Mysterious stone pillars emerge from northern New Mexico forest

KRQE ^ | 23 May 2017 | Chris McKee

[Theoria]

Could it be a message left by some of New Mexico’s first explorers?

A set of mysterious stone pillars found in the state’s remote northern forest has sparked that question. They’re carved stone pillars covered with symbols that clearly have a history — but a history, so far, no one seems to know anything about.

One man has now made it his quest to find the answer. He’s hoping someone will step forward to help solve the mystery that spans across decades near Cimarron.

“Who made it? How did it wind up in northern New Mexico? What does it mean?” asked Louis Serna.

A northern New Mexico native who was born and raised in Springer and Cimarron, Louis Serna has spent his retirement writing about the people and places that make-up northern New Mexico’s history.

“This has been my life you know, so to speak, history and exploration,” said Serna.

As he looks at images of the first stone pillar he found at a Cimarron business, Serna’s excitement is easy to notice. He calls the mystery behind the stone pillars one of New Mexico’s most intriguing, comparable to “Mystery Rock,” or what some know as the “Los Lunas Decalogue Stone” on Hidden Mountain in Valencia County.

[wardaddy]

Exactly

It looks like sandstone to me

1500s and it would be worn more

Course New Mexico is dry with much less rain than most places

Alabama stark white marble which is very nice and pretty for big monuments here also wears much quicker than granite

And it’s pricier

And spookier at night

White marble

I bought granite for my folks

It ain’t cheap to built a 10 foot monument in an old antebellum graveyard

I guess it was cheaper when folks built crypts and mausoleums

Sylacauga baby

Start your engines

[Pelham]

well done

[Albion Wilde]

I suspect a bored Spaniard with a couple of good chisels and time on his hands.

That, or an American Indian who was apprenticed to a Spanish man. Looks like a grave marker.

[JoeProBono]

[Does so]

Agree. Likely the others were cut by the same sculptor. This one looks relativey new.

[logi_cal869]

Ping