Latest / Tales From Aztlantis / Episode 82: Ancient Romans & Jews in the Americas?

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Episode 82: Ancient Romans & Jews in the Americas? · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you remember the lesson.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Lesson and honesty.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Honesty to yourself.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Honesty to others.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've all learned a good lesson.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've always heard that honesty is the best policy.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_04: Now I'm catching on to why that's so why that's so why that's so why that's so why that's so why that's the greetings, dear listeners, and welcome to Tales from Ostlantis, where we take you on a journey through Chicano, Mexicano, and Mesoamerican history and archaeology, and we help combat the spread of disinformation about these very topics.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: We are your hosts, Curly Tlapoyawa.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: And Rubenariano Tlakatecat.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: What's going on, Dr.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: Tlakatekat?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: How are you?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: How am I?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: That is a good question.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's such a loaded question these days.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: How is anybody nowadays, right?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, just watching the world burn.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, what did you think of that song that I sent you?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I haven't had a chance to listen to it because I don't have a um Apple Music account, so you sent me the Apple Music link.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, it's on Spotify.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I just I've just been real busy, but I just think it's interesting.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us a little bit more about the song?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so uh uh a while back, um his name is Chicano Vega, and he spells it X-I-C-A-N-O-V-E-G-A.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and this is a while ago because I had totally forgotten about it, to be honest.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_04: He reached out and was like, Hey, I'm a f fan of the podcast, which we absolutely appreciate.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: And he asked if he could maybe pull something from the podcast for a song, and I was like, Yeah, man, go for it, you know?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: And um time passed and I I spaced it out, I forgot about it, and then he's like, Here it is, boom, and he sent me the um the album.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's called Camino Rojo, is the the name of the album, and uh he's from Texas, he's a Texas uh MC and there's a song on there uh Sacred Land that samples our interview with uh Dr.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_04: Mario Garza um of the of the Miacan Garza uh Quabultecans and and it's done really well and I was really excited and surprised to hear the song because it was very cool.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Does he use um um his audio throughout the entire song?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because the clip that you sent me um starts off with Dr.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Garza saying a few words, and then uh you can hear the rapper come in, or and then there's like a picks up again with Dr.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Garza, and where right where it cuts off, it's like that that's why Dr.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Garza's speaking about the land and the sacredness of the language and things like that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so it's um basically uh it's it's used in place of a chorus, right?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: So you have like Dr.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_04: Garza speaks and then the first verse, and then more of Dr.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_04: Dr.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_04: Garza speaking again, and then the second verse.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: So does it repeat um Dr.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Garza's words, or does he like use like throughout the song?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Is it just him clips of the the the sp the the interview and it's different clips of the interview talking about um how the land is sacred.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_04: Okay and uh it came out really well.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um so listeners, if you know if you are so inclined, I encourage you to go check out the album Camino Rojo by Chicano Vega.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's available on Spotify, on Apple Music, and I've been um encouraging him to uh release it on vinyl because I like having stuff like that on vinyl.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_04: I think that would be very cool for that to happen.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_04: So uh thanks, bro, for including us on that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_04: And uh job well done.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: I enjoyed the entire album.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_04: So everyone should go out there and check it out.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_04: Nice and uh don't forget to give us credit, bro.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like where'd you get this from?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Listen to Tales from Aslantes.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_04: He he he shouts this out all the time.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_04: So Okay, cool.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure he uh he gives credit.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right on.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: And uh other than that, man, you know, just been going through the uh going through the shit.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it's like um the last episode that we put out um was one where I went solo and talked a little about a little bit about um stuff that's going on, how we got here, things like that.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And this is it's interesting because um like the very same day that I was doing that, and then it posted the following day, um someone from our community was um rounded up with the ice raids out in California.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh do we want to talk about that?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: Say a little words about that, or well, luckily he um we're talking he's the uh national spokesperson for the uh because you said you had spoken to him the day before.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_04: He was well we were texting like the day before.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um because I had sent him I I'd started these these well, I'll get to what I had sent him, but anyway, the point being, we had like messaged back and forth the day before, and then the next day I started getting all these messages like, damn man, he got picked up.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: And people were freaking out, um, rightfully so, because nobody knew where the hell he was.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: Nobody knew where he was being held, his family didn't know how to get a hold of him.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then they tried to hit him with some bullshit that he was trying to like spike tires or something.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: But luckily, there were enough people on the scene with cameras that you know that story got forgotten real quick.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_04: You know, so he was released.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think they're filing any charges, but just the whole inconvenience of it, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because we had a similar event that happened maybe was it last week uh at a different farm where in this case it was uh um some young Chicano who is ex-military, uh, who I believe was serving um as uh a security for this farm, and and ice showed up and they rounded up a bunch of people, and and in fact, someone died.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: A gentleman from from Michael by the name of Jaime Al-Alanis, uh 54 years of age, uh died escaping, running away from from ice.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, he um got on top of a roof of some building and fell to his death, uh, all because these goons are out there around, you know, people who are just trying to make a living, you know.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um I don't know.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's it's it's been impacting me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm sure that it's impacting other people in our community.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's it makes it to the point where it's kind of hard to focus on things sometimes.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely, man.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I just want to tell people out there, you know, that you know it's okay to talk to someone, um, someone that you trust, someone that you know, someone that that you that uh you know is going to hear you and and and um listen to what you have to say and and provide, you know, just that if anything, at least an ear, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um they don't have to necessarily do anything for you besides just listen to you, um, be able to express yourself.