In Defence of Fray Marcos - Cibola and the 7 Cities of Gold
Jul 6, 2017 0:13:37 GMT -5
MrMike likes this
Post by 1dave on Jul 6, 2017 0:13:37 GMT -5
For the benefit of the City of Phoenix Arizona and mohs , I write:
An ancient myth from the Spanish past about El Cid and 7 wealthy priests sailing off to the west to build 7 wealthy cities.
That myth supplied the background for this event.
When the Spaniards began their conquest of Mexico in February of 1519, they frequently encountered stories of 7 wealthy cities to the north named "Cibola."
Wealthy? In 1530 Spanish That Means GOLD!
1. An early search for the cities began in 1530 by Nuno de Guzman.
2. In 1536 four bedraggled survivors of the 1527 Narvaez Florida expedition staggered into Culiacan, with stories of the 7 Cities of Cibola.
German map of the Narvaez expedition.
3. in 1539 the Viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, chose his trusted Franciscan monk, Fray Marcos de Niza to use Esteban, one of the surviving four who had been given to the Viceroy as a gift by Dorantes, as a guide to find the fabulous cities.
For this journey Esteban naturally followed his earlier path along the edge of the Gulf of California, running days ahead of the main expedition, meeting with joy the natives that had previously befriended him.
With his way paved by the ebullient Esteban, Fray Marcos was well received as recorded in his report.
Unfortunately, on entering the new to him area of Cibola he gave a gift of copper bells crafted by Cibola's worst enemies, the Aztecs. His party was immediately attacked and Esteban killed as he fled.
On receiving word of Esteban's death, Fray Marco pushed on to South Mountain where he observed the cities and carved an inscription claiming the land for the Crown (at the Crown's expense).
"Fr Marcos de Niza corona todo el Nuebo Mexico a su costa ano de 1539."
It translates to, "Friar Marcos de Niza crowned all of New Mexico at his expense in the year 1539."
The wealth of Cibola was as Fray Marcos accurately reported:
Turquoise, cotton, buffalo hides, and their food crops. Not gold.
A brief time after Fray Marcos' visit, a flash flood destroyed much of Cibola, buried many bodies beneath fallen walls, swept many away, and lowered the river too much to be used by their canals. With no possible future crops, the few survivors had to go elsewhere to be able to feed themselves, becoming "The Used Up People," - the Hohokam.
4. On the 22nd of April 1540 fray Marcos accompanied Captain General Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and a small army of 330 Spaniards, 1000 friendly Indians, a few Negros, and about a thousand horses to conquer the 7 Cities. They did NOT follow Marco's previous course along the western coast into Arizona. They went up through central Mexico into New Mexico. Coronado decided the Zuni villages were "Cibola" and made a scapegoat out of Marcos who has been denigrated ever since.
Modern Critics:
Obscuring the facts was (thanks mohs ) the attempted swindle of James Addison Reavis who claimed to be the hereditary Baron of Arizona, and heir to an old Spanish land grant that made him the rightful owner of a huge swath of land in Arizona and New Mexico, including the city of Phoenix, and the rich mining districts of Globe, Clifton-Morenci, and Silver City. Among other forgeries he was charged with making fraudulent stone carvings.
Some claimed the Marcos Inscription was one of them, but it was never mentioned in any of the court cases.
Also, the stone was not discovered until some time in 1920, and Reavis died in 1914.
A. "Pagán and his fellow historians said there is no way the markings on South Mountain could have been made in 1539. They said the words "New Mexico" were established after the mid-1500s."
WHAT? There is no way Marcos, sent from Mexico to discover new territory could have thought of the word "Nuevo" that wasn't commonly used for another ten years?
That there is STINKIN' THINKIN' of the highest order.
B. "Also the carving on the stone is written in Western World Style, from left to right."
The following manuscript was written in 1525, clearly from left to right.
C. "The more that I studied all the inscriptions, all of the way to the 1700s still kept this cubic style without any spaces between letters or worlds."
