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Interviews on Wednesday February 17, 1836 at Kirtland, Ohio.
Source: Warren Parrish record in Joseph Smith journal, LDS Archives
Lends Mummies and Papyri for Exhibition
attend the school and read and translated with my class as usual . . . This evening Elder
Coe1 called to make some arangements about the Egyptian records and the mummies, he proposes
to hire a room at J Johnsons Inn and exibit them there from day to day at certain hours,
that some benefit may be derived from them - I complied with his request, and only observed
that they must be managed with prudence and care especially the manuscripts
1. Coe was one of the principal contributors in the purchase of the relics from
Michael Chandler the previous year. Joseph had been bothered so frequently by visitors
wanting to see the artifacts that it must have seemed a reasonable idea to defray the
original cost by displaying them for a fee. Joseph seems to have more or less finished with
them for translation purposes the previous November. Probably the text of the Book
of Abraham as we know it presently was already in hand well before that. The scribal copying
and experimental redrawing of characters which occured after the translation was finished seems
to have terminated in failure and ceased to be of interest to them.
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