Stone Tablets-Most likely planted fakes.

[cactusjumper]

First, as I have stated from day one, that since there is no provenance on the Stone Maps (100%) before 1949, to be intellectually honest with myself and everybody else, I cannot discount the possibility of them being modern carvings. Anybody that says they know 100% whether the Stone Maps are modern or hundreds of years old is full of **it. Between Larry, Garry, and myself, we pretty much have the entire history of the Stone Maps from 1949 onward settled. To judge on what came before, I can only go by the actions of the owners and my personal character judgement based on those actions.

There are three possibilities of how Travis Tumlinson came by the Stone Maps:

1. He found them just like he said he did. Just North of the 60 at Florence Junction.

The story he told his wife and his Uncle Robert was that he found the Stone Maps when he was trying to get a good view of Weaver's Needle for a picture . He even drew a map for his Uncle Robert showing exactly where he found them. He took a picture of three of the stones on his bumper right after he found them. After that picture was taken, he took the stones to the house of his friend in Apache Junction Charlie Miller. Miller later told another AJ Local Al Reser, that when Tumlinson brought the stones to his house, he helped clean them. He said that there were still little roots growing inside the grooves. Al Reser later went to the spot where Tumlinson said he found the stones and claimed to have found The Latin Heart as well.

2. His Grandfather John "Pegleg" Tumlinson (a well known treasure hunter around the turn of the century) got them from a person that stole them from the Mission at Arizpe, Mexico.

If this is true, then it means the Latin Heart was not real, but this possibility answers a lot of questions regarding why the maps were put on stone. The story goes that in the last few years before their suppression, the Jesuits hid all their wealth in the New World. I believe that each rectorate was responsible for hiding its own wealth, which is why we have so many Jesuit Treasure Stories from so many different places. I think that one of the larger hiding places was in the far Northern Reach of the Jesuits of 1765-6; The Superstitions. The Jesuits had already been arrested, kicked out of, and suppressed by first the Portuguese (1759) and the French (1764). It was only a matter of time before the Spanish followed suit. When the Jesuits were arrested, they were ONLY allowed to keep the clothes on their backs, their Breviaries, and a copy of Sir Thomas A Kempis' Book "An Imitation of Christ". The Spanish knew how much wealth the Jesuits had. The day of their Spanish Suppression (26 June 1767), when the Spaniards rushed into all the Jesuit Colegios and Missions, they tore the places up looking for hidden treasure. If any of the Jesuits had been carrying any maps, they would most definitely have been found. The Jesuits knew what was coming, but they didn't know how long it might be before they could get back to the New World to recover their wealth. Maps on parchment or vellum are subject to be easily destroyed. Chewed by rats. Destroyed by floods or fires. It might have been 200 years before the Jesuits could reclaim their treasure. They needed maps that could last that long. Stone Maps would last forever, but where to put them so a Jesuit 200 years later could easily find them and get the wealth back to the Church/Order? Well, locally important people are entombed inside Churches all over the world. Pimeria Alta was no exception. Inside every church, are many prominent locals' tombs. I think the Stone Maps were hidden by covering the tomb of a prominent local from Arizpe. That is why there is a Cross on the back of one and the word "DON" on the back of another. A Spaniard even looking for hidden treasure would not disturb the tomb of a dead man. The Stone Maps stayed safe there until they repaved the floor of the Church/Mission in the late 1800s. The maps were found, and they made their way to a famous Texas Treasure Hunter (Pegleg Tumlinson).

3. He made them

I put #3 at a very distant third place because of what Travis did with the Stone Maps while he owned them. His actions are in NO WAY indicative of someone who hoaxed the Stone Maps for profit or fame. To make a long story short, in the twelve (12) years that he owned the Stone Maps, he never attempted to sell them. In the twelve (12) years that he owned the Stone Maps, he mostly kept their existence a secret. He never attempted to get his name in any magazines or newspapers. He only showed them to a very few people that he knew well. His daughter Janie told me in no uncertain terms that her dad in no way hoaxed the Stone Maps.


Hal,

Any metal carving tool (old or new) would have left little traces (if the stones hadn't been cleaned many times). I was hoping to find some traces of metal, because we could tentatively date the stones by the makeup of the metal used to carve them. We could easily tell the difference between a tiny chip of modern carbon steel versus a chip of 18th century softer steel.

1. Any type of metal tool. The Stone Maps have been cleaned so many times since they were found (supposedly) in 1949, that there is a good chance any of the original material used to carve them is long washed away.