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the ways that I express myself, you know, I'm a historian, but I'm also a music lover.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um the the day that it happened, I started writing the corrido for Hayanese.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not I'm not known for my corridos, if you know what I mean.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm still working on it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe at the end of this episode for the premium listeners, I might uh offer a few verses of what I'm working on.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_04: Please do.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, and to touch on absolutely and and to um touch on what you just said, you know, it it gets very overwhelming to wake up every morning and you know, I look at my phone and it's just video after video of people screaming and and you know, it's it's like this just terror going on, this terrorizing of our communities.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um so you know, take care of yourselves.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like don't don't feel like you need to just keep watching that stuff over and over and over again because it has an impact on you.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_04: It does.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um it definitely affects the way that I you know comport myself through the rest of the day, just having that be one of the first things that I see.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_04: And Michelle and I were just at a a protest this morning.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_04: We went out because there was a a Walmart here where they scooped up a guy.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: I saw the video for that.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, didn't they tease him and he fell to the floor?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like no one to catch him, he just like lands almost like he like was it on his back and maybe his head hit the theory.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he he hits pretty hard.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and then one of the uh the employees is there like telling the people filming, like, hey, get out of here.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and he's telling people, other people there get back to work.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: And um Nothing to see here, folks.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_04: So um that guy's name got out, by the way, the guy who uh was working at Walmart, and so people were calling him out from the protest.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_04: Wow They were like, Where are you at, Puto?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_04: Right on, right on.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_04: And then of course, you know, some of the Walmart employees, a couple of them came out and they were like under their breath, like being real obnoxious towards us.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_04: Like not not saying very saying stuff, talking shit basically, but in very hushed tones.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: Like this guy walked by and he was all go ice, go ice, but he wasn't you know, making a stand about it, which is unusual because it's like, you know, we're you work at Walmart, man.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_04: I imagine you're not very wealthy.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_04: We're here protesting for like you too, bro.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_04: Like, don't think that you're you're beyond hitting snaps.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't it just come out recently that these people are being recruited and they're being paid six figures, a hundred thousand to start, and then they're getting a sign-on bonus forty-five thousand dollars?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: So imagine being someone who because I was you know, my daughter, you know, we talk about these things all the time, and she was asking me, like, you know, what would motivate someone who um because you know, we went to watch the Superman movie, um, and uh, you know, it's funny how all the the the maggots are getting all up in arms uh over Superman because it's reflect and even if Superman was written before all this was going on, that's that's my understanding, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, the fact that the script is mirroring what's going on in society, and and you have these people who are getting upset because it's painting a certain um uh type of person in a certain light, it's like, no, well, that should tell you something right there.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know if it does, I don't know if that makes you open your eyes.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the things that we were talking about is like what motivates someone to do something like this, right?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so even if, for instance, even if you think you are on on the wrong side of history, you know, it's money, right?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: The fact that they're they're being offered this outrageous amount of money to sign up to be an ice goon is gonna motivate anyone who they you know, people will convince themselves about anything that they're on that they're doing right, even if they have to crack a couple of eggs to make an omelet, then so be it because the ends justify the means.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: We're you know, quote unquote protecting the country and we're rounding up these people who are i here illegally, and they've been convinced, they've been told, right, that these people are criminals, that these people are uh up to no good, and that they're rapists and murderers, and you know, some of them are good people, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: I hear I'm hearing that some of them are good people, but you know, it's like round them up.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so they convince themselves that even if they're tearing up families and they're they're uh you know killing people you by accident or people who are dying in in the concentration camps that they have, they've convinced themselves, right, that they're doing something good for their country, and on top of that, they're getting paid for it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: So there's always a money factor involved with these sorts of things.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: People wouldn't just do it just for the sake of doing it.
• 12:50
  unknown: Yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think some of them would.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, the the the ones the ones that are motivated by hate and racism and xenophobia will definitely do it for free.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: But but I'm sure you know they would want to be compensated too.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like going back to the historically speaking, to when the colonial governments would pay people for the scalps of Indians, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like bring us the scalp and you get paid a certain amount of money, and so people would go out and they would intentionally just go scalping in innocent indigenous people who are just minding their own business because there's some there's some money on that bounty, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the money, the money, the money factor is gonna motivate people to do some outrageous shit.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, this is another PSA to to our to our listeners uh who are you know I know that we have listeners around the world and and we apologize uh if this doesn't apply to you, but this is what we're having to contend with here in in this country at the moment.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: God damn it.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: On the lighter note, we have uh new episode for you.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we've got some pretty cool stuff to talk about.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: Little little interesting tidbits from history.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: One one from right here in my own backyard.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, sir.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: Which is where I went to high school, by the way.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm curious.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe when we get into the discussion part, maybe you can you can tell me what you've never told me about this this uh artifact in in your backyard, but hey.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's what this episode is going to reveal.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: What you know, the deep dark secret held by by deep archaeology.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: Big archaeology, keeping everything secret.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_04: And so, dear listeners, we're gonna kick off this episode from head to stone with tales of dubious discoveries.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so we're gonna start off with what's called the tekashki uh Kalishtlawaka head.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Did I say that right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Takashi No, hold on.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is a tongue twister, the Tekashik Kalishtlawaka head.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna call it the TC.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna call it the T the TC head, okay?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a tongue twister.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Tekashik Kalishtlawaka head.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a mouthful.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, um, so this is um a persistent and intriguing myth that I um I didn't discover this necessarily.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: It came up on my feed not that long ago.