Esperanza Stone
Hope Stone | |
 Major Burnham standing next to the stone, with the inscription outlined in chalk. | |
 | |
| Location | Yaqui River valley |
|---|---|
| Type | stone |
| Material | igneous rock |
| Length | 8 feet (2.4 m) |
| Opening date | 1909 |
The Esperanza Stone was a large (8-feet long) inscribed stone found in the valley of the Yaqui, Mexico. It was discovered and excavated in 1909 by Major F. R. Burnham and Charles Frederick Holder.
Discovery
[edit]The stone was discovered during an expedition in the Yaqui valley.
Description
[edit]The stone was "a brown, igneous rock, its longest axis about eight feet, and on the eastern face, which had an angle of about forty-five degrees, was the deep-cut inscription."[1] Symbols on the stone include a volute and a swastika, also found on other stones in Mexico.
Legend
[edit]There was a legend that the stone had fallen down out of heaven in times past, and that the carving was by human hands.[2]
Meaning of the symbols
[edit]Burnham believed that the symbols were Mayan. Others class them as Petroglyphs.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ Fort, Charles Hoy (1919). "chapter 11". The Book of the Damned. p. 145. citing Holder, Charles F. (Sep 10, 1910). "The Esperanza Stone". Scientific American. 103 (11): 196. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican09101910-196. ISSN 0036-8733. (complete article online; retrieved 03 Jan. 2017)
- ^ Lippard, Jim. "Review of The New Inquisition". Retrieved 25 January 2011.
Many years ago a strange stone resembling a meteorite fell into the valley of the Yaqui, Mexico, and the sensational story went from one end to the other of the country that a stone bearing human inscriptions had descended to earth. Hundreds visited the place, natives made a pilgrimage to it from all over Sonora, and the stone, called the Esperanza, became famous in its way, and many of the inhabitants believe that it is a message from heaven, and demand that it be translated.
- ^ Neas, Linda M. Rhinehart (Jan 13, 2011). "About the Native American Indian Pictorial Language". Heather Marie Kosur. Archived from the original on 15 June 2012. Retrieved 25 January 2011.