Mormon mentions both a hill and a land named Cumorah but no corresponding city. Typically a city gave its name to the surrounding “land” and its features. If Mormon had expected a siege, a city with stockpiled resources and fortifications would have the preferred location. Therefore, it seems logical that Mormon is not anticipating that kind of battle; and in fact, even fortified cities have not deterred this now “extremely powerful” and numerous enemy.
Mormon selects a hill, not because it is a good defensive position for a long struggle, but because it requires the attack to come from downhill. This position automatically advantages the uphill defenders. Also, on a hill, a breach in the wall will not shift the advantage to equal the odds, though it is likely that the hill’s natural defenses were assisted by the addition of some type of defensive walls.
Nevertheless, given the length of time allowed for preparation, one would expect some cities. David A. Palmer, a businessman who has devoted a great deal of study to the question of Cumorah, comments that the site of El Mesón is near the proposed Hill Cumorah, which he identifies as Cerro Vigía in modern Veracruz. El Mesón was occupied beginning as early as 400 B.C. and continued to be occupied through Nephite times until ca. A.D. 300. The abandonment of this site around one hundred years earlier than the final events of the Nephite nations suggests that it was a location with the natural resources to support a city population, but that there were no competing peoples who had to be dislodged to allow the Nephite access.
Geography: Cumorah is the same hill as Ramah in the Jaredite record, about which Moroni explicitly notes: “And it came to pass that the army of Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was that same hill where my father Mormon did hide up the records unto the Lord, which were sacred” (Ether 15:11). The hill’s location in the ancient Jaredite homeland also fits the rest of the geographic data from the Book of Mormon text. To understand how, we need some background on what might be required to make such a correlation. Palmer lists the following criteria for the Hill Cumorah and their correlation to the region around Cerro Vigía in Veracruz:
•near eastern seacoast. “The hill is only about 15 kilometers from the coast.”
•near narrow neck of land. “It is just 100 kilometers to Coatzacoalcos, which is the outlet of the Coatzacoalcos River. That river generally divides the isthmus of Tehuantepec.”
•on a coastal plain, and possibly near other mountains and valleys. “From the top of the Cerro Vigía, looking inland, there is an expansive plain. That plain connects with the coast.”
•one day’s journey south (east-south-east in modern coordinates) of a large body of water. “About twenty kilometers north [Sorenson’s “Nephite North”] of Cerro Vigía is the beginning of the vast expanse of water known as the Papaloapan lagoon system. Large oceangoing vessels are used to fish those waters. The lagoons are the largest body of water in the area, not counting the sea.”
•in an area of many rivers and waters. “The Tuxtla range is encompassed by two great drainage systems, the Papaloapan, and the Coatzacoalcos. There are minor rivers at the very base of the hill.”
•presence of fountains. “At the base of Cerro Vigía there are large fountains. At one that is particularly beautiful, ‘Los Cheneques,’ a stream of underground water springs forth from the hillside and cascades over a ledge to a tranquil pool below. Fountains such as this are the source of the rivers which encompass the hill.”
•a military advantage provided by the water. “I postulate that the military advantage sought was attraction of people. The battle was basically a numbers game. People could only be attracted to the army if they were fed.… Two crops per year can be grown in the Tuxtla region. Blom reported that at Piedra Labrada three crops of corn per year are usual. To the staple of corn [were] added beans, squash, chiles, melons, papaya, and sweet potatoes.”
•an escape route to the land southward. “Those escaping to the ‘south countries’ would have… skirt[ed] the northern flank of the Tuxtlas and approach[ed] the sea. From there they would have been able to travel down to the isthmus virtually undetected, having a mountain range between them and the Lamanites.”
•large enough to provide a view of hundreds of thousands of bodies. “Cerro Vigía is 800 meters high, easily large enough.”
•a significant landmark. “Cerro Vigía is easily distinguishable since it sits on the plain out of the main line of the Tuxtla chain.”
•free-standing so people can camp around it. “Cerro Vigía stands apart from the rest of the Tuxtla Mountain chains, separated from it by the city of Santiago Tuxtla.”
•temperate climate with no cold or snow. “Here and throughout Mesoamerica the seasons are determined more by rainfall than by temperature variations, which are slight. The climate is best described as temperate, with cold temperatures only encountered at the highest elevations.”
•in a volcanic zone susceptible to earthquakes. “The Tuxtla mountain chain is itself volcanically active. About half of the mountains are inactive, including Cerro Vigía. The active cones include San Martín Tuxtla, San Martín Pajapan, Santa Marta and Pelón.”
An enduring controversy in Book of Mormon geography is the Hill Cumorah’s location. The traditional belief has long been that the New York hill from which Joseph Smith retrieved the gold plates is the hill where Moroni deposited the records. Even though the name, Hill Cumorah, was bestowed on it after the Book of Mormon’s coming forth, according to LDS tradition, the Book of Mormon Hill Cumorah is the New York Hill Cumorah. Sorenson comments on this problem:
A question many readers will have been asking themselves is a sound and necessary one: how did Joseph Smith obtain the gold plates in upstate New York if the final battleground of the Nephites was in Mesoamerica?
Let’s review where the final battle took place. The Book of Mormon makes clear that the demise of both Jaredites and Nephites took place near the narrow neck of land. Yet New York is thousands of miles away from any plausible configuration that could be described as this narrow neck. Thus the scripture itself rules out the idea that the Nephites perished near Palmyra.
Then how did the plates get from the battleground to New York? We have no definitive answer, but we can construct a plausible picture. Mormon reports that he buried all the records in his custody at the Hill Cumorah of the final battle except for certain key golden plates (Morm. 6:6). Those from which Joseph Smith translated, he entrusted to his son Moroni. As late as 35 years afterward, Moroni was still adding to those records (Moro. 10:1). He never does tell us where he intended to deposit them, nor where he was when he sealed them up (Moro. 10:34). The most obvious way to get the plates to New York state would have been for somebody to carry them there. Moroni could have done so himself during those final, lonely decades.
Would Moroni have been able to survive a trip of several thousand miles through strange peoples and lands, if he did transport the record? Such a journey would be no more surprising than the trip by Lehi’s party over land and by sea halfway around the globe. As a matter of fact, we do have a striking case of a trip much like the one Moroni may have made. In the mid-sixteenth century, David Ingram, a shipwrecked English sailor, walked in 11 months through completely strange Indian territory from Tampico, Mexico, to the St. John River, at the present border between Maine and Canada. His remarkable journey would have been about the same distance as Moroni’s and over essentially the same route. So Moroni’s getting the plates to New York even under his own power seems feasible.
John E. Clark, archaeologist and head of the New World Archaeological Foundation, is adamant that the New York hill is not the Cumorah of the Book of Mormon: “Archaeologically speaking, it is a clean hill. No artifacts, no walls, no trenches, no arrow-heads. The area immediately surrounding the hill is similarly clean. Pre-Columbian people did not settle or build here. This is not the place of Mormon’s last stand. We must look elsewhere for that hill.”