What an amazing undertaking. Each engraved plate took five hours to create.
Imagine the challenge of creating a copy of something you can’t see. But that’s what silversmith Gordon Andrus did in late 2014 when the Church History Museum commissioned him to create a copy of the golden plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated.
“Instead of the visual artifact of the golden plates, our curators were able to provide Gordon with several statements of description by eyewitnesses, which are fairly general in nature, and some of which are conflicting,” said his wife, Maryanne, who is supervisor for exhibitions and programs at the museum and who researched the eyewitness accounts.
The husband and wife spoke Sept. 21 at the latest event in the “Evenings at the Museum” series that is presented free to the public.
The exhibition-quality replica that Andrus created is included in the main-level exhibit that has been open at the museum since its yearlong renovation completed in October 2015.