Case file · Folklore / legend
Bat Creek Stone
A small inscribed stone that excavator John W. Emmert said he found in a burial mound in Loudon County in February 1889. Later it was claimed as Paleo-Hebrew writing of the 1st–2nd century.
1889 CE · 35.59, -84.24 · status: hoax
The account
The Smithsonian's Cyrus Thomas first read the signs as Cherokee syllabary. Cyrus Gordon proposed Hebrew in the 1970s.
The sceptical view
Archaeologists generally consider it a hoax, probably by Emmert; the inscription closely matches an illustration in an 1870 Masonic book.