The professor was obviously unaware of this letter written in 1540 on behalf of King Charles V by Francisco Garcia de Loaysa, the president of the Council of the Indies, to acknowledge Francisco Coronado’s report of the famous Niza expedition of the previous year and authorized Coronado to explore the northern lands.
It was written from left to right with spacing between the words.
(Here I briefly skip)
(E) "Interestingly that in that same area, are authentic Hohokam petroglyphs. Pagán said they are easily thousands of years old, yet those petroglyphs are not protected, and there are signs they have been vandalized."
Is there a cognoscente thought somewhere in that sentence?
D. "Petroglyph experts tested the stone minerals within the carvings and found it predates the Automobile Era and post dates the Little Ice Age, which ended in the mid 19th century."
alliance.la.asu.edu/dorn/Authenticating_PG_2012.pdf
In Desert Varnish I wrote:
Interesting test results, BUT what if a nearby volcano erupted lead fumes, changing the atmosphere profile?
What if a sandstorm removed the original delicate outer layers from 1539?
What if, as was frequently done, someone in the 1820's removed layers by making a rubbing of the inscription?
I have more doubts of the detractors than of Fray Marcos.
An ancient myth from the Spanish past about El Cid and 7 wealthy priests sailing off to the west to build 7 wealthy cities.
That myth supplied the background for this event.
When the Spaniards began their conquest of Mexico in February of 1519, they frequently encountered stories of 7 wealthy cities to the north named "Cibola."
Wealthy? In 1530 Spanish That Means GOLD!
1. An early search for the cities began in 1530 by Nuno de Guzman.
rootspath.com/7%20Gold%20Cities.htm
IN THE year 1530, Nuno de Guzman, who was President of New Spain, had in his possession an Indian, a native of the valley or valleys of Oxitipar, who was called Tejo by the Spaniards... the son of a trader.. As a boy Tejo journeyed with his father once or twice and saw some very large villages, which he compared to Mexico. He had seen seven very large towns which had streets of silver workers. The way... was up through the country between two seas, following a northern direction. ... Nuno de Guzman got together nearly 400 Spaniards and 20,000 friendly Indians of New Spain, to search for "The Seven Cities."
Traveling from Mexico they had reached the province of Culiacan, where his government ended and where the New Kingdom of Galicia is now, they found the mountain chains impassible and after many days they grew anxious to return. Besides this, Nuno de Guzman received word that the Marquis of the Valley, Don Fernando Cortes, had come from Spain with his new title, and with great favors and estates, and as Nuno de Guzman had been a great rival of his at the time he was president, and had done much damage to his property and to that of his friends, he feared that Don Fernando Cortes would want to pay him back in the same way, or worse. So he decided to establish the town of Culiacan there and to go back with the other men, without doing anything more.
IN THE year 1530, Nuno de Guzman, who was President of New Spain, had in his possession an Indian, a native of the valley or valleys of Oxitipar, who was called Tejo by the Spaniards... the son of a trader.. As a boy Tejo journeyed with his father once or twice and saw some very large villages, which he compared to Mexico. He had seen seven very large towns which had streets of silver workers. The way... was up through the country between two seas, following a northern direction. ... Nuno de Guzman got together nearly 400 Spaniards and 20,000 friendly Indians of New Spain, to search for "The Seven Cities."
Traveling from Mexico they had reached the province of Culiacan, where his government ended and where the New Kingdom of Galicia is now, they found the mountain chains impassible and after many days they grew anxious to return. Besides this, Nuno de Guzman received word that the Marquis of the Valley, Don Fernando Cortes, had come from Spain with his new title, and with great favors and estates, and as Nuno de Guzman had been a great rival of his at the time he was president, and had done much damage to his property and to that of his friends, he feared that Don Fernando Cortes would want to pay him back in the same way, or worse. So he decided to establish the town of Culiacan there and to go back with the other men, without doing anything more.
2. In 1536 four bedraggled survivors of the 1527 Narvaez Florida expedition staggered into Culiacan, with stories of the 7 Cities of Cibola.
German map of the Narvaez expedition.
