Unearthing New Mexico
Investigator searches for answers behind strange stones
On July 6, 2013, Louis Serna was attending his mother’s annual birthday dinner at the historic St. James Hotel in Cimarrón, New Mexico. Serna, now 78, was born and raised in Colfax County, and has written more than 15 books about the people, places and events of Northern New Mexico. His bibliography ranges from detailed genealogies to esoteric lore, and includes a compendium titled “All the Times I Could Have Died,” which is exactly as advertised.
While strolling through the hotel — a former haunt of Wild West legends like Wyatt Earp, Jesse James and Buffalo Bill Cody — Serna was intrigued by an incongruous item he found on display in the lobby. Standing about 42 inches high was a weathered pillar of pale stone, each of its four sides carved with arcane symbols such as parapets, a sun sign more Egyptian than Zuni, a chalice and, most prominently, the eight-pointed cross familiar to occultists as the insignia of the Knights Templar, a long-defunct medieval order associated with the Crusades, global finance and countless conspiracy theories.
Serna, a veteran investigator of other local archaeological mysteries such as the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, was at a loss to explain the strange pillar’s origin. When he asked a hotel clerk about it, he was told the stone was either a Santa Fe Trail marker or a gravestone. He knew both explanations were incorrect. The stone was not inscribed with any names or dates as would be typical of a headstone, and although the mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail passed through Cimarrón, the stone did not resemble other markers found along that route.
Uncovering the truth about this enigmatic object has since appropriated much of Serna’s time and energy. According to research published on his web site, sometime in the 1980s a hunter from Texas discovered the St. James pillar at an unknown spot in the Valle Vidal (Valley of Life), a vast expanse of rugged wilderness north of Cimarrón. Allegedly, the hunter broke the stone loose by tying one end of a rope around its base, affixing the other to the trailer hitch of his pickup and lurching forward. Seeking permission to keep the stone as a souvenir, the hunter approached Milton McDaniel, a prominent local rancher who owned grazing land in the Valle. McDaniel told him no, stating the pillar should stay in Colfax County in his possession.
The pillar remained in McDaniel’s home until he sold his property and left Cimarrón some years later, at which point he entrusted the stone to Ed Sitzburger Jr., then the proprietor of the St. James. In the interim, McDaniel sought information from several sources including the Smithsonian Institute, to no avail. The stone garnered little fanfare and yielded no clues until Serna chanced upon it decades later.
To Serna’s surprise, a reader of his blog shortly came forward with photographs of a second and nearly identical stone located in an abandoned logging and mining community called Ponil Park. The U.S. Forest Service now manages the ruins there, which include collapsed railroad trestles and dilapidated ranch dwellings. A reference to the Ponil Park stone appears in a 1994 Los Angeles Times piece exploring the area’s ghost towns. The author describes it as a “unique carved limestone obelisk with a cross made of four elongated hearts and topped by an eight-pointed sunburst or star,” and notes that the pillar is surrounded by grave markers dating to the late 1800s. The author does not specify that the pillar is itself a gravestone, and also mentions that USFS archaeologist Jon Young was unable to learn anything conclusive about the stone. Sadly, Young perished in an El Prado house fire earlier in 2019. All of his written records and archaeological treasures were lost.
A break in the case, or at least a slight uptick in publicity, occurred in May 2017 when Albuquerque investigative reporter Chris McKee interviewed Serna. The segment, which aired on KRQE-TV, caught the attention of Scott Wolter, a forensic geologist and host of America Unearthed. The show (whose tagline is “history is not what you’ve been told”) specializes in dubious theories of preColumbian European contact with the New World, an enthusiasm Serna shares. In one episode, Wolter reexamines a cache of lead crosses once believed to be evidence of a Roman-Jewish colony called Calalus that flourished in Tucson, Arizona, from 775-900 A.D. Based on an analysis of mineral inclusions on one of the artifacts, Wolter proclaims the object authentic. However, in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Southwest, Don Burgess argues that the Tucson artifacts are among the greatest archaeological hoaxes ever perpetrated in the 20th century — a period rife with forgeries.
