Los Lunas Decalogue Stone
Encyclopedia
Los Lunas, New Mexico
-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*72.1% White*2.0% Black*2.5% Native American*0.8% Asian*0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*4.2% Two or more races*18.3% Other races*57.9% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...
, about 35 miles south of Albuquerque, that bears a very regular inscription carved into a flat panel. The stone is also known as the Los Lunas Mystery Stone or Commandment Rock. The inscription is interpreted to be an abridged version of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...
in a form of Paleo-Hebrew. A letter group resembling the tetragrammaton
Tetragrammaton
The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...
YHWH, or "Yahweh," makes four appearances. The stone is controversial in that some claim the inscription is Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
, and therefore proof of early Semitic contact with the Americas
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Theories of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact are those theories that propose interaction between indigenous peoples of the Americas who settled the Americas before 10,000 BC, and peoples of other continents , which occurred before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492.Many...
.
The first recorded mention of the stone is in 1933, when professor Frank Hibben, an archaeologist from the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
, saw it. Hibben was led to the stone by an unnamed guide who claimed to have found it as a boy in the 1880s. The 1880s date of discovery is important to those who believe that the stone was inscribed by a lost tribe of Israel. The Paleo-Hebrew script is practically identical to the Phoenician script
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
, which was known at the time, thus not precluding the possibility of fraud. One argument against the stone's antiquity is its apparent use of modern Hebrew punctuation, though amateur epigrapher Barry Fell
Barry Fell
Barry Fell was a professor of invertebrate zoology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His primary research was on starfish and sea urchins...
argued that the punctuation is consistent with antiquity. Other researchers dismiss the inscription based on the numerous stylistic and grammatical errors that appear in the inscription.
Most modern scholars question much of Hibben's research today because of his work with alleged pre-Clovis
Clovis culture
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture that first appears 11,500 RCYBP , at the end of the last glacial period, characterized by the manufacture of "Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools...
sites. In at least two separate incidents, Hibbens fabricated some or all of his archaeological data to support his pre-Clovis migration theory. These missteps call the rest of his work into question, and, for many, undermine the validity of his claims about the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone.
Archaeolinguist Cyrus Gordon once proposed that the Los Lunas Decalogue is in fact a Samaritan mezuzah
Mezuzah
A mezuzah is usually a metal or wooden rectangular object that is fastened to a doorpost of a Jewish house. Inside it is a piece of parchment inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah...
, though this is hotly contested.
Because of the stone's weight of over 80 tons, it was never moved to a museum or laboratory for study and safekeeping. Many visitors have cleaned the stone inscriptions over the years, likely destroying any possibility for scientific analysis of the inscriptions' patina
Patina
Patina is a tarnish that forms on the surface of bronze and similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure...
. Nevertheless, comparing it to a modern inscription nearby, geologist G. E. Morehouse, a colleague of Barry Fell
Barry Fell
Barry Fell was a professor of invertebrate zoology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His primary research was on starfish and sea urchins...
, estimated that the inscription could be between 500 and 2000 years old and explaining its freshness and lack of patina as being due to frequent scrubbing to make it more visible.
The archaeologist Ken Feder points out that "the flat face of the stone shows a very sharp, crisp inscription...". His main concern however is the lack of any archaeological context. He argues that to get to the location of the stone would have required whoever inscribed it to have "stopped along the way. encamped, eaten food, broken things, disposed of trash, performed rituals, and so on. And those actions should have left a trail of physical archaeological evidence across the greater American Southwest, discovery of which would undeniably prove the existence of foreigners in New Mexico in antiquity with a demonstrably ancient Hebrew material culture..." and states that "There are no pre-Columbian ancient Hebrew settlements, no sites containing the everyday detritus of a band of ancient Hebrews, nothing that even a cursory knowledge of how the archaeological record forms would demand there would be. From an archaeological standpoint, that's plainly impossible."
The stone is accessible to visitors by purchasing a $25 Recreational Access Permit from the New Mexico State Land Office.
The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone is often grouped with the Kensington Runestone
Kensington Runestone
The Kensington Runestone is a 200-pound slab of greywacke covered in runes on its face and side which, if genuine, would suggest that Scandinavian explorers reached the middle of North America in the 14th century. It was found in 1898 in the largely rural township of Solem, Douglas County,...
, Dighton Rock
Dighton Rock
The Dighton Rock is a 40-ton boulder, originally located in the riverbed of the Taunton River at Berkley, Massachusetts . The rock is noted for its petroglyphs, carved designs of ancient and uncertain origin, and the controversy about their creators...
, and the Newport Tower
Newport Tower (Rhode Island)
The Newport Tower is a round stone tower located in Touro Park in Newport, Rhode Island ....
as examples of American landmarks with disputed provenances.