gold plates and stone boxes. One of the most important Dead Sea Scrolls is a document signed on a copper plate that had been rolled and then hidden. But this is just one of many examples of ancient texts like the Book of Mormon were written on sheets of metal.
Since the thirties, have discovered in various parts of the world, almost a hundred documents, ancient and medieval writings on metal plates or sheets (1).
But the most interest are those from the ancient Near East, the homeland of the peoples of Iraq Mormón.En Book found three copper plates, dating from 2900 to 2425 BC, with an inscription from a temple the ancient Adab. Also found a copper plate with Sumerian writings belonging to the same period. In 1894, Djokha Umma, Iraq, found a small gold plate with an inscription of the XXV century Akkadian a. C., which is kept today in the Louvre in Paris where it also houses several other metal plates with inscriptions. In Lower Galilee, found a brass plate with an inscription of the fourteenth century Ugaritic a. C. In 1950 they met in Beritz Valley in Lebanon, a silver and lead plates inscribed with Hittite. In the thirties, Maurice Dunand discovered in the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos, also in Lebanon, six bronze plates with pseudo-hieroglyphic writing, dating to the period between 2000 and 1800 a. C. Neither Egyptian examples abound: the treaty between Ramses II, King of Egypt and the Hittite king Hatusilis, written in 1287 a. C., was written on plates of silver has found a decree of King Ramses III (1198-1167 BC), written on plates of silver and gold in Egypt, the tomb of King Menkhure, who built the third Pyramid of Giza (about 2800 BC) have found that thin gold plates, it seems, contain the remains deescritura hieroglyphics. Lisht found in gold leaf with hieroglyphic writings from 2000 to 1788 a. C. There is a sheet metal block, subsequent to the fourth century C., containing a chronicle written in demotic Egyptian, which is nothing but a kind of ancient Assyrians reformado.Los Egyptian writing on metal plates, which were often used as plates autographs for temples and palaces. The Assyrian king Sargon II (722-705 BC) repeats in its records that he maintained records on plates of gold, silver, bronze and lead. In 1854, during excavations of the palace in Khorsabad, were discovered six small plates (gold, silver, bronze, tin, lead, and alabaster), containing inscriptions, in a stone box buried under the foundations of the palace. Two of the plates and the box is lost during the sinking of a boat on the river Tigris, Iraq, on May 23, 1855. The four plates that were, gold, silver, bronze and tin, were carried to France and are now in the Louvre in Paris.
Custom metal to retain documents in stone boxes, from which he spoke for the first time when Joseph Smith discovered the plates of the Book of Mormon is also practiced in ancient Persia, where they have found several examples of it. In 1923, in Hamadan, Persia (the modern Iran), they discovered two small plates, one silver and one gold. Containing inscriptions of King Darius I (521-485 BC) in which he talked about the construction of palaces in the city. In 1938, there were two pairs of plates, of which one of each pair was silver and one gold, they were stuck in stone boxes were placed at the corners of the foundations of the palace of Darius at Persepolis. The plates are in Tehran, Iran in the National Museum of Arqueología.También documents have been discovered metal in Israel. In 1968, Bethany was discovered in a small silver scroll, written in Greek and Coptic, dating from around 400 AD C. In 1980, archaeologists opened a tomb in the seventh century C., adjacent to the Scottish Presbyterian Church of San Andrés, in Jerusalem, and found two small strips of rolled silver, containing an inscription from the Bible (Numbers 6: 24-26).
discovered at Machu Pichu box, made headlines in March 2003 issue of Smithsonian magazine (school archaeological non-Mormon) with the title "Uncovering the Mysteries of Machu Pichu" ( 2)
This 
stone box was discovered in 1998 is currently on display at the National Museum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2).
(1). We found plates of gold, silver, copper and lead, with inscriptions in places as diverse as Java (an island in Indonesia), Thailand, India, Pakistan, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Morocco and Korea. In the forties Franklin S. Harris, Jr., compiled a list of such discoveries to be published in several articles and books.
(2). Near the village of Manchester, Ontario County, New York, stands a hill of considerable size to, and the highest of all of the region. On the west side of the hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates deposited in a stone box. In the middle, and top, this stone was thick and round, but thinner towards the ends, so that you could see the central part on the soil surface, while around the edge was covered with earth "
