedingly sharp lightnings, such as never had been known in all the land.
I would like to place special emphasis on the description of the exceedingly great quaking of the whole earth;
Since, the present Guatemala is the nuclear Mayan center of the Pre-Classic era, a time between 600 BC -250 AD and just that small region that is the whole country now presents a days 288 volcanoes or structures of volcanic and whose activity could have been the reason of the earthquakes, fumes and the days of darkness mentioned.
As quoted in verse 12, it’s obvious that violent earthquakes would have destroyed all the engineering works in their cities,
Once again the prophet provides amazing detail and an accurate description of what happened next:
13 And the highways were broken up, and the level roads were spoiled,and many smooth places became rough.
(33-34 AD)
Making a combination of the 2 verses to analyze the Roads and Highways descriptions will reveal that among the ancient Book of Mormon civilizations there were Roads and Highways, that these used to be elevated or poured up, and that they used to connect city to city, land to land, and place to place.
That after the violente earthquakes these roads and highways lost their level, as usually happens even with modern roads, but what’s remarkable here is that the level of the Book of Mormon roads and highways seemed to be of great importance, since it’s obviously primordial for the prophet to make a special mention of it, At that time, Mesoamerica offered scenarios just like the last part of verse number 13, because not only were the roads and highways plastered with stucco, but the space between buildings was also covered with the same material, which is why the prophet mentions that many smooth places became rough.
A few decades ago, the scholarly community would have argued that there was no evidence of Mayan highways that old, as the Yucatan Sacbejo’obs are the best known, however some Sacbejo’obs are much older and seem to have been built back in the so-called Pre-Classic period (600 BC – 250 AD).
such as those found around El Mirador in northern Guatemala, which bear witness to the early Maya’s road-building activity.
This is really significant since no other culture in North America, South America, or even Central America had such an advanced road and highway network system around 33-34 AD other than the Mayan culture, which is an extraordinary link between the Book of Mormon cultures and the Mayan civilization.
In 2016, a group of researchers from the Cuenca Mirador Archaeological Project discovered that the Maya built the continent’s first network of superhighways. El Mirador is located in the heart of the Petén jungle (Guatemala). The investigation was carried out using a type of radar called LIDAR, which uses a laser to scan an area of 700 square kilometers. The results of the investigation showed the presence of new constructions, but also a road network of more than 240 kilometers long.
The LDS TOURS CANCUN guides are trained to show you the remains of all these amazing works of engineering, some are simply legendary because of their importance and touring with us you can find this tangible book of mormón evidence in our tours to #Coba #Uxmal #Ekbalam #kabah #Dzibilchaltun #Kohunlich #Chacchoben #Muyil #Dzibanche and many more.
Nowadays many of these Sac Bejo’obs have been used as base for highways or incorporated into present day roads or railways.
If you want your family to have an amazing experience exploring the Book of Mormon lands and the multiple testimonies of stone, contact us:
CARLOS ALEMAN
+521 9988463759
@ldstourscancun
@carlosalemanlds
