University of Texas San Antonio by
John L. Davis of the Institute of Texas
Cultures writes of the tablets:
“Quite a way downriver, within the
present boundaries of Big Bend
National Park, a perhaps related find
was made. In January of 1962 Charles
and Bernice Nickles and Reva and
Donald Uzzell, related families, were
vacationing together. Their tour took
them to the Hot Springs area of the
park at the junction of Tornillo Creek
and the Rio Grande just above
Boquillas. For an alleged transcription,
see Perkins, passim, who maintains the
writer was Greek… Uzzell climbed the
cliffs on the side of Tornillo Creek
across from the old settlement. Some
thirty feet above the creek bed, he
found a fragmented clay tablet protect-
ed in a small niche. The pieces were
neatly stacked and bore strange, incised
characters. Scrambling down the cliff,
he reassembled the tablet, and Charles
Nickles took photographs of the curious
writing.
“Unable to decipher the markings,
the group took the artifact to park
headquarters and left it with a ranger
for safekeeping and further study. The
families were curious about the strange
writing, however, and offered photo-
graphs to several authorities including
Dr. Cyclone Covey of Wake Forest
University and Dr. Cyrus Gordon of
Brandeis University. At first no one
could decipher the markings, although
the most favorable opinions classified it
as a phonetic language, at least related
to early Greek, written in a blend of
Judean Hebrew and Sidonian
Phoenician alphabets. Such strange
combinations are found in Europe but
are not exactly common in Texas. The
least complimentary comments called
the markings those of a Mexican
goatherd. Yet the marks do include
Phoenician characters that such a per-
son would probably not have known
nor have made up by chance.
“One theory suggested by Covey,
that a party of Phoenicians might have
descended the Rio Grande (leaving the
New Mexico and Texas inscriptions
near the waterway), is, in the face of a
lack of further evidence, hard to
believe. In any case, Phoenicians would
not have been confined to the water-
way since they were also experienced
overland navigators; but the route
would have been a logical one to or
from the sea. It provides a supply of
water and is beautiful. So far only one
scholar has offered a complete tran-
scription of the tablet: Dr. Barry Fell
claims that the script and language are
very grammatical, centuries-old
Iberian, not Phoenician, and that the
message is a supplication to Ahura-
Mazda to protect a small group of lber-
ian Zoroastrians during a plague. Such
opinions are questioned- or ignored- by
most scholars. In any case, the motive
for a hoax seems thin indeed because
the Tornillo cliff at the Rio Grande is
an unlikely place for someone to hide
something that was intended to be
found, particularly on the wrong side of
a former spa. And the recent finders
had no apparent motive for a hoax.
“A clay tablet, or even a mud tablet,
could last for centuries, and the lack of
agreement concerning the script may
not be evidence that it is a fake. In fact,
if it were a hoax, it would be more like-
ly that the script could be more easily
read. The original tablet is no longer in
existence. The ranger, to whom the
find was first presented, later said–in
contrast to other observers–that the
inscription was not on clay or rock but
appeared to be on recent mud such as
that which forms along Tornillo Creek
after every heavy rain. He and other
park personnel agreed that the tablet
showed no signs of age, again, unlike
other opinions. It was carefully kept,
however, until it disintegrated.
So the story goes.” The full story can
be read at digital.utsa.edu
David Childress tells us that further
north on the Rio Grande near Los
Lunas, New Mexico, in 1871, local
Natives guided a rancher to a large
rock with strange figures carved on it.
Knowing white men could read and
write they thought the rancher could
tell them what the writing said. The
rancher was as puzzled as they were; he
couldn't make heads or tails of the carv-
ings. The big rock was at one time the
face of a bluff which had broken off and
fallen, turning the slab upside down.
The inscriptions had been carved
before the large slab had fallen to its
present day position. It is no wonder
the New Mexican rancher couldn't
read it to his Native amigos. It was not
only upside down but was in an ancient
language that is written from right to
left. Turns out the text was Paleo-
Hebrew dating from around 100 AD.
The Los Lunas Rock inscription fea-
tured an ancient form of the Ten
Commandments called the Decalogue
and can still be viewed to this day.
Photos are available at www.ancient-
hebrew.org/15_loslunas.html
Further north near the headwaters
of the Rio Grande is an ancient head-
stone, written in Coptic Greek. It is
near Cripple Creek, Colorado. The
headstone commemorates the life and
service of Palladis. Odd to find a head-
stone in present day Colorado written
in a 14th century alphabet, used by a
people who supposedly had never
known the Americas even existed.
These and other mysteries abound
all along both sides of the Rio Grande,
such as Ogam writings found in con-
junction with prehistoric cave drawings
and paintings. The Ogam form of writ-
ing was widely used around 700 AD
and it is suggested that this form of writ-
ing originated much earlier in North
Africa. Benedictine Monks adopted
and used Ogam. Just North of
Terlingua, Texas I recently noticed
Ogam amongst some prehistoric
Native cave paintings, while resting in
the shade of a cave. Only a few years
ago, while looking at Native figures on
a cliff painting deep in a Texas canyon,
I also noticed Ogam markings pre-
served right along with the Native art.
The dictionary defines Ogam as an
alphabetical script used originally for
Cenizo
inscriptions in an archaic form of Irish,
from about the fifth to the 10th cen-
turies.
Had Irish Benedictine Monks or
North Africans traversed North
America long before the Spanish
Jesuits arrived? Could they have sailed
into the Gulf of Mexico and up the Rio
Grande in a hide boat, much like Tim
Severin did in the Saint Brendan voy-
age which sailed from Ireland to
Canada in 1976?
We know that a man known as 'St.
Brendan the Navigator' made the same
trip centuries before Columbus. Was
the Rio Grande easier to navigate by
boat when these early explorers
arrived? How many explorations have
come and gone on our mighty river?
Hard evidence indicates some of
these explorers may have come as early
as 3,000 years before the birth of
Christ. Why didn't they stay? Who
were these people and where did they
come from? Like I said in the beginning
of this article, the Rio Grande guards
its secrets closely. Maybe it is our job to
figure these things out.
First Quarter 2016
17