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Los Lunas Decalogue (c) 2007, David Grant Stewart,
Sr. Photos
courtesy of Ancient American
magazine (Samuel Oshmier, “Pilgrimage to This rock
is on a hill near It has
been known since before A
transcription attributed to Barry Fell is given here. Some of the words are separated incorrectly
in the transcription where they are correct in the rock engraving, but the
transcription is better than nothing. Here is
the translation provided at the site referenced above: I am Yahweh your God that brought you out of the lands of This is
not a real translation. It inserts
words that are not on the stone (like “ While the
Ten Commandment explanation is the most dominant, several unrelated
translations have been proposed by other authors. The Decalogue is perfectly apparent to any
Hebraist. The nit-picky objections to characters being rotated are based upon
ignorance. Characters were always changed in orientation according to the
direction of the writing. Here is
my translation of the inscription. I
believe that it is the best translation of the inscription to date: I am the Lord thy God who took pity and spared you from
the path There shall not be other gods before Me. of the sea, from the house of bondage [and] from ... Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long
upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor anything
that is thy neighbor’s. Notice
that the third line is a continuation of the first line. The scribe
originally intended to write everything double spaced and then came back and
inserted the second line! This is why the first three lines are single spaced
and all the rest of the inscription is double spaced. Apparently he was under
duress. This is
written in a reformed Hebrew. Both the characters and words and syntax are
slightly altered from traditional Hebrew. Contrary
to Internet claims, there is no Greek nor any other foreign influence
whatsoever. The delta occurring in the engraving predates the Greek writing
system altogether. There is
no definite article anywhere in the text, something discarded as superfluous
since the grammatical particle ET implies that anyway. Contextual
analysis: This writing is on a stone on a hill which was fortified for
military defense. Language analysis:
This is a modified form of Hebrew used about 600 B.C. This
record was written by the Nephites [white Israelites who migrated from There was
no permanent Nephite presence in This is a
fortified site. There were no wars between the Nephites in North America and
the Lamanites before the year 320 A.D., hence no need for Nephite
fortifications in North America before that date [4 Nephi 1:48, Mormon 1:8]. In the
year 350 A.D. The first
major Nephite fortifications in The
Lamanites did not make a permanent breach in Nephite defenses at the city
Desolation [ The Nephites
wrote in a modified form of Hebrew [Mormon 9:33]. I am not
interested in debating those who believe that the entire Book of Mormon
civilization was born, lived, and died in a tiny area of The
fortified site of this engraving was certainly built between 375-384 A.D.
Before that time, there would be no point in building a fortified settlement
on the top of a rather inaccessible hill and fortifying it, by the people in
question [Nephites]. After that time, there were no people who would have
built such an installation with this language, nor the use it was put to. There is
too much knowledge built into this engraving for it to be any kind of hoax,
and the eyewitness records all serve to authenticate it. Now let’s
examine the characters we find in this engraving, and trace their origin or
descendents: Nephite
characters compared with related scripts Common
origin is indicated by blue coloring. Phoenician 1450
B.C. Moabite 930
B.C. Nephite 600 B.C
but modified down to 350-385
A.D. Etruscan 600
B.C. Late
Square Hebrew 100
A.D. Roman [from
late Greek] 500
B.C. a A a A T A b B b B c B g G g d G D D D s D h H E E v H, later E v V V V u V Z Z Z Z z Z x H H H j H, heavy y y Y _ | ||| I h J, Y K K K K f K l l L L k L m M M 2,m,M n M n N N N b N Uu
| x S X O O O g GN, O p P P P p P, Ph, F U | m TS e Q, C r R R R r R \ \ \ S,w a SH T T T T w T Here we
see that the affinity with other writing systems is directly correlated to the
age of the writing system. If we didn’t already know this was reformed 600
B.C. Hebrew, this chart would strongly suggest it. Etruscan writing is older
than Roman. Moabite writing is older than Etruscan. Phoenician writing is
older than Moabite. Whoever
wrote this had a profound knowledge of Hebrew. This is the purest form of Hebrew and of
early Hebrew script I have seen.
Internet writers have speculated a Greek influence. There is none
whatsoever. There are
only two Hebrew characters that do not exist in this engraving. The
probability is that they do exist in other Nephite writings, because the
letter C [called Q by modern scholars] such as we have in words like Cumorah
[which would be called Qumorah by scholars] does exist in Nephite
records. The shift in transliteration
from C to Q is recent; as the time the Book of Mormon was translated, C was
the accepted transliteration. Other
changes we see in Nephite writings are the introduction of an F as in “ziff”
and “Zeniff.” The letter F does not exist in Old World Hebrew. And the
softening of the Old World Hebrew G: Old World Gershon, New World Jershon. We have
enough characters now to identify positively any Nephite writings. No other
language in the world uses this and only this set of characters. It is
almost certain that this engraving was ordered to be made by General Mormon
himself. He was the commander in chief at this time. I can’t imagine anyone
else ordering that it be made who was alive at that time and place, having
either the authority or the inclination. The
abridgement of the Ten Commandments is very intelligent and to the point.
