Case file · Folklore / legend
Zelph the 'white Lamanite'
On 3 June 1834 members of Joseph Smith's Zion's Camp dug bones out of a mound in Pike County, Illinois, and Smith identified them as Zelph, a 'white Lamanite' warrior from Book of Mormon times.
1834 CE · 39.70, -90.65 · status: claim
The account
Smith wrote nothing himself; seven companions left varying accounts, and later versions added links to the Hill Cumorah.
The sceptical view
A 2001 excavation dated a burial in the mound to about 58–127 AD, centuries before the Book of Mormon's final battle; historians note the accounts were edited in the 1840s.