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was prompted by an article that was recently uh published in uh outfit called the travel.com, and it was entitled, Did Romans Visit America?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so this is supposed to be about Romans Visiting the Americas, and and of course, this is before Columbus.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: You you know that that's how this is framed.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a fascinating question, one that um you know the source article kind of explores, and and um this is something that we're going to sort of dissect here and see what there is, if there's anything to this tekashkik.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: There I go again.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Tekashik tekashik.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's gonna that's gonna kill me.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Tekashik Kalislawaka.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: So the very idea conjures up fascinating images, doesn't it?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Roman legions navigating uncharted waters, galleys reaching distant shores.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: But amazing if true.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing if true, as uh isn't that Ben Rafford's one of his books?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you know, I think it's called It's Big If True, I think that's the name of it, Big If True.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but as the travel.com article itself hints at, while, quote, the theory of ancient Romans setting foot on American soil is a pervasive myth, end quote, the evidence or rather lack thereof tells a very different story.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: So let's uh pump the brakes on the romanticism there for a moment, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: The core of this enduring myth and the central piece of evidence discussed in the article often revolves around a single artifact that that Tekashi Calixlawaka head.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, I gotta write this.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Damn, there you go, son.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: This terracotta head was discovered in Mexico's Toluca Valley specifically at an ancient Astric site near Tekashi Calixlahuaca, from which it derives its name.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it holds a regional relevance due to its archaeological context.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, discovered in Mexico in 1933, this terracotta head bears a striking resemblance to a Roman sculpture.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: And for some, that's enough to declare QED, Romans were here.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: However, as always, the devil is in the details, and in this case, the details are riddled with doubt.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: As the article points out, this head is the only prequaltemic artifact, quote, to have ever been found with Roman characteristics, end quote.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: So the striking resemblance to ancient Roman artifacts has certainly sparked much debate about its origins.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: So let's dissect this.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Firstly, it's one head, just one.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: In the entire vastness of the Americas, with centuries of Roman civilizations back in Europe, we have a single isolated artifact.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: If the Romans truly established the presence here in the Americas, even if if it was a fleeting one, wouldn't we expect to find more?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Coins, pottery fragments, remnants of camps, or even just another odd piece of statuary.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: The article itself highlights this critical point, noting that, quote, no other similar objects have ever been found.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: The absence of a broader archaeological footprint is a glaring red flag.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, secondly, the origin of the Tekashik Kalishlawaka head itself is far from settled.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Despite testing a consensus on the head's origins remains elusive.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: While some claim it's definitely Roman, or thermoluminescence testing dated it to a broad range of 9th century, uh roughly between the 9th century BCE to the 13th century CE, leaving its precise age and origin ambiguous.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a big, I mean, 9th century to 13th century.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a big difference.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so the the travel.com continues, it lays out four main hypotheses regarding the presence of this head in Mexico, acknowledging, quote, a general lack of consensus on the head's origin.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: So to the credit of this uh this piece, it's not-I mean, the the title was kind of mystery-mongering, but it that's that's the hook, right?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's the way to get you in.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so they they provide several hypotheses that we're gonna go over here and and uh and we'll see what the travel.com uh ends up siding with at the end.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: So the first hypothesis, go ahead.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: Well, but before you get into that, I I did want to bring up that we should um we should clarify.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's called the uh a head, right?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: And it is, but it when you say that it's this um a Roman head, like a statue, it conjures up this imagery that it's like a life-size bust of somebody's head, when in reality the um the artifact itself is very small, like it could fit in your pocket.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: It's like um yeah, it's it's maybe I'm looking at a photo of it right now next to a scale, and from head to chin, it's like three centimeters.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_04: So that's it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's like yeah, it's like this big.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_04: So it's um it's something you could easily just like put in your pocket and walk away with if you Yeah, it's it's not like a massive um because when I first started when I first heard about it, I was like, oh shit, like that a ro the head of a Roman statue.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: And then uh you start looking at it and I'm like, oh wait, this thing was tiny.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that that that paints it, I mean that puts it in a different light altogether.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe we can get into that in in the discussion uh portion.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um but let's get back to the hypotheses that they set forth.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, this is hypothesis one from the travel.com.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh post-Columbian introduction.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: So this is perhaps the perhaps the most pragmatic explanation.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: The head could have is easily been, quote, brought to the Americas by Europeans after 1492, end quote.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Think about it.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: European traders, explorers, and other settlers were crisscrossing the Atlantic for centuries after the Roman Empire's decline, often bringing curiosities and personal items with them.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: This theory doesn't require any fantastical ancient voyages.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the first hypothesis.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Hypothesis two a Roman ship blown off course.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: This is where the Romantic imagination takes flight.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: A Roman vessel caught in a storm, pushed across the mighty Atlantic, eventually.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: Making landfall in the New World.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: While theoretically possible for a tiny vessel, consider the state of Roman naval technology.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: The article wisely questions this, stating that, quote, Roman sailing techniques and ship limitations made it extremely improbable, end quote.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Their ships were primarily designed for coastal navigation and the relatively calm waters of the Mediterranean.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: They lacked the advanced rigging, hull designs, and navigational instruments necessary for a deliberate or even accidental transatlantic crossing.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: The sheer logistics of sustaining a crew on such an epic, unplanned journey are staggering, especially given the quote impossibility of Romans crossing the Atlantic due to their sailing techniques, which favored coastlines over open seas and the limitations of their ships for long voyages, end quote.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that hypothesis is kind of uh um a no-go right off the bat.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that one's pretty out there.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Hypothesis three, Mesoamerican origin.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Could indigenous artisans have created something that coincidentally resembles Roman art?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's not entirely out of the question.