Note on Photographic Facsimiles, Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon

No matter the care put into transcribing a text, a gap still remains between the reader and the physical document. The use of photographic facsimiles in this volume narrows that gap but does not eliminate it. This note explains how these photographs were created and prepared for publication and identifies some of their limitations. This volume includes both modern, full-color photographs and historical, black-and-white photographs taken under ultraviolet light. Many leaves have been photographed more than once; in such cases, the editors compared the photographs of each leaf and selected the most readable image to be placed in the body of this volume, side by side with the corresponding transcript. The images that were deemed less legible are forthcoming on this website. The majority of the fragments that appear in this volume are not currently stored with other fragments from the same page, and this volume represents the first attempt to publish facsimiles of fragments that have been pieced back together.

The full-color textual photographs herein were created specifically for this publication and its online counterpart by Jeff Carter and Tyler Thorsted of the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Between 2004 and 2006, the portions of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon in the church’s possession were encapsulated in Mylar for preservation. In 2017, archivists, historians, conservators, and leaders in the Church History Department decided to remove the vast majority of those leaves and fragments from the Mylar in order to photograph them. Brian Simmons and Emiline Twitchell, paper conservators for the Church History Department, removed the leaves. Once the leaves were removed from the Mylar, Carter and Thorsted captured images of them, and of a few fragments not owned by the church, using a multispectral imaging system from MegaVision, which uses a hyperspectral UV-IR apochromat 120mm macro lens and a 50-megapixel monochrome sensor. Each leaf was captured using nine visual light spectra from 420nm to 655nm. The images from the various spectra were combined to create a full-color image and then enhanced using Adobe Photoshop.

During photography, each leaf or fragment was positioned on a copy stand covered in black paper. Multispectral diffused lights were positioned at a 45-degree angle, approximately four feet from the copy stand. Each image was hand focused and captured using PhotoShoot software from MegaVision. Each spectrum of light was captured at different exposures that were calibrated to provide optimal color fidelity. Each capture included a color calibration target to achieve the highest accuracy in color, tone, contrast, and exposure. Each image was captured to a RAW DNG file format, which was then processed to a single visual light TIFF image and multiple grayscale TIFF images representing each light spectrum captured (see figure 1). Though the resolution of these images must be reduced significantly for print publication, the Joseph Smith Papers retains full-resolution files, which will allow interested researchers to view extremely detailed digital images. Indeed, a primary purpose for creating these photographs was to minimize the need for researchers to consult the original leaves.

The black-and-white photographs in this volume were taken at various points throughout the twentieth century. These earlier photographs are essential in recovering as complete a transcript as possible. The first systematic effort to photograph the remains of the original manuscript took place between 1949 and 1954, when Ernst Koehler, working for the Genealogical Society of Utah, photographed all the pages then held by the Historian’s Office (later Church History Department) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Koehler photographed the pages in ultraviolet light, which rendered legible some parts of the text that were previously unreadable. Koehler’s photographs preserve many edges of leaves that have since flaked away or otherwise been lost.

Around 1968, the leaves were sent to the W. J. Barrow Restoration Shop in Virginia to undergo cellulose acetate lamination in an effort to preserve them. Before they were sent, a number of isolated fragments were reattached to the leaves to which they belonged. These more complete leaves were photographed, thereby preserving the state of the manuscript just before the lamination work (see figure 2).

In preparation for his work in transcribing the original manuscript in the 1990s, Royal Skousen arranged to have David W. Hawkinson, then manager of imaging and technology development for the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University, photograph those leaves in possession of the Wilford Wood Museum. Hawkinson photographed the leaves in ultraviolet light.

Skousen also arranged for a number of leaves held in private possession to be photographed. Most of these were also rephotographed by employees of the Church History Department in 2017, as described above.

Keith Beavers, a designer with the Publishing Services Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Nicole Christensen Fernley, an editor for the Joseph Smith Papers, prepared the images for printing. Following standard prepress methods, Beavers and Fernley reduced the images to fit the page size in this volume at a resolution of at least 300 dpi and converted the images from the color format stored by the camera (red, green, and blue) to the colors used in printing (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).

For aesthetic reasons, Beavers and Fernley used photo-editing software to digitally remove the black background from the images. They also removed the background seen through the larger holes in the paper. They did not remove some background from smaller cracks or holes in the leaves. The digital removal of the background occasionally makes it appear as though some very small pieces of paper flaked off during photography. In reality, the entire leaves, including the smaller fragments, are encased in thin Japanese paper. Where possible, the Joseph Smith Papers editorial and production staff digitally pieced together fragments of the manuscript to approximate their original locations. As a general rule, this reconstruction was done with like photographs—circa 1950 photographs were pieced with other circa 1950 photographs and so forth. Some fragments remain unidentified; such fragments are not presented in this volume but may be viewed at josephsmithpapers.org.

Even careful photographs can underplay important features of the original document. Three categories of such features are worth noting here.

First, some preservation work performed on the manuscript during the twentieth century caused irreparable damage, leading to loss of legible text that cannot be mitigated with multispectral imaging. The cellulose acetate lamination performed in the 1960s sealed the leaves between sheets of thermoplastic film, a physically and chemically unstable material. Concerns about active deterioration of the manuscript caused by the laminate later prompted conservators to remove it, but in some cases the damage had already been done. The treatment used to remove the lamination was quite invasive and further compromised the legibility of the leaves. Even with the use of multispectral imaging, therefore, some of the text could not be recovered in the 2017 photographs, leaving the earlier images as the only record of legible text at some points in the manuscript (see figure 3). As a result, the body of this volume presents the photograph of each leaf that is judged to be the most generally legible. The alternative images are forthcoming on this website.

Second, some words or characters in the transcript and some physical characteristics of the manuscript described in the annotation can be seen on the original leaves and in the digital images but are too small to be seen well, if at all, in the photographs printed herein.

Third, certain physical features sometimes obscure text of the original document in either the photographs or in the manuscript itself. For example, Ernst Koehler sometimes photographed small fragments lying on top of leaves to which the fragments did not belong. These small fragments obscure parts of the text. In some photographs, curling or inward folding of small portions of the page obscures the text. Sometimes these edges were unfolded during conservation, but other times the curl of the page became further damaged, and the edges were lost. Some parts of particular leaves were also photographed inadvertently when the photographer was attempting to capture a facing page, so that the gutters or other parts of leaves that are now missing are visible only on an early photograph of an entirely different leaf.

For these reasons and others, it may not always be possible to reconstruct a transcript simply from consulting the images printed in this volume. The editors have carefully inspected all the photographs and the original manuscript to create and verify the transcript herein. If a particular word or letter is not visible in the image displayed opposite the transcript, readers should consult Appendix 2 or the forthcoming digital images available at josephsmithpapers.org.