2. Any type of metal is harder than any of the stones.

3. I think the stones were ground smooth. The maps were drawn on them. Something small was used to start the groove by scratching along the lines. Then, something bigger was used to open the grooves up some. I use the term scratching rather than carving or engraving because it looks like a tool was placed on the surface. Pressure was put on it, and it was dragged toward the engraver in a scratching motion. Someone carefully using a Dremel would not carve a line by jumping out of the groove:

View attachment 1123702

I can't tell you why exactly Father Polzer SJ said they were fakes. Maybe Chlsbrns has more info on that. I can only say that ANYTHING he was ever shown that supposedly came from Jesuit wealth, he said was a fake. I know several people that personally knew the man that say he was a great person. He just was a Jesuit Wealth Denier. My guess is that since he publicly stated in no uncertain terms that there are no Jesuit Treasures, then anything that pointed that way had to be fake.

Also, if you spend a lot of time looking at the Stones, it looks like there are two sets of carvings on them. One set deeply grooved, and another set of shallower carvings. Tumlinson told a friend of his that he had added carvings to the Stones so it would throw off anybody that might steal them from him. He never gave any details about what carvings he added, unfortunately.

Mike

Mike,

Hope all is well with you. I am home recovering from an operation and getting better every day.

I don't believe there were three stones on the bumper of that car.......only two. What looks like a third stone is, I believe, actually a block of wood.

Take care,

Joe

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Minelab PRO-FIND 35 Waterproof Pinpointer Metal Detector for Experts with Tone ID & Adjustable Sensitivity - Grab it through Amazon!

[UncleMatt]

Mike, those observations are excellent!

 

[chlsbrns]

Father Charles Polzer, an ethnohistorian associated with the Arizona State Museum, is convinced the stones are fakes. Among other reasons, he says that the modern valentine-shaped symbol used to denote a heart was a symbol unknown to 19th-century Spaniards.[6]

Peralta Stones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


No one at the museum believes that they are anything but a hoax. I’ve seen them, I’ve handled them, and even to my unschooled eye, they are a joke.
The stones have been examined by a number of experts in various related fields over the years, but the most careful and pains-taking examination was by Father Charles Polzer, a Jesuit priest and a well-known ethnohistorian associated with the Southwestern Mission Research Center at the Arizona State Museum. Father Polzer’s work is highly regarded, and he can easily be described as eminent in his field. He reportedly laughed when he was told that the drawings were purported to be more than a hundred years old.
Upon close examination, Father Polzer found that the surface of the stones had been milled with modern machinery before the drawings were inscribed thereon. And he went on to say, "...the drawings were cut into the stones with modern tools. The language and lettering is modern, if somewhat illiterate Spanish, clearly not colonial Spanish. The heart shape drawn on stone #3 is strictly of Northern European or Anglo character; Spaniards never depicted the idea of a heart with this kind of geometry." He went on at length describing more discrepancies, and in the end he concluded that, "...the stone carvings are a hoax of relatively recent origin."

Are the Peralta Stones fake? -DesertUSA

 

[chlsbrns]

Here is a free ebook from the 1800's

https://books.google.com/books?id=E...B0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=jesuit treasure&f=false

You can find other books worth reading at:

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=b..._max:1899&tbm=bks&q=jesuit+treasure+gold+mine

This should tell you something:

https://www.google.com/search?q=jes...=nLbrVJT2MMi1sQSf44D4BA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&dpr=2

 

[deducer]

I will let someone else tell you where the material was sourced. It's not entirely in agreement. When they do I will show you that Odd Halseth, a brilliant Don, by his own testimony was there. That's more than most theories.

Hal, your suspicions of there being any associations between the Stones and Odd Halseth was shown to be without merit.

Unless you do come up with solid proof, I would think it unwise to prematurely cast aspersions on Halseth.

 

[deducer]

Here is a free ebook from the 1800's

https://books.google.com/books?id=E...B0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=jesuit treasure&f=false

You can find other books worth reading at:

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=b..._max:1899&tbm=bks&q=jesuit+treasure+gold+mine

This should tell you something:

https://www.google.com/search?q=jes...=nLbrVJT2MMi1sQSf44D4BA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&dpr=2

The first book contains some incorrect information. Kino joined the company in 1665 and took his final vows in 1684. He did not join the company in 1684.

Your third link contains a search hyperlink not "results." You may want to correct it.

 

[chlsbrns]

Can you direct me to a credible source showing the error in the dates? Maybe your source is incorrect?