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Artistic styles can sometimes converge, and local traditions might have produced a similar aesthetic, which is they kind of leave this hypothesis open-ended for the reader to kind of make their own decision.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe could it?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we can talk about that too, since you're more of an expert on that than I am, and maybe you can offer uh a few thoughts on that hypothesis.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: And hypothesis four, it's a hoax.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: This is the most cynical, but unfortunately, a not uncommon reality in the world of archaeology.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: The head could simply be a fabricated artifact planted in a way that suggests it was a genuine find designed to stir excitement or even to deceive the circumstances of its discovery decades ago might not meet today's rigorous archaeological standards for provenance and context, which I'm kind of leaning towards that one, but we'll see.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: We'll we'll we'll take a closer look here in a little bit.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's a quote also from the Wikipedia page that Curly was able to find.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what it says according to an informal declaration by Paul Schmidt, an archaeologist at the UNAM, the head was planted in the site by a participating archaeologist Hugo Moedano in an attempt to play a practical joke on Jose Garcia Payon, supervisor of the dig.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: So ding ding ding ding ding, hypothesis for it.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: So the article itself suggests that the most likely explanations are that the head was either made by Mesoamericans or that it's a hoax.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're close, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And frankly, that aligns with a skeptical perspective, which I like.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I liked about the article.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: It had that sort of hook to it, had that mystery mongering to it.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end, even though they kind of leave some of those hypotheses open-ended, they kind of lean more towards the the uh probability of it being a hoax, even if they didn't know this this um this anecdote, which you were able to pull from Wikipedia.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering why they weren't able to do some research on that.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they felt like it would take away from the story.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so the conclusion is further supported by the um the browsed content, which states that the head being a Mesoamerican creation or a hoax are the most likely scenarios.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: The burden of proof for extraordinary claims lies with those making them.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when it comes to Romans in America, and this goes for this head or for any other so-called uh ancient Roman artifact that is found in America, but this is not the only one.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's I believe there are several out there.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: The evidence is extraordinarily thin and it rests almost entirely on a single ambiguously sourced artifact.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: So whenever you find something that is ambiguous and it's a single source, always question that claim.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you just have one source making the claim, there's nothing they there's no other evidence to corroborate what they're saying.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so you can't really just take their word for it.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's a claim that's being made.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: And furthermore, let's consider the historical context.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: The Romans were meticulous record keepers, right?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Their empire was vast, but their known explorations were primarily focused within their sphere of influence.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Europe, North Africa, and the Near East.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: So even if we didn't have the quote from Wikipedia that tells us that this was a deliberate hoax, even if we if we had none of that information to go with, we could also eliminate it just by the sheer fact that the Romans themselves were very meticulous record keepers.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if there had ever been any mention of any um uh sort of uh uh ships having been sent across the the pillars of Hercules to you know to venture out into the open sea, I think someone would have definitely noted that somewhere.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's no mention of it in any Roman historical text, any maps or navigational guides of the journey to the lands beyond into the Atlantic.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And as the article summarizes, quote, Roman sailing practices and ship capability capabilities make a Roman voyage to America highly improbable.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: So just the fact that the Romans didn't have the kind of sailing capabilities that later became the standard during um the age of exploration, beginning with uh the Portuguese, right, who benefited from a lot of the technologies that they inherited from the Middle East and their own explorations and their own discoveries that they made as seafaring peoples.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: None of this would have happened before the the middle of the 15th century, meaning uh 1440s to 1450s is really when the Portuguese begin to experiment with these navigational techniques, and that's what allows the Portuguese to begin to sail you know around um uh the western edge of Africa and eventually make it around uh the Cape and they made it as far as as India and other places out in uh what is now the East or Asia, right?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so the Romans didn't have any of that.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so while the idea of Romans in America is a captivating narrative, a critical examination of the evidence leaves us with very little to go on, except we know, right, that the head is basically a hoax.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's really nothing else to say about it.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh um other than I mean, I wish we had the people who were involved.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: I wish do you know currently if if they've ever uh come out and said anything else besides this?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_04: All I was able to find was that the people who were allegedly involved with it have passed away.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_04: So that um you know it's gonna remain, you know, whether you take this guy's word for it or not.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_04: But what cracks me up about stuff like this is this propensity to just like latch on to the most fantastical version of it.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_04: Like we look at like, okay, so how could this you know artifact could have, you know, how how could it have come to this, you know, site which is seldom visited?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's not a big archaeological site that people go to and like has a big museum and everything.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like so, how did this wind up here?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_04: And it's intriguing to go through and be like, okay, well, if it's authentic, um in an actual Roman figurine, which is it's tiny, so easily like uh a Spaniard could have brought it over with him, or some European explorer could have had that on their person, and maybe they traded it away to indigenous people, and then an indigenous person has it, and then you know, it winds up in their burial goods.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, just that and I just made that up right now.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like that's far more plausible than the ancient cross the ocean.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: That if if an indigenous person had found this and it would have made its way as a gift to uh someone of import in indigenous society, it would probably have been with their belongings, maybe would have been part of uh incorporated into their personal uh sacred objects, you know, that might have been buried with them.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if if if it was something that was that was deemed even by them, by that society, as being so extraordinary that that not that it had necessarily magical powers or anything like that, but that it was just so different that it gave them uh um it gave them a sense of of uh cachet, you know, like having something that's exotic, right?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: And that's and that's exactly what trade is all about, right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_04: You get these prestige items that are hard to come by.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_04: And once you get one in your possession, you hold on to it because it's like, aha, you know, this reflects my standing in this community.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_04: I have this really cool thing.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_04: No one else has it but me.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: And the harder it is to come by, the harder it is to manufacture, the more uh coveted uh those items are, right?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_04: Like, wow, I've got this, this object that means a lot to me.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's just funny that um yeah, like I like I said, how small it is because none of the uh mainstream articles that I found about it, I had I had to look up uh a paper, an academic paper written by it about it that had actual photos of it next to a scale.