3. in 1539 the Viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, chose his trusted Franciscan monk, Fray Marcos de Niza to use Esteban, one of the surviving four who had been given to the Viceroy as a gift by Dorantes, as a guide to find the fabulous cities.
For this journey Esteban naturally followed his earlier path along the edge of the Gulf of California, running days ahead of the main expedition, meeting with joy the natives that had previously befriended him.
With his way paved by the ebullient Esteban, Fray Marcos was well received as recorded in his report.
Unfortunately, on entering the new to him area of Cibola he gave a gift of copper bells crafted by Cibola's worst enemies, the Aztecs. His party was immediately attacked and Esteban killed as he fled.
On receiving word of Esteban's death, Fray Marco pushed on to South Mountain where he observed the cities and carved an inscription claiming the land for the Crown (at the Crown's expense).
"Fr Marcos de Niza corona todo el Nuebo Mexico a su costa ano de 1539."
It translates to, "Friar Marcos de Niza crowned all of New Mexico at his expense in the year 1539."
The wealth of Cibola was as Fray Marcos accurately reported:
Turquoise, cotton, buffalo hides, and their food crops. Not gold.
A brief time after Fray Marcos' visit, a flash flood destroyed much of Cibola, buried many bodies beneath fallen walls, swept many away, and lowered the river too much to be used by their canals. With no possible future crops, the few survivors had to go elsewhere to be able to feed themselves, becoming "The Used Up People," - the Hohokam.
4. On the 22nd of April 1540 fray Marcos accompanied Captain General Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and a small army of 330 Spaniards, 1000 friendly Indians, a few Negros, and about a thousand horses to conquer the 7 Cities. They did NOT follow Marco's previous course along the western coast into Arizona. They went up through central Mexico into New Mexico. Coronado decided the Zuni villages were "Cibola" and made a scapegoat out of Marcos who has been denigrated ever since.
Modern Critics:
Obscuring the facts was (thanks mohs ) the attempted swindle of James Addison Reavis who claimed to be the hereditary Baron of Arizona, and heir to an old Spanish land grant that made him the rightful owner of a huge swath of land in Arizona and New Mexico, including the city of Phoenix, and the rich mining districts of Globe, Clifton-Morenci, and Silver City. Among other forgeries he was charged with making fraudulent stone carvings.
Some claimed the Marcos Inscription was one of them, but it was never mentioned in any of the court cases.
Also, the stone was not discovered until some time in 1920, and Reavis died in 1914.
kjzz.org/content/20496/did-you-know-marcos-de-niza-inscription-south-mountain-not-real
“You know there was some controversy over its authenticity, and I wanted to be able to establish its veracity," said Eduardo Pagán, a historian and an ASU professor.
He is also one of three experts who were part of a PBS Show "History Detectives" that researched the stone in 2009.
“When we started out this investigation for History Detectives, I wanted to find out that it was true. For all sorts of reasons right, not only because I’m just a native Arizonan and wanted this thing to be accurate, but it would help us then pinpoint Marcos de Niza’s journey," said Pagán.
Pagán and his fellow historians said there is no way the markings on South Mountain could have been made in 1539. (A.) They said the words "New Mexico" were established after the mid-1500s. (B.) Also the carving on the stone is written in Western World Style, from left to right.
(C.) "The more that I studied all the inscriptions, all of the way to the 1700s still kept this cubic style without any spaces between letters or worlds, and I went back and I looked at the Marcos de Niza inscription. and it looked so linear to me, it looked so modern," said Pagán.
(D.) Lastly and the most convincing evidence is the rock itself. Petroglyph experts tested the stone minerals within the carvings and found it predates the Automobile Era and post dates the Little Ice Age, which ended in the mid 19th century. Ultimately the inscription is a forgery. They determined the carvings were most likely made sometime after the turn of the 20th century.
“So shouldn’t that be preserved as well, even though it might be a fraud it’s a historic fraud, it’s a historic inscription. So, it becomes a very interesting story now," said Pagán.