What we have here is a version adapted to military use as a list of concise
standing orders. It is a brilliant piece of work, with all the essentials and
nothing superfluous. This ought to be
in every seminary manual on the Book of Mormon. This
stone document suggests that we can translate any other Nephite records we
may find in the future, provided they are not written in the reformed
hieratic script, which has yet to be deciphered. I have not made any attempt
in that direction as yet. That writing system was known to very few Nephites
and reserved for records on metal plates; this one was known to all. The
above table will assist any Hebraist in crossing the gap between Masoretic
Hebrew and Nephite Reformed Hebrew with a good dictionary by Gesenius. We see
that there is no Greek influence as claimed by some scholars. The Delta was
used by Semitic languages in general, and old Hebrew in particular, seven
hundred years before the Greek adopted it from the Phoenicians after they
lost their own Linear B which was likewise borrowed from ancient Egyptian
Hieroglyphs. Second,
we see that the Nephites simplified the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and adapted it
to their changing speech. When did this orthographic reform occur? 4 Now these are the names of the different
pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value. And the
names are given by the Nephites, for they did not reckon after the manner of
the Jews who were at Jerusalem; neither did they measure after the manner of
the Jews; but they altered their reckoning and their measure, according to
the minds and the circumstances of the people, in every generation, until the
reign of the judges, they having been established by king Mosiah. This was
about 91 B.C., and this was Mosiah II who standardized Nephite weights and
measures. This is the most likely time for the orthographic reform also. We
see the letter F for the first time also during this king’s reign, which does
not exist in Old World Hebrew, in words like Zeniff and ziff [platina]. It was
necessary to visit personally the Los Lunas site to solve several problems: 1. How do
you get there? Correct directions do not exist. 2. One
visitor claims he saw vestiges of fortifications. All others say they have
not seen any fortifications. Are there fortifications or not? 3. From
the photographs, we get the idea that the Decalogue itself was remote from
anything else insomuch that it was hard to find. Where, then, is it, and if
it is remote from anything else, why is it even there? 4. One
visitor claims there were other petroglyphs. Where are they, especially with
respect to the Decalogue? 5. What
is the context of the Decalogue? 6. Are
there any artifacts left to provide further information, or will the absence
of artifacts itself tell us something? 7. The
Indians had a nasty habit of destroying all writing that was not theirs. How
did this escape? 8. Why
the bad grammar, “Los Lunas”? I took
exactly one hundred digital photographs of the Decalogue site and the To get to
the Decalogue: 1. I-25
to the Los Lunas exit in 2. Go
northwest on highway 6 exactly 14.5 miles from the freeway. 3. On
your left you will see the county dump transfer station entrance. Turn in
there. 4. Over
the tracks, on your left you will see a wide gate in the fence just before
the transfer station payment booth. Turn left there unless the gate is
closed. If it is closed, park there and walk through the gate. 5. Follow
the dirt road. After a hundred yards or so it looks like a dry wash overgrown
with weeds. Continue until you see a fence on your right with a gate in it.
If your car is not bothered by four foot tumbleweeds, you should not need a
four wheel drive. 6. Park
by the gate and walk through it. Turn right and follow the dirt path parallel
to the fence. 7. Perhaps
fifty yards up the path you will see a path on the left leading into a
ravine. Perhaps the arrow formed of rocks will still be there pointing up the
path. Take this path. 8.
Perhaps a hundred yards up the ravine you will see the Decalogue Stone on your
left. I have
photographs of every stage of the trip which I will post on the
72languages.com web site. You can follow them without any directions at all,
if you know enough to get on state highway 6 going NW. We
climbed the mountain and surveyed it with a metal detector and found nothing
of ancient origin made of metal. I do not believe it has ever been surveyed
before with a metal detector. At the
top of every peak on the mountain, there was a cylindrical stone fire pit,
blackened from fire on the inside, apparently used as a signal fire. Likewise
at the top of every peak were dug in foxholes with walls of stone entirely
surrounding them to the height of several feet. The foxholes were big enough
for several standing soldiers or one sleeping one. Rectangular
foxholes. The
mountain was very difficult and dangerous to climb by every approach. We
could not find the Decalogue and gave up and returned homeward by way of the
ravine, which seemed to be the only safe route. Then we found the Decalogue
not far up the ravine from the base of the mountain. My son
Ben and the 10 Commandments near the entry of the ravine leading to the
military observation and signaling post. We found
no arrowheads. There
were no traces of permanent habitation. This was a military observation and
signaling station. Other
petroglyphs on the site are almost all Indian. Yet it appears this site was
rarely visited by Indians. Except to
persons of exceptional physical constitution, the mountain top is inaccessible
from all directions except by way of the ravine. (I took no little personal
satisfaction in being able to reach the top the hard way, even if it was only
because I did not know there was a better.) The ravine itself is quite
obscured from view and hard to find if you didn’t already know where it was.
The large hill or small mountain was an ideal location for its purposes,
being the only one in the immediate vicinity. I think
it is safe to assume that no battle ever took place on this site, which suggests
that it fulfilled its purpose well. It
appears that the purpose of the site was to provide advance warning of
invaders from the southwest, to those farther north at It appeared
from the overgrown dirt road that no one had visited the site for at least
one year. We drove
north to visit the The next
morning we walked through all of the |
