The Strange Inscription In The Desert
It can be a strangely harsh land, a place of desolation and loneliness, where even the natural elements can be friend or foe; an unchanging environment that is ancient and ageless, the holder of many stories and mysteries along the way. Home to the mountain lion and coyote, the lizards and the ravens, the dry, parched, desert landscape near Los Lunas, New Mexico, is made of scrub juniper, cactus, ageless hilltops and arroyos carved by wind and water for millions of years, stretching for miles in every direction as far as the eye can see, and beyond.
To those that call the area home, there is a magic in the dry desert air; a spiritual connection to unseen forces of nature; power that lies within or beneath the earth and electrically or magnetically charges the environment with an ominous presence that can be felt, and at times, even heard as deep rumble in the ground; an ancient power that casts a spell on those that choose to live the desert life here.
Considering the mysterious nature of the region, it shouldn't be surprising that one of North America's greatest historical mysteries is found here, obscurely located at the base of a common desert hillock, hidden from the elements and casual sight in a crevice of basalt rock. "Inscription Rock", "Los Lunas Rock", "The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone"... it has been called by many names, and there have been many attempts at translating the strange inscription on its surface, which has been estimated to be more than 2,000 years old.
Still an argument among scholars, the writing on the stone tablet appears to be Greek-Hebrew. In fact, several academic translations of the strange language theorize the message is actually an imperfect replication of the Ten Commandments, written primarily in Hebrew with several Greek and Phoenician influences, possibly left behind during the wanderings of Israel's lost "Twelfth Tribe".
In 1949, Robert H. Pfeiffer of Harvard University made a first known translation of the strange writing. Being an authority on the Old Testament, he concluded that the inscription was a copy of the Ten Commandments. He thought that the inscription was written in the Phoenician, the Moabite, and the Greek languages.
But that translation has been challenged by more than one researcher. In 1964, Robert L. LaFollete wrote a translation which indicates the mysterious inscription was actually a travelers story carved on the rock using Phoenician as well as some Hebrew, Cyrillic and Etruscan letters. Others have supported that claim.
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