The third link with no results: exactly! There are no results! Didn't you notice the search terms that was used to return no results? (jesuit stone carvings)

 

[Advocat]

Father Charles Polzer, an ethnohistorian associated with the Arizona State Museum, is convinced the stones are fakes. Among other reasons, he says that the modern valentine-shaped symbol used to denote a heart was a symbol unknown to 19th-century Spaniards.[6]

Peralta Stones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

On the other hand, the following references indicate that the well-known heart shaped symbol was in use fairly broadly -- with and without various other attributes -- by the end of the 17th century, including its usage in a work of art in 1770 by José de Páez of Mexico.

Heart (symbol) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sacred Heart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

.

 

[deducer]

Can you direct me to a credible source showing the error in the dates? Maybe your sorce is incorrect?

There are many biographies of Kino, but this one is pretty concise.

The third link with no results: exactly! There are no results! Didn't you notice the search terms that was used to return no results? (jesuit stone carvings)

I guess I missed your point here.

 

[chlsbrns]

Father Charles Polzer, an ethnohistorian associated with the Arizona State Museum, is convinced the stones are fakes. Among other reasons, he says that the modern valentine-shaped symbol used to denote a heart was a symbol unknown to 19th-century Spaniards.[6]

Peralta Stones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

On the other hand, the following references indicate that the well-known heart shaped symbol was in use fairly broadly -- with and without various other attributes -- by the end of the 17th century, including its usage in a work of art in 1770 by José de Páez of Mexico.

Heart (symbol) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sacred Heart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

.

Neither show a "valentine shaped" symbol

 

[chlsbrns]

There are many biographies of Kino, but this one is pretty concise.



I guess I missed your point here.

Who knows which date is correct? It really doesn't matter.

 

[Advocat]

Neither show a "valentine shaped" symbol

Indeed they do. Several are "valentine shaped" and with the addition of other aspects such as the lower portion being more anatomically correct, or flames added to the upper portion, etc.

 

[Rick4570]

someone correct me if iam wrong. did not the jesuit priest keeep daily journals in which they sent copies to the chuch of spain to keep the church informed on what they were doing in the new world. if so i would i would asume some one has searched those archives in spain. maybe father polzer was instructed by the jesuit order to squash any rumors of eariler jesuits in the new world ever having any treasure with the intent of keeping the spanish goverment from laying any claims on it. i know, a wild theory. maybe the jesuit order has been collecting these treasures slowly and quietly over the century.

 

[gollum]

Joe,


The third stone I was referring to was the heart insert.


CHLSBRNS,


REALLY? How about this 1486 depiction of the five wounds of Christ:



Maybe if you look on the upper wall of this 16th Century Catholic Church:



Also, the information I have about nobody at the AZ Mining and Minerals Museum not knowing for certain what to believe about the authenticity of the Stone Maps comes from Ray Grant that has worked there for over twenty years.

Everybody,

Look carefully at the above pics of the stones. Look at the ends of the grooves. NOT indicative of a machine made groove. The grooves get shallower and narrower at the ends. More likely a blade or some sharp metal tool.

As far as the misspellings, I have always said that most of the Jesuits that had a lot of mining knowledge were Germanic. The words on the stones are misspelled like someone pronouncing them phonetically and spelling them like that "Cabollo and Coazon". I don't believe they were misspelled on purpose or from being illiterate. I think they were carved by someone that could speak Spanish phonetically, but didn't know it well enough to know how to spell everything (like a Jesuit from Germany that had just learned Spanish after getting to the New World).

Mike

 

[somehiker]

Can you direct me to a credible source showing the error in the dates? Maybe your source is incorrect?

The third link with no results: exactly! There are no results! Didn't you notice the search terms that was used to return no results? (jesuit stone carvings)

My "Google" returns this page......maybe yours is broken

 

[chlsbrns]

Joe,


The third stone I was referring to was the heart insert.


CHLSBRNS,


REALLY? How about this 1486 depiction of the five wounds of Christ:

View attachment 1123824

Maybe if you look on the upper wall of this 16th Century Catholic Church:

View attachment 1123825

Also, the information I have about nobody at the AZ Mining and Minerals Museum not knowing for certain what to believe about the authenticity of the Stone Maps comes from Ray Grant that has worked there for over twenty years.

Everybody,

Look carefully at the above pics of the stones. Look at the ends of the grooves. NOT indicative of a machine made groove. The grooves get shallower and narrower at the ends. More likely a blade or some sharp metal tool.

