Esperanza Stone

Esperanza Stone

Hope Stone
Major Burnham standing next to the stone, with the inscription outlined in chalk.
Location	Yaqui River valley
Type	stone
Material	igneous rock
Length	8 feet (2.4 m)
Opening date	1909

The Esperanza Stone was a large (8-feet long) inscribed stone found in the valley of the Yaqui, Mexico. It was discovered and excavated in 1909 by Major F. R. Burnham and Charles Frederick Holder.

Esperanza Stone. Major F. R. Burnham (left), Holder (right), Yaqui Delta, Senora, Mexico, 1909.

Discovery

The stone was discovered during an expedition in the Yaqui valley.

Description

The stone was "a brown, igneous rock, its longest axis about eight feet, and on the eastern face, which had an angle of about forty-five degrees, was the deep-cut inscription."^[1] Symbols on the stone include a volute and a swastika, also found on other stones in Mexico.

Legend

There was a legend that the stone had fallen down out of heaven in times past, and that the carving was by human hands.^[2]

Meaning of the symbols

Burnham believed that the symbols were Mayan. Others class them as Petroglyphs.^[3]

References

1. Fort, Charles Hoy (1919). "chapter 11". The Book of the Damned. p. 145. citing Holder, Charles F. (Sep 10, 1910). "The Esperanza Stone". Scientific American: 196. ISSN 0036-8733.
2. Lippard, Jim. "Review of The New Inquisition". Retrieved 25 January 2011. Many years ago a strange stone resembling a meteorite fell into the valley of the Yaqui, Mexico, and the sensational story went from one end to the other of the country that a stone bearing human inscriptions had descended to earth. Hundreds visited the place, natives made a pilgrimage to it from all over Sonora, and the stone, called the Esperanza, became famous in its way, and many of the inhabitants believe that it is a message from heaven, and demand that it be translated.
3. Neas, Linda M. Rhinehart (Jan 13, 2011). "About the Native American Indian Pictorial Language". Heather Marie Kosur. Retrieved 25 January 2011.