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's a big thing in archaeology.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_04: We always uh give each other shit.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like if we take a picture of an artifact, the first question is like, well, where's the scale?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_04: Because I I have to know like how big is this thing?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like what are you showing me here?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_04: And it's funny that quote from Wikipedia that I found that it was um intentionally planted at the site by another archaeologist to play a pla a practical joke, because this shit happens all the time.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um it usually doesn't go off the rails like this and become like a whole thing on the internet.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_04: But on multiple occasions I have seen personally people put stuff in each other's units just to mess with them.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um and there's a even a famous story here amongst New Mexican archaeologists about a certain archaeologist, not gonna say their name, who had a propensity to believe more outlandish things.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: Like they really liked to lean hard into their interpretation of what could possibly be going on at the site.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_04: And so another archaeologist on the crew like created a fake artifact and just like dropped it in their unit while they weren't looking, and they popped up thinking they had found like this totally unique badass thing, and then once you know everybody started laughing, they got pretty pissed off uh about it because it it made them it kind of revealed how um their their level of credulity, I guess, is a nice way to put it.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they wanted to believe.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, this is common.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_04: We we we fuck with each other in the field.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_04: Like that's a common occurrence.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what's what's interesting, uh now that you mentioned it, there is something akin to that in history, but not quite the same.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: So whereas archaeologists will hoax their fellow archaeologists by implanting something in their in their um site.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: In history, if you want to be mean-spirited, and if you know that there's another scholar working on the same topic you are, and and you know that they're gonna be going to the archives, so they have to go to the archives that you're looking at to be able to say anything about that that subject.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: And if you find something, you'll hide it from them.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: You'll misplace it so that like it'll take them longer to find.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_04: It's kind of like when I would go to the store and there was that one item I wanted, so I would hide it behind another item so I could come back and get it later.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_04: Just like that.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_04: That's brutal.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: I love it.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's better too if you dislike the other historian, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: If you hate them, uh with oh man, it's like oh that fool's coming.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: I know I'm gonna do it.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_04: Good luck finding this, buddy.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's hilarious.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_04: And that leads us into our second topic here.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone of New Mexico.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: And we call it the mystery stone, uh, the New Mexico mystery stone.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I I heard it called.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um interestingly, I've never actually gone out to Hidden Mountain to see it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I first heard about it when I was in junior high.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, my history teacher or one of my teachers was talking about it, and he was like 100% a true believer in it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_04: He was like, Yeah, there's this stone that has the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, and you know, it proves that the ancient, you know, Hebrews were here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Yeah, okay.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_04: It didn't really pique my interest.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_04: And so I, as I went to high school, you'd hear about it again, but then the teacher I heard about it from in high school was um way more critical of it.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like, yeah, this bullshit stone that everybody goes out to look at, and it's a bunch of nonsense.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_04: So I grew up uh hearing about it, but I've never actually gone out to see it.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: And it's one of those things that I keep meaning to go out and and look at for myself.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um and it's actually not that hard to get to.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know why I haven't.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like available for anyone to just go and take a look at it?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of strange.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so well, it's where it's located is it's on public land.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_04: So you need um there's like a permit that you get, and then you have to go out to this trailhead, and then you go on a little hike, and eventually you'll get to this rock outcrop where it's located.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Ross Powell So is this like an official trail at a park?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_04: Uh as far as I know, yes.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_04: There's like a trail there that that you could go on.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you have to go off trail to get to the actual Right.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, for instance, it's there's an actual like a trail that people go hiking.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, you could go out there and if you want to go to look at the stone, you can go off the the beaten path per se.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Ross Powell I believe so.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I I do know you need to go online and like get a permit.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_04: Although I doubt anybody ever does, because I doubt there's anybody out there checking for in today's uh environment.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, nobody cares.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_04: So that was my personal experience with the stone.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_04: I still need to go out and see it.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_04: If I go out and look at it, I'll take a bunch of photos and I'll throw them up on uh on the Instagram.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_04: On the gram, as the kids like to say.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what the kids are saying?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_04: It's what I imagine they sound like.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_04: Throwing this on the gram, daddy oh so the Tekashi Kalishlawaka head, see, I almost fumbled on it.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: You got me all self-conscious.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_04: Is not the only supposed artifact from the Eastern Hemisphere that is believed to have made its way to the Americas before the European invasion.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_04: It isn't an isolated incident in the realm of out-of-place artifacts, which is what the uh the Pekashika Kalishitlawakahead was.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_04: We call them Upas, an out-of-place artifact.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the world of archaeology, or rather the fringe edges of it, is littered with similar tales.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_04: True that.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_04: Tales from Ostlantis, one might say.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the most compelling parallels to our Roman head story can be found much further north in my own backyard, the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone of New Mexico.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_04: So imagine a massive boulder etched with what appear to be ten lines of ancient script.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_04: This is the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, or the mystery stone, discovered near Los Lunas, New Mexico.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_04: For some, this inscription, purportedly an abridged version of the Ten Commandments, written in an ancient form of Hebrew, is undeniable proof.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: But uh proof of what?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_04: That ancient Israelites, or at least Hebrew speakers, somehow made it to the American Southwest millennia before Columbus.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_04: Proponents of the stone's authenticity suggest that its inscriptions are paleo Hebrew, etched into the rock long before the eighteen hundreds.