Pagán said the writing may have been carved by someone who admired Marcos de Niza and decided to pay homage to the friar. He said proving the inscription a forgery could also be proof that he never really traveled through the Sonoran Desert.
The Marcos de Niza stone inscription has been protected behind iron bars since it was discovered in the 1920s, a way to keep vandals from destroying it. (E) Interestingly that in that same area, are authentic Hohokam petroglyphs. Pagán said they are easily thousands of years old, yet those petroglyphs are not protected, and there are signs they have been vandalized.
“You know there was some controversy over its authenticity, and I wanted to be able to establish its veracity," said Eduardo Pagán, a historian and an ASU professor.
He is also one of three experts who were part of a PBS Show "History Detectives" that researched the stone in 2009.
“When we started out this investigation for History Detectives, I wanted to find out that it was true. For all sorts of reasons right, not only because I’m just a native Arizonan and wanted this thing to be accurate, but it would help us then pinpoint Marcos de Niza’s journey," said Pagán.
Pagán and his fellow historians said there is no way the markings on South Mountain could have been made in 1539. (A.) They said the words "New Mexico" were established after the mid-1500s. (B.) Also the carving on the stone is written in Western World Style, from left to right.
(C.) "The more that I studied all the inscriptions, all of the way to the 1700s still kept this cubic style without any spaces between letters or worlds, and I went back and I looked at the Marcos de Niza inscription. and it looked so linear to me, it looked so modern," said Pagán.
(D.) Lastly and the most convincing evidence is the rock itself. Petroglyph experts tested the stone minerals within the carvings and found it predates the Automobile Era and post dates the Little Ice Age, which ended in the mid 19th century. Ultimately the inscription is a forgery. They determined the carvings were most likely made sometime after the turn of the 20th century.
“So shouldn’t that be preserved as well, even though it might be a fraud it’s a historic fraud, it’s a historic inscription. So, it becomes a very interesting story now," said Pagán.
Pagán said the writing may have been carved by someone who admired Marcos de Niza and decided to pay homage to the friar. He said proving the inscription a forgery could also be proof that he never really traveled through the Sonoran Desert.
The Marcos de Niza stone inscription has been protected behind iron bars since it was discovered in the 1920s, a way to keep vandals from destroying it. (E) Interestingly that in that same area, are authentic Hohokam petroglyphs. Pagán said they are easily thousands of years old, yet those petroglyphs are not protected, and there are signs they have been vandalized.
A. "Pagán and his fellow historians said there is no way the markings on South Mountain could have been made in 1539. They said the words "New Mexico" were established after the mid-1500s."
WHAT? There is no way Marcos, sent from Mexico to discover new territory could have thought of the word "Nuevo" that wasn't commonly used for another ten years?
That there is STINKIN' THINKIN' of the highest order.
B. "Also the carving on the stone is written in Western World Style, from left to right."
The following manuscript was written in 1525, clearly from left to right.
C. "The more that I studied all the inscriptions, all of the way to the 1700s still kept this cubic style without any spaces between letters or worlds."
The professor was obviously unaware of this letter written in 1540 on behalf of King Charles V by Francisco Garcia de Loaysa, the president of the Council of the Indies, to acknowledge Francisco Coronado’s report of the famous Niza expedition of the previous year and authorized Coronado to explore the northern lands.
It was written from left to right with spacing between the words.
(Here I briefly skip)
(E) "Interestingly that in that same area, are authentic Hohokam petroglyphs. Pagán said they are easily thousands of years old, yet those petroglyphs are not protected, and there are signs they have been vandalized."
Is there a cognoscente thought somewhere in that sentence?
D. "Petroglyph experts tested the stone minerals within the carvings and found it predates the Automobile Era and post dates the Little Ice Age, which ended in the mid 19th century."
alliance.la.asu.edu/dorn/Authenticating_PG_2012.pdf
Three events likely led to the observed results obtained here for the Marcos de Niza petroglyph:
1. Inscribing the petroglyph. Pecking exposed the quartz and feldspar minerals seen underneath