Concerns Regarding Facsimile No. 2 from the Book of Abraham:
A number of textual and illustrative discrepancies appear in this hypocephalus reproduction. Most notably, lines 18 through 21—including the inscriptions along the outermost ring—are marked as “illegible” in the surviving copy. This notation reflects either their severe deterioration or the absence of decipherable characters in the source material.
In addition, several figures and symbols within the facsimile appear to have been deliberately altered or redrawn, diverging from known Egyptian parallels. These modifications may have been introduced during the initial copying process, possibly due to damage, missing fragments, or interpretive liberties taken by Joseph Smith. Such alterations complicate scholarly efforts to correlate the image with standard hypocephali, over one hundred of which have been identified and translated by Egyptologists.