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_04: The theory goes that or the hypothesis goes, that ancient Near Eastern peoples, perhaps even a lost tribe of Israel, traveled all the way to New Mexico and left this remarkable message behind.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_04: It's a captivating idea, isn't it?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_04: A testament to ancient global exploration, challenging our understanding of early American history.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_04: But like many grand archaeological claims, we have to ask, does the evidence hold up?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_04: Well, unfortunately for the romantics, the answer is a resounding no.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_04: Let's break down why most archaeologists and historians view the Los Lunas stone as a modern fabrication.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_04: First, there's a glaring lack of archaeological context.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_04: True ancient artifacts are usually found within layers of sediment alongside other objects that help us date them and understand their cultural significance.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_04: The Los Lunas stone was essentially found sitting out in the open with no surrounding evidence to support its antiquity.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_04: And that's the thing, right?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_04: If we had found you know lots of artifacts scattered around it to show that there was this ancient arrival of people, they would have left behind a lot of stuff.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_04: More so than the stone.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_04: Then there's the issue of the individuals associated with the stone.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_04: One name that often surfaces is Frank Hibb, an archaeologist whose reputation has been, let's say, less than stellar due to questionable practices and alleged hoaxes in other contexts.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_04: So Frank Hibbin was uh an interesting individual.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um I was actually a Hibbon uh junior uh w what what was it called?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like I had gotten this scholarship to uh to go to field school from the the Frank Hibb Foundation So he was like a very wealthy individual who left a very large endowment to the University of New Mexico so you know people are a little hesitant to criticize his legacy too much because there's a lot of money involved.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, at UNM where a lot of my classes were was directly next to the Hibbon Center, which is where a lot of um lectures and presentations take place.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_04: I am he's most famously known around these parts for the alleged discovery of the Sandia Man, which uh there's Sandia Cave up in the Sandia Mountains, and he allegedly found proof of an ancient uh person up there that he he named the Sandia Man, and it turned out that it was just all nonsense.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, there's um less than stellar is uh is a nice way of putting it.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: Some interesting characters out in New Mexico.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a well placed years ago.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: There was there was this um this rich guy, this rich old guy who had hidden some treasure up in people yeah, people thought it was in New Mexico, but he ended up hiding it like was it in southern Colorado or something?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, it was in um Yellowstone.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_04: Was it Yellowstone?
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_04: No, it was it was in a national park.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_04: I don't remember which one.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: But he was from New Mexico, right?
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was an author from out here.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, man.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_04: The land of enchantment.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_04: There's some interesting cats out here, to say the least.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, uh a Hibbon fellow.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_04: That just I don't know why I couldn't remember that, but I was a Hibbon fellow.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_04: So it paid for my um my field school and that semester of uh school covered everything, so you know.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_04: Praise be to Hibbon Fellow.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_04: R.I.P.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: Frank Hibb.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_04: Cheers.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_04: Cheers.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_04: Cheers.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_04: With my Haritos.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_04: With my Imperial IPA.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_04: But perhaps the most damning evidence comes from the analysis of the text itself.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_04: Experts who have studied the inscription point out several inconsistencies.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_04: While it mimics paleo Hebrew, the specific forms of the letters and the way they are written suggest a modern understanding of the script, likely derived from academic rediscovery of Phoenician scripts.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_04: Furthermore, the inscription appears to have been made using modern tools, not primitive implements available to ancient peoples.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_04: It looks like a clumsy attempt to recreate an ancient writing system by someone with only a rudimentary grasp of Hebrew.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_04: The consensus among scholars is that the Los Luna Stone is almost certainly a modern work, likely created sometime between 1870 and 1936.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_04: It is a clever hoax designed to stir imagination and perhaps even to sell a good story, but a hoax nonetheless.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_04: One of my favorite hypotheses about the Mystery Stone is we had a uh a Mormon battalion in the 1800s come through New Mexico and some people think that it was left it was fabricated by these Mormon soldiers to sort of back up their uh their claims to the land, their claims to their historiosity within the butn't they have left something from the the Mormon text?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: What's it called?
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um the Book of Mormon?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: The Book of Mormon instead of the Ten Commandments.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that uh that just doesn't make any sense.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Powell So there's that and then there's like this really bizarre link.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm actually working on an episode uh that's gonna this this artifact is gonna make a reappearance in a fur in a future episode because there's a very strange link between this hoax and the um the claim amongst New Mexicans that they are descendants of uh Jewish peoples.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so get your bingo cards ready, folks.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: So while the idea of ancient Hebrews in New Mexico is a fascinating tale, the Los Lunas stone serves as a potent reminder.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_04: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_04: And in this case, the evidence just isn't there.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: Shocking.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: So just like the Tekashik Tla Kalishlawaka head, the Los Luna stone is a single unique artifact making an extraordinary claim about prequal trans oceanic contact.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: No Roman forts around the head, no Israelite settlements around Los Luna stone.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: They both stand alone, isolated, screaming for context that simply isn't there.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: So here are a few similarities between the two.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: Firstly, the evidence is isolated and singular.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: If Roman legions were indeed making landfall in Mexico, or if ancient Hebrew speaking communities were living in New Mexico, we would expect a much broader archaeological footprint.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: Coins, tools, pottery, remnants of settlements, burial sites, something, right?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: Something more than just one single curious object.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: Their singular nature immediately raises a red flag.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Secondly, the provenance of these things is often murky or problematic, but the Tekashik Kalishtlawakahead, there's debate about its exact discovery in 1933.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: With the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, while it's been known since the late 19th century, its initial discovery lacks the rigorous documentation modern archaeology demands.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: This opens the door to questions about whether it was placed there more recently, such as the head that we've already determined.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: So this date of 1933, I'm not sure where that comes from, honestly.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: Did someone just make that up?
