Evidence #343 | June 6, 2022
Book of Mormon Evidence: Deseret
Post contributed by
Scripture Central
Abstract
In the book of Ether, it is reported that the name deseret means honeybee. A very similar Egyptian term (dšrt) was also associated with the honeybee.In his account of the Jaredite journey to New World, Moroni relates how “they did also carry with them deseret, which by interpretation, is a honey-bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees” (Ether 2:3). Some early readers claimed that there was no evidence to support any association between this unique Book of Mormon name and the bee.1 Subsequent evidence, however, points in the other direction.
The Red Crown of Egypt and Deseret
In the ancient world, the bee was associated with the king of Egypt. Scenes from rituals performed at the temples of Edfu and Dendera portray the king presenting honey to Egyptian deities.2 This royal association with the honeybee goes back to a very early period. According to Manal B. Hammad, “the bee was frequently used in the ancient Egyptian texts throughout ancient Egyptian history down to the Roman period, as it was strictly associated with the royal ideology designating the king as the sovereign of Lower Egypt.”3
The crown of Lower Egypt, known as the Red Crown, has a distinctive appearance. Toby Wilkinson explains, “The curly protuberance at the front of the crown has been linked with the bee (connected with kingship from at least the middle of the First Dynasty, through the title nswt-bity, ‘he of the sedge and bee’), and also with the goddess Neith, an important Egyptian deity.”4 The earliest representation of the crown appears on the sherd of a redware vessel found in the lower Nile delta from the Naqada I period in Pre-Dynastic times (4000–3500 BC).5
Hugh Nibley was the first Latter-day Saint scholar to draw attention to the name of the Red Crown,6 which Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner noted was dšrt (pronounced Deshret).7 The name dšrt was even directly substituted for the word bee in some Egyptian texts, perhaps for sacred reasons.8 Not only does this Egyptian term bear a striking phonetic similarity with deseret from the Book of Mormon, but both words are associated with bees.
Deseret among the Jaredites
The attestation of dšrt/deseret in ancient Egyptian is notable but raises the question of how the Jaredites—who are believed to have departed from ancient Mesopotamia (Omni 1:22; Mosiah 28:17; Ether 1:33)—would have learned the name. While this question cannot be answered definitively, there is good evidence for trade and cultural interactions between Egypt and Mesopotamia during the earlier period when the Jaredites may have left the region.9 It is not implausible that a linguistic term such as dšrt would have been part of the cultural exchange. Moroni’s need to use the phrase “which by interpretation is” (Ether 2:3) may even suggest that deseret was a term foreign to Mesopotamia that required clarification.10
Conclusion
The Book of Mormon’s use of the name deseret in association with the honeybee was once considered to be without cultural or linguistic support. Today, however, we know that an ancient Egyptian term very similar to deseret was indeed associated with the honeybee. It is also significant that a connection between the Jaredites and this Egyptian word makes the best sense during the early period of Mesopotamia (when the Jaredites most likely dwelled there). Notably, the evidence supporting this connection was unavailable to Joseph Smith when he translated the Book of Mormon in 1829.11
Book of Mormon Central, “Where Does the Word “Deseret” Come From? (Ether 2:3),” KnoWhy 236 (November 22, 2016).
Hugh Nibley, “The Deseret Connection,” in Abraham in Egypt, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2000), 608–647.
Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1988), 189–193, 319–322.
- 1. “There is not the slightest reason for thinking that the word Deseret means Honey Bee in any language ever spoken by man.” Franklin, “The State of Deseret,” Warsaw Signal, Warsaw, Illinois, 30 March, 1850.
- 2. Marco Zecchi, “On the Offering of Honey in the Graeco-Roman Temples,” Aegyptus 77, nos. 1–2 (Gennaio–Dicembre 1997): 81–82.
- 3. Manal B. Hammad, “Bees and Bee Keeping in Ancient Egypt (A Historical Study),” Journal of Association of Arab Universities for Tourism and Hospitality 15, no. 1 (June 2018): 1.
- 4. Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt (New York City, NY: Routledge, 1999), 163.
- 5. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 163.
- 6. Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1988), 189–193, 319–322; Hugh Nibley, “The Deseret Connection,” in Abraham in Egypt, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2000), 608–647.
- 7. Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar: Being An Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Third edition (Oxford: Griffiths Institute, 1964), 504.
- 8. Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, 191–193; Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 631–633.
- 9. The periods of heightened trade correspond to the following phases of Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures: Naqada II (3500–3200 BC), Naqada III (3200–3000 BC), the early part of the First Dynasty (3000–2890 BC), and Mesopotamia’s Late Uruk (3600–3100 BC) and Jemdet Nasr cultures (3100–2900 BC). See Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), 66.
- 10. This is working under the assumption that the editorial explanation of the name (called a gloss) was already present in the text that Moroni was abridging and that he chose to retain the gloss.
- 11. A writer for the Warsaw Signal in 1850 dismissed the possibility of any Egyptian connection with Deseret. “Sir Gardiner Wilkinson does not appear to have known the ancient Egyptian name of the bee, (see his Manners and Customs, second series, vol. 1, p. 81,) and if not known to him, it is not likely to have been known to any one else.” Franklin, “The State of Deseret,” Warsaw Signal, Warsaw, Illinois, 30 March, 1850.