We recently visited the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, also known as the New Mexico Mystery Stone, and wanted to share some clear and concise directions for others who’d like to visit it, along with instructions on how to get a New Mexico State Lands permit, which is required to enter the site.
(Do not, under any circumstances, use Google Maps for directions to the Decalogue Stone. You will end up trespassing if you do!)
What is The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone or New Mexico Mystery Stone?
Many learned historians and archeologists have been trying to answer this question for almost a century now: What is the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone? Who made it, and why is it there?
The ancient (or not so ancient) writings were etched by someone on a boulder about five feet high, just up a ravine on the side of a low hill, overlooking a dry creek (or arroyo) in the New Mexico desert, west of the town of Los Lunas.
How Do You Get To The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone?
The New Mexico Mystery Stone is located approximately 16 miles west of Los Lunas, NM, in a rugged hilly area overlooking a dry wash. It is located on New Mexico State Trust land, which requires a permit. Permits are available by visiting the state website at Open For Adventure. There, you’ll create an account, fill out a form and pay your fee. Permits are usually issued via email within a couple of business days. If you plan on spending some time in New Mexico, the Open For Adventure permit allows you access to many more rugged and diverse areas located on state land, which you can learn about on their website.
The following are the directions to the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone. We highly recommend you use Gaia GPS, which shows the exact location of the Decalogue Stone.
Distance: Just less than 2 miles round trip.
Difficulty: Moderate
- From the intersection of NM-6 and IH-25 drive west approximately 16 miles and turn left onto Landfill Road
- Cross the railroad tracks and proceed towards the landfill office/scale house. Stop and turn around before passing it.
- Park as far off the road as you can, alongside the fence on the right hand side of the road.
- Lock your vehicle. Bring along enough water and appropriate desert shoes and clothing for an approximately 2 mile round-trip hike.
- Enter through the “kissing gate” seen in the photo above. Begin walking southeast along the seldom-used dirt road.
- Look for the point on the right hand side where the trail departs the road and becomes a single track. (At approximately 0.5 miles)
- Look for cairns and arrows made of rocks pointing the way.
- You’ll pass through another kissing gate in the fence at approximately 0.3 miles off the road.
- Follow the winding trail on up the hill about 0.2 miles.
- Watch for rattlesnakes!
- Look for the boulder seen in the photo above.
* If you’re hiking with a dog, be careful that they don’t burn their paws on the hot ground. Depending on the season, there may be sticker burrs or thorns along the trail.
Who Made The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone?
That’s a question that’s kept the experts scratching their heads for years now. The Decalogue Stone consists of ten lines of characters carved into a flat-sided boulder in what some believe are a mix of ancient Hebrew, Greek and Phonetician characters. Mormon researchers believe it to be a copy of the ten commandments, while others, such as the Albuquerque author and amateur epigrapher Dixie L. Perkins, believe it to be the tale of an ancient Greek, who was lost or exiled to the New Mexico Desert.
Perkins’ translation of the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, which according to NM author Jack Katz has not been refuted, reads as follows: (line spacing not exactly as carved.)
Translation by Dixie L. Perkins:
“I have come to this place to stay. The other one met with an untimely death in battle, dishonored, insulted and stripped of flesh.
The men thought him to be an object of care whom I looked after, considered crazed, to be tossed about as if in a wind, to perish in poverty and need.
By my kinsmen I was respected and honored, of blessed lot, with a body of slaves and so many olive trees, a peg to hang anything upon.
Men punished me with exile to exact retribution for a debt; meanwhile I remain here as a rabbit.
I, Zakyneros, just as a prophet, out of reach of mortal man, I am fleeing and very afraid.
I am dross, scum, refuse, just as aboard a ship, a soft, effeminate sailor is flayed with an animal hide, all who speak offensively are lashed or beaten with a cane; but after a short time, the hurtful ones may be sated; at an unseasonable time, I remain to protect from the rainy southwest winds the ravine.
Very much harvest is gathered in, very much is in the woody dell and glen; very many bags of young deer.
Very many hides and delicate luxuriant hair; by the channel of a river , swift flowing.
Very much is given by the gods for again and again, at the unseasonable time I become gaunt with hunger. “
When Was The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone Carved?
The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone was first mentioned in 1933, when archeologist Frank Hibben of the University of New Mexico described it. Some experts have expressed their doubts that the stone predates the 1930’s, judging by the lack of patina that similar petroglyphs in the area have gathered over the years under the same conditions.
Dr. Hibben claims to have spoke to an area rancher, who’d told him that he’d seen the stone in the 1880’s, with much more moss and debris covering the letters, lending some credibility to claims that the stone is much older than it appears due to having been cleaned in recent times.
Was it an Elaborate Hoax?
Was the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone part of an elaborate hoax, or real evidence of a yet unknown pre-Columbian visitation of North America by some ancient civilization? Without some better means of dating the engravings of the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, this question may remain forever unanswered, which is just fine with us!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Lunas_Decalogue_Stone
More Mysteries and Miracles of New Mexico – Jack Katz. (We found a copy in our AirBnB in Truth or Consequences and really enjoyed reading this take on New Mexico lore and legends.)
https://www.newmexico.org/listing/los-lunas-decalogue-stone-and-commandments-rock/7744/