As far as the misspellings, I have always said that most of the Jesuits that had a lot of mining knowledge were Germanic. The words on the stones are misspelled like someone pronouncing them phonetically and spelling them like that "Cabollo and Coazon". I don't believe they were misspelled on purpose or from being illiterate. I think they were carved by someone that could speak Spanish phonetically, but didn't know it well enough to know how to spell everything (like a Jesuit from Germany that had just learned Spanish after getting to the New World).

Mike

The quote that I posted about the heart did not say that no culture used a valentine's style heart it said the Spaniards. The hearts that you posted are not from Spaniards.

The quote about modern machinery says that the face (not the grooves) was milled with modern machinery.

As far as misspellings they are misspellings. Any persons thoughts or beliefs or what any person says means nothing.

 

[deducer]

Who knows which date is correct? It really doesn't matter.

It matters if you want to sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

[chlsbrns]

It matters if you want to sort the wheat from the chaff.

We still do not know what date is correct.

 

[Hal Croves]

First, as I have stated from day one, that since there is no provenance on the Stone Maps (100%) before 1949, to be intellectually honest with myself and everybody else, I cannot discount the possibility of them being modern carvings. Anybody that says they know 100% whether the Stone Maps are modern or hundreds of years old is full of **it. Between Larry, Garry, and myself, we pretty much have the entire history of the Stone Maps from 1949 onward settled. To judge on what came before, I can only go by the actions of the owners and my personal character judgement based on those actions.

There are three possibilities of how Travis Tumlinson came by the Stone Maps:

1. He found them just like he said he did. Just North of the 60 at Florence Junction.

The story he told his wife and his Uncle Robert was that he found the Stone Maps when he was trying to get a good view of Weaver's Needle for a picture . He even drew a map for his Uncle Robert showing exactly where he found them. He took a picture of three of the stones on his bumper right after he found them. After that picture was taken, he took the stones to the house of his friend in Apache Junction Charlie Miller. Miller later told another AJ Local Al Reser, that when Tumlinson brought the stones to his house, he helped clean them. He said that there were still little roots growing inside the grooves. Al Reser later went to the spot where Tumlinson said he found the stones and claimed to have found The Latin Heart as well.

2. His Grandfather John "Pegleg" Tumlinson (a well known treasure hunter around the turn of the century) got them from a person that stole them from the Mission at Arizpe, Mexico.

If this is true, then it means the Latin Heart was not real, but this possibility answers a lot of questions regarding why the maps were put on stone. The story goes that in the last few years before their suppression, the Jesuits hid all their wealth in the New World. I believe that each rectorate was responsible for hiding its own wealth, which is why we have so many Jesuit Treasure Stories from so many different places. I think that one of the larger hiding places was in the far Northern Reach of the Jesuits of 1765-6; The Superstitions. The Jesuits had already been arrested, kicked out of, and suppressed by first the Portuguese (1759) and the French (1764). It was only a matter of time before the Spanish followed suit. When the Jesuits were arrested, they were ONLY allowed to keep the clothes on their backs, their Breviaries, and a copy of Sir Thomas A Kempis' Book "An Imitation of Christ". The Spanish knew how much wealth the Jesuits had. The day of their Spanish Suppression (26 June 1767), when the Spaniards rushed into all the Jesuit Colegios and Missions, they tore the places up looking for hidden treasure. If any of the Jesuits had been carrying any maps, they would most definitely have been found. The Jesuits knew what was coming, but they didn't know how long it might be before they could get back to the New World to recover their wealth. Maps on parchment or vellum are subject to be easily destroyed. Chewed by rats. Destroyed by floods or fires. It might have been 200 years before the Jesuits could reclaim their treasure. They needed maps that could last that long. Stone Maps would last forever, but where to put them so a Jesuit 200 years later could easily find them and get the wealth back to the Church/Order? Well, locally important people are entombed inside Churches all over the world. Pimeria Alta was no exception. Inside every church, are many prominent locals' tombs. I think the Stone Maps were hidden by covering the tomb of a prominent local from Arizpe. That is why there is a Cross on the back of one and the word "DON" on the back of another. A Spaniard even looking for hidden treasure would not disturb the tomb of a dead man. The Stone Maps stayed safe there until they repaved the floor of the Church/Mission in the late 1800s. The maps were found, and they made their way to a famous Texas Treasure Hunter (Pegleg Tumlinson).