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: And thirdly, and perhaps most damningly for both are the stylistic and linguistic inconsistencies.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: The Tekashik Kalishtlawaka head, while Roman alike, isn't unequivocally Roman in its craftsmanship for many experts.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: Similarly, the Hebrew script on Los Luna Stone, while superficially ancient, contains features and anachronisms that strongly suggest a more modern origin, like the 19th or maybe even the 20th century, possibly by someone with a rudimentary understanding of Hebrew.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's also too clean in some ways, too too imprecise in others to truly pass muster as genuinely ancient and authentic.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes when people try to make something look so ancient and so authentic that they overdo it, right?
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they overdo it.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: They overdo it.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so you can tell someone who's an expert and who's seen things in situ when they've been discovered will know the difference between something that is authentically ancient and something that has been overdone to seem authentically ancient.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: So both the Roman head and the Decalogue Stone are fascinating, no doubt.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you're into mystery mongering and finding things that are in discovering stuff, that what if this and what if that, sure, they spark the imagination and they fuel captivating narratives.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: But when subjected to the light of skeptical inquiry and rigorous archaeological standards, they crumble like little cookies.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: They serve as potent reminders that a single intriguing object, especially when lacking corroborating evidence and exhibiting internal inconsistencies is rarely enough to rewrite centuries of established history and archaeological evidence.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: They are cautionary tales, not confirmed discoveries.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: Any thoughts, any any any further thoughts and comments on both the head and the stone?
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I wanted to um I don't know if you know who Carl Fagens is.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_04: He's an archaeologist.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_04: So he did an article a while back uh in 2022 about the the the mystery stone.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_04: So he he has some good information here on on how to go see it, if anybody's interesting.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um he says it's approximately 36 miles south of Albuquerque, just off historic Route 66, at the northeast edge of a volcanic remnant called Hidden Mountain.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_04: The site is on New Mexico state property, and anyone that wants to visit needs a recreational access permit.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_04: It costs about 35 bucks.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_04: So it's gonna set you back a little to go look at the hook.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if the if the hoax was done by the state of New Mexico to generate some lettings.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_04: Oh man, here's one uh something that's funny in in um Carl Figan's uh article.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_04: He talks about Frank Hibbon, and he says, a professor of archaeology from the University of New Mexico was the first to make the stone public.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_04: Hibbon is something of a controversy at UNM and is used as an example in classes on how not to do archaeology.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_04: And I can attest to that because they told me Yeah, when they bring up uh Frank Hibbon in class, it's like so this is how you don't want to do it.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_04: Don't do it like this, kids.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do this at home.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then he he brings up the Sandia Cave where he claims to have found uh human occupation twenty-five thousand years ago.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_04: And that's the infamous Sandia Man, which was debunked.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um So the Sandia Man isn't an actual uh human remain?
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it's human occupation, but way younger than that.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's not that old.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um the only the only difference is that it is an actual occup occupied site, and there's artifacts and rim and remains were found, or the remains are yeah, I don't know if there's remains.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_04: It just says human occupation, which could mean anything.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_04: It could have been like a hearth with some artifacts and you know But it definitely predates um um the invasion of Europeans.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not it's not something that's more recent.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's not something that Hibbon like made up whole cloth.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: He just found something and then exaggerated how it's been like like an an old campsite for you know within the last couple hundred years, right?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: So how do we know how how how old it may be is?
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_04: If it was a uh if it was a hearth, if it was a uh a fire pit, then you can C 14 uh the dates.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_04: So you could pull dates, carbon.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_04: So have they done that?
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I don't know how they dated it.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_04: But it was says uh it was discredited by Haynes and Agogeno, who concluded the points found in the cave, so they were projectile points, are definitely less than 14,000 years old.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_04: Or were these Clovis points?
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it does not say.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_04: But I mean um 14 they wouldn't have been um Clovis good.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_04: Clovis is older than that.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_04: What comes after Clovis?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, no, no.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_04: That that would that would be about right.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_04: After Clovis is Folsom.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_04: Folsom, that's right.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_04: Folsom.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_04: Folsom Prison Blues.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, um You know, when you look at the at the images of the of the mystery stone, so it's it's like nine lines of text.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's been vandalized.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_04: I thought it was ten.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_04: Because it's supposed to be the the decalogue, right?
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_04: Decalogue is ten, three, four.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, you're right, you're right.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_04: Uh ten lines of text.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: Ten commandments was vandalized in 2006 because we could fucking leave anything alone.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, even if it's a hoax, like just leave it alone.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_04: You know?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's it's worth you could still learn something from it, like in terms of like faking history and and you know the uh ideologies that that's so when you say it was vandalized, like what did they do to it?
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_04: I think they just etched they probably wrote their names in it or something.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_04: It's usually how people um rock art.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_04: It is it's probably basalt.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's what I was thinking.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's basalt.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean it's a volcanic outcrop.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_04: So uh basalt, it's like eighty tons.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a large basalt boulder of perhaps eighty tons.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: So the stone was there, and then someone went and etched the this fake Phoenician text on the stone.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like someone rolled the stone or brought uh uh a stone into that that's our that was our that was fabricated somewhere else.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_04: Right and then we brought it in.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_04: That'd be really hard.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, so there's a lot of different um ideas about where it came from and and who did it.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_04: I well, we'll never really know for sure unless somebody has a smoking gun documentation.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: So no one's ever come out to to claim in.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: The the Mary Pranksters of New Mexico or something.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the first things I read, and I wish I still had this paper.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_04: I couldn't find it.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_04: I was looking for it.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_04: Somebody describes the style of the writing, and they're talking about how it looks like somebody got it from uh like a really bad tourist book, like like this fake proto, what are they calling it?
