Los Lunas Decalogue Stone on Hidden Mountain Remains Unexplained

A nine-line inscription carved into a large basalt boulder at the base of Hidden Mountain west of Los Lunas remains unresolved decades after its first modern report, with competing readings, a damaged panel, and conflicting public-access information complicating efforts to protect and study the site.

The rock sits at coordinates 34.785217°N, -106.996512°W and weighs more than 80 tons, making removal for laboratory study impractical. The panel has drawn travelers, students and amateur epigraphers since it was first reported to have been seen by University of New Mexico archaeologist Frank Hibben in 1933. Hibben “was convinced the inscription is ancient and thus authentic. He report[ed] that he first saw the text in 1933. At the time it was covered with lichen and patination and was hardly visible. He claimed he was taken to the site by a guide who claimed he had seen it as a boy, back in the 1880s.”

Interpretations of the inscription diverge sharply. Some readers and a 1949 translation by Robert Pfeiffer have presented the panel as an abridged Decalogue in Paleo-Hebrew; a 1979 epigraphic reading by Dixie Perkins produced a Cypriotic Greek account attributed to a figure called Zakyneros; amateur epigrapher Barry Fell argued the punctuation could be consistent with antiquity. Critics point to stylistic and grammatical problems and apparent modern features as reasons for skepticism. One geologist who examined the site estimated the inscription could be between 500 and 2,000 years old, while mainstream archaeological consensus does not support claims of pre-Columbian Semitic contact.

Conservation issues undercut definitive analysis. Visitors have repeatedly cleaned the panel, and that loss of patina has likely destroyed the best physical evidence for dating the carvings. “Many visitors have cleaned the stone inscriptions over the years, likely destroying any possibility for scientific analysis of the inscriptions' patina.” In April 2006 the first line of the unprotected inscription was obliterated by vandals, further degrading the record.

Public access is unclear. The boulder sits on State Trust Lands and a Recreational Access Permit is listed at $35 by state land managers, yet some visitor accounts describe the hike as a one-mile, easy-to-moderate route with no fee, and other listings state the site is no longer accessible to visitors. Hikers who reach the site describe a remote ravine approach and fencing that makes the entrance difficult to find; one visitor wrote, “I felt a little bit like Indiana Jones tracking down some kind of ancient artifact.” Another visitor assessed the labor involved in the carving: “whoever carved these 10 commandments had a lot of time on their hands… certainly a task that must have taken several hours to do, if not days in my estimation.”

For Valencia County residents the stone is a local curiosity with implications for heritage tourism, land management, and preservation policy. Unresolved questions about authenticity intersect with real decisions about permitting, on-site protection and enforcement against vandalism. Some local commentary even lists competing origin stories: “Some believe that it is a forgery created by members of the Mormon Battalion… Others believe that Hibben or a couple of his graduate assistants created the stone. And, like most strange things in New Mexico, others suppose it is a record of aliens from outer space.”

What happens next will shape whether the inscription survives as a study subject or fades under further damage. Clarity from state land managers on access and from professional epigraphers and geologists on methods to document the panel without harming it will determine whether Valencia County keeps a protected archaeological curiosity or loses it to ambiguity and wear.