3. He made them

I put #3 at a very distant third place because of what Travis did with the Stone Maps while he owned them. His actions are in NO WAY indicative of someone who hoaxed the Stone Maps for profit or fame. To make a long story short, in the twelve (12) years that he owned the Stone Maps, he never attempted to sell them. In the twelve (12) years that he owned the Stone Maps, he mostly kept their existence a secret. He never attempted to get his name in any magazines or newspapers. He only showed them to a very few people that he knew well. His daughter Janie told me in no uncertain terms that her dad in no way hoaxed the Stone Maps.


Hal,

Any metal carving tool (old or new) would have left little traces (if the stones hadn't been cleaned many times). I was hoping to find some traces of metal, because we could tentatively date the stones by the makeup of the metal used to carve them. We could easily tell the difference between a tiny chip of modern carbon steel versus a chip of 18th century softer steel.

1. Any type of metal tool. The Stone Maps have been cleaned so many times since they were found (supposedly) in 1949, that there is a good chance any of the original material used to carve them is long washed away.

2. Any type of metal is harder than any of the stones.

3. I think the stones were ground smooth. The maps were drawn on them. Something small was used to start the groove by scratching along the lines. Then, something bigger was used to open the grooves up some. I use the term scratching rather than carving or engraving because it looks like a tool was placed on the surface. Pressure was put on it, and it was dragged toward the engraver in a scratching motion. Someone carefully using a Dremel would not carve a line by jumping out of the groove:

View attachment 1123702

I can't tell you why exactly Father Polzer SJ said they were fakes. Maybe Chlsbrns has more info on that. I can only say that ANYTHING he was ever shown that supposedly came from Jesuit wealth, he said was a fake. I know several people that personally knew the man that say he was a great person. He just was a Jesuit Wealth Denier. My guess is that since he publicly stated in no uncertain terms that there are no Jesuit Treasures, then anything that pointed that way had to be fake.

Also, if you spend a lot of time looking at the Stones, it looks like there are two sets of carvings on them. One set deeply grooved, and another set of shallower carvings. Tumlinson told a friend of his that he had added carvings to the Stones so it would throw off anybody that might steal them from him. He never gave any details about what carvings he added, unfortunately.

See what looks like two different sets of carvings:

View attachment 1123707

The math equation is shallow and the map parts are deeper and look older.

Mike

Gollum,
#3 what most people don't understand about stone carving is that a chisel is used only to create a crude form. Metal files and scrapers are used to creat the final surface. It sounds as if you describe this working same action in your theory.

Rotary files that work at relatively high speed absolutely jump when making contact with a hard surface. A skidding effect occurs if not held properly. They also leave a dimple effect if pushed too hard into the surface. I think that this is what Polzer was using as his claim for them being modern.

gollum, what shape are the channels of the groves. U,V, or squared?

 

[gollum]

CHLSBRNS,

We aren't talking about Spaniards here. We (at least I) are talking about Jesuits. Jesuits were from MANY different countries. Catholics from Germany used the same symbolism as Catholics from Spain. Catholics in general and Jesuits in particular were firm believers in the notion that their service to God and The Pope FAR outweighed any agreements they had with the Kings of any countries. If Jesuits had made the Stone Maps (as I believe they did), they would not have used symbols in a way that Spaniards would have understood, because what they hid, they were hiding FROM THE SPANISH!

Hal,

We are close. Polzer didn't have the training nor knowledge to tell the difference between hand sanded stones and machine sanded stones. From the days of old, the best way to sand a large surface flat and smooth was to take a more or less flat stone, put some fine sand between it and something harder underneath, move the stone back and forth LITERALLY sanding the surface smooth.

I have played with Dremels and sandstone. I have never made line jumps like that. Those mostly happened when I was scraping grooves with a sharp blade.

You also can't just ignore the evidence of what Travis Tumlinson did with the Stone Maps in the twelve years he owned them. HE MADE SEVERAL TRIPS INTO THE SUPERS TRYING TO SOLVE THEM. HE NEVER TRIED TO SELL THEM. HE NEVER TRIED TO GET THEM INTO ANY NEWSPAPERS OR MAGAZINES. One of the most telling things to me was from the interview Bert Love (Dick Peck's Investigator) did with a long time friend of Travis'. He said that Travis would take the stones out from time to time, and the two of them would sit and try to figure them out. He said that Travis would sit there staring at the stones, stick his finger into the big hole in the lower trail map and say "If I could only figure out where that was, I'd be a millionaire!"

DOES THAT SOUND LIKE THE ACTIONS OF A MAN THAT HOAXED THE STONE MAPS? NO WAY!

Mike