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_04: Proto-Hebrew or like this ancient Phoenician mix, and that somebody with without a lot of skills probably was looking through this old pamphlet of um examples of ancient writing and just kind of cobbled something together.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: The Phoenicians were Semitic peoples, right?
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you know what I don't know.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_04: I think they were.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm not a phoeniciologist or whatever they call it.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because that's the only reason that's the only reason that that it would make sense that you would find the so-called Ten Commandments in Phoenician text is if because I believe the Phoenicians were were a branch of of Semitic peoples that weren't necessarily Hebrews or Israelites, but like, you know, because the Semitic peoples have different branches, right?
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the Phoenicians, I think, were one of those branches, if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: I could be wrong, people.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: Don't quote me on that, but I believe if if memory serves, I think the Phoenicians were a branch of Semitic peoples.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_04: Well, my friend, I happened to have a little book in my possession called The Meaning of the New Mexico Mystery Stone by Dixie L.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_04: Perkins.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_04: And this was published by Sun Publishing Company of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_04: The prestigious Sun Publishing Company of Albuquerque.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_04: This is the first printing, 1979.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um I don't think Sun Publishing is around anymore.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_04: But this author, Dixie Perkins, puts forth her own hypothesis.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: So Dixie is definitely a she?
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think Dixie could go either way, no?
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and also a cup, I believe.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_04: Dixie cups.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_04: And a Dixie line.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_04: There's a Dixie line.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_04: There's a whistle.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um all kinds of stuff.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_04: But uh yeah, well, here's a here's a photo of the author.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's a lady.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I'll I'll I'll w I'm gonna read something from this.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_04: I want I want to um elucidate to the audience uh Dixie's hypothesis of what the stone actually says, because she claims it's not even the Ten Commandments.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's ten lines of old Phoenician text that could be anything, and it just has happens to be ten.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well with the Ten Commandments, folks.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_04: And this is from her introduction.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_04: The purpose of this book is to release a story that has been confined to stone for centuries.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_04: This significant communication was carved upon the Los Lunas, New Mexico inscription rock or mystery stone.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_04: People were aware of the inscription when New Mexico became a territory in eighteen fifty, but no one could read it.
• 1:03:53
  unknown: Bum bum bum.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_04: And she bumps she goes in and she uh translates it for us.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_04: Uh very fascinating story.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_04: And if you would like to hear it.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_04: She's a vertible Sakurai Sitchin, huh?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_04: Phoenicians.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_04: So, dear listeners, if you are interested in this, it's going to be featured in our extended premium content for this episode.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh if you are not a premium member, then I, you know, I I uh ask that you consider becoming a premium member for five bucks a month.
• 1:04:35
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• 1:04:39
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• 1:04:53
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• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_04: So that's one of the things.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: The other people can also suggest uh episode content as well.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can uh several several episodes we've done have been suggestions by uh some of the Discord um participants.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: Our Patreon supporters.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: Our Patreon supporters.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: But before we we go to the premium, uh I did want to um comment on your shirt.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's not one of the new ones you got from that you added to the shop, right?
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's something else.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_04: No, this one this one uh a friend of mine made.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_04: He goes by Profit and he's a Chicano breakdancer.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_04: And so this is Let me see the rest of it.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the mic's kind of blocking most of it.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: So oh, so it's uh let me guess.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's is that Tlanock?
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh Miklantekutli.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh Miklantekutli.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but he's rocking because of the flint, that's right.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: So he's he's breakdancing or something.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, he's he's uh popping and or locking.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not sure.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: Popping that collar, popping popping and locking.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, he made these shirts and uh I scooped some up because I think they're dope.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_04: Nice and I like supporting Chicano businesses.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, speaking of supporting, I'm wearing a t-shirt that says Los Jornaleros del Norte at the top and and bright uh red letters, and in the middle it has um a site scope, like uh a target.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_02: And in that site, you see two uh the silhouette of two day labors.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_02: One of them's got its hand up, you know, like signaling that hey, I'm ready to work.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_02: But the rest of the shirt that you can't see says Can you read that?
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_04: Fear of a brown country.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_04: Fear of a brown country, brother.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so I got this uh believe it or not, about five years ago, uh, during the first uh felons uh presidency from um organization called um N it goes by N DLN, uh National Day Labor Organizer Organizing Network, and I believe uh they're out of California, but they have uh chapters throughout um various cities around the country.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um I just wanted to make make a uh uh a statement about supporting things that you that you believe in.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: I've been supporting them for the past five years doing micropayments, and so a micropayment is basically like you sign up for for a donation and you don't even have to think about it.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just it's automatically uh sent to them uh if you select monthly or whatever system they have set up.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: Some organizations have it every six months, some have it for the year.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I've set mine up for every month I've been donating money to them for the past five years, and and so I just wanted to throw that out there.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_02: If there's an organization that you see that is doing good work, that is out there um fighting the good fight, um, and you want to support them, that's one way of doing it, you know.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_02: If there's if there's nothing else that you can do physically for whatever reason, uh at the very least, uh support the people that are able to do something.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just wanted to throw that out there uh as a suggestion for anyone that's looking for a way to support causes that that they believe in.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_02: So shout out to the NDL on, they're doing great work out there.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right on, shout out.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_04: And with that, dear listeners, we'll see you on the other side for the premium content.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_04: And remember, the truth, well, it's like medicine.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't always taste good, but it is always good for you.