Provo • The original trumpet once held by the golden Angel Moroni atop the iconic Salt Lake Temple has found a new yet temporary home: the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
The historic statue atop the six-spired temple, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was jolted in March 2020, when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake struck northern Utah, and the dislodged trumpet tumbled to the ground.
A couple of months after the quake, crews removed the Angel Moroni sculpture from its lofty perch as work continued on the temple’s renovation and seismic upgrade.
Nearly two years ago, a repaired and refurbished Moroni — horn in hand — returned to the sacred edifice’s east central steeple.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Angel Moroni statue is returned to the Salt Lake Temple in 2024.
But, alas, the statue, depicting the final prophet in the Book of Mormon, the faith’s foundational scripture, is now blowing a different trumpet.
The temblor-damaged one — nearly six years after being separated from its statue — is now on display at BYU’s library as part of an exhibit titled “How Firm a Foundation: The Salt Lake Temple Renovation 2019-2026.”
In its glass case, the 133-year-old trumpet shows signs of aging and denting from its 2020 fall.
(Dylan Eubank | The Salt Lake Tribune) The original trumpet from the Angel Moroni statue atop the Salt Lake Temple is now on display at the Harold B. Lee Library on BYU's campus.
Paul Robbins, the exhibit’s lead curator and a BYU librarian over mathematical sciences, statistics and construction management, said he wanted visitors to feel tied to the piece — since the trumpet is rarely seen up close.
“When it’s on top of a temple, it’s so simple,” Robbins said. “But when it’s right in front of you, a few inches, it’s kind of a different feeling.”
(Dylan Eubank | The Salt Lake Tribune) The original trumpet from the Angel Moroni statue atop the Salt Lake Temple is now on display at the Harold B. Lee Library on BYU's campus.
He wants to see that feeling extended to the temple itself as well.
“My big hope is that people would feel a connection to their faith and to the past and just all of the work that’s gone into the temple,” Robbins said. “... We really wanted this exhibit to be something that was very interactive, where people could see and touch things that were special, and not something that was just purely informational.”
(Dylan Eubank | The Salt Lake Tribune) The original trumpet from the Angel Moroni statue atop the Salt Lake Temple is now on display in this exhibit at the Harold B. Lee Library on BYU's campus.
The exhibit highlights the renovations made to the temple using interactive pictures and models to show the fortifications made to its foundation. The temple is poised to open to public tours in 2027.
As for the original horn, it will be on display at BYU until Monday. It will then be sent to the Church History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City — just across the street from where it heralded the rise of Mormonism in Utah for more than a century.