Could Wolter’s forensic method shed light on these inexplicable artifacts — objects hoax-weary archaeologists were reticent to seriously consider? For now, an answer to that question has to wait, as production on the episode stalled in the preliminary stages.
Finding myself increasingly embroiled in this conundrum, I contacted David E. Stewart, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico, to ask how one might use the techniques of forensic geology to date the stones. Stewart replied that microscopic analysis could in fact determine the approximate age of the tools used to carve the symbols but cautiously added, “most of the unlikely ‘artifacts’ found in the Southwest over the last 150 years do not prove as ancient as their finders hope,” a statement that perhaps most succinctly explains why our best chance for sleuthing the stones’ origin currently falls on a conspiracy-bent TV host rather than an academic researcher. Severin Fowles, a Barnard College archaeologist who does fieldwork in Taos, concurred that occult symbols such as Templar crosses are “part of the local folk Catholic iconographic repertoire.” Indeed, the consensus among the few professionals who cared to comment is that the pillars are no more than 150 years old, and were probably carved by a local artisan using stones quarried in the area.
Serna disagrees. When we spoke, he used pillar replicas he constructed out of foam core to demonstrate their resemblance to the ancient Kilmartin stones of Scotland, the oldest of which date to the 13th century. He believes it is possible that Europeans, possibly Knights Templar, crossed the Atlantic, navigated the Río Grande and ported the stones to their remote location in the forest, perhaps to mark sacred ground or as a 3D treasure map. Serna’s thesis is an imaginative one to be sure, but in lieu of concrete proof it remains firmly in the speculative camp.
Other clues to the stones’ origins may lie in the storied history of the Valle Vidal. The valley was originally part of the Maxwell Land Grant, one of the largest land grants in United States history. Adventurer Lucien Maxwell — of whom Serna’s mother-in-law, Tessie Maxwell, is coincidently a direct descendant — was granted the land in 1843. Maxwell sold it to a British firm for over a million dollars in 1870. The newly formed Maxwell Land Grant and Railway Company sought to exploit the land’s economic potential but clashed with homesteaders, precipitating the Colfax County War.
In 1902, William Bartlett bought a portion of the land called Vermejo Park. Future owners of Vermejo Park would include the Pennzoil Corporation, the USFS and media mogul Ted Turner. The adjacent Philmont Ranch is currently operated by the Boy Scouts of America.
An outdoor enthusiast’s paradise, the Valle Vidal has long been a playground for celebrities and bon vivants drawn to the spectacular scenery and abundant wildlife. Given the international mix of business interests and visitors passing through the Valle Vidal, it is conceivable the stones are ancient heirlooms that once belonged to some wealthy family or individual, deposited for an unknown reason.
Dan Brown’s 2003 novel “The DaVinci Code,” posits an alternate history of Christianity in which Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had children, creating a secret bloodline. Though rife with historical inaccuracies, the runaway bestseller tapped into a uniquely American zeitgeist — the yearning for ancient and holy roots. I have come to believe that Serna’s pillars may mediate a similar desire for some New Mexicans. Could the Sangre de Cristo (literally “blood of Christ”) Mountains have once harbored Merovingian kings, the direct descendants of Jesus? Could the stones contain clues? Alternately, might the chalice symbol carved in the stone represent the “divine feminine” principle and index a prepatriarchal period when men and women lived in harmony? Until the mystery of these stones is finally solved, such speculation can only proliferate.
Author and researcher Louis Serna believes the pillar stones, one of which is still in an undisclosed location in the Valle Vidal (part of which is pictured above) resemble the ancient Kilmartin Stones of Scotland.
He believes it’s possible that Europeans, possibly Knights Templar, crossed the Atlantic, navigated the Río Grande and ported the stones to their remote location in the forest, perhaps to mark sacred ground or as a 3D treasure map.