The Lead Books of Sacromonte (Spanish: Los Libros Plúmbeos del Sacromonte) are a series of texts inscribed on circular lead leaves, now considered to be 16th century forgeries.
History The Lead Books were discovered in the caves of Sacromonte, a hillside outside the old city of Granada, Spain, between 1595 and 1606. They originally comprised 22 volumes of inscribed circular lead leaves, laced together with lead wire and bound within folded lead covers; although three volumes no longer survive. The books were found together with burned human remains, identified by lead plaques as being those of Caecilius of Elvira and eleven followers, supposedly martyred under the Emperor Nero. References in the books claim that they were inscribed by Arabic-speaking Christians during the Roman period, and deposited with the martyrs' remains. The books are thought to be related to earlier writings and relics using the same form of writing that were discovered in 1588 during the demolition of the Cathedral of Granada, which was built over the location of the city's Great Mosque. The Lead Books appeared to be written in a combination of Arabic and Latin, using characters that 16th century Morisco scholars claimed to recognise as "Solomonic" and which they identified as pre-Islamic Arabic. Many letter forms were uncertain, and the texts themselves were cryptic and obscure, so the Catholic authorities, led by archbishop Don Pedro de Castro, found themselves entirely reliant on Morisco translators; chief amongst whom were Miguel de Luna and Alonso del Castillo, who by fortunate chance lived in the nearby Albaicin, and who had indeed been instrumental in the rediscovery of some of the books. One complete book, the so-called "Libro Mudo", or "Mute Book", has remained undeciphered and untranslated to this day. As reported by the Christian Morisco translators, the books recorded the prophetic and liturgical teachings of the Blessed Virgin Mary, chiefly addressed through Saint Peter, in which she gave instructions for Saint James the Great and Saint Caecilius to be dispatched on a mission to evangelise Spain, stating her love for the Arabic peoples and language of that land, and promising her particular guardianship over the city of Granada. Taken together, the books may be regarded as a supplement to the canonical Acts of the Apostles (and taken together, are indeed of similar length), but recording an alternative mission history in which Saint Paul does not appear. The Virgin's words had apparently been delivered in Latin, but were claimed to have been translated and interpreted into Arabic by Caecilius. The texts include an explicit reference, in Latin, to the Counter-Reformation formulation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (Mariam non comprehendit peccatum originale), but also employ terminology otherwise closer to Islamic formulae: "God is One. There is no other God but God, and Jesus is the Spirit of God." A consistent theme is to emphasise Arabic as an ancient language of Spain, Arabs in Granada as the first Christians in Spain, and Christianity as the true religion of the Arabs. The form of Christianity presented is such as to be highly acceptable to Catholics in Granada, emphasising the veneration of relics, the cult of the Virgin, and the priority of Granada as a Christian bishopric, but also downplaying some aspects of Christianity that were most repugnant to Muslims, including the cult of icons, the doctrine of the Trinity, the worship of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God and the use of wine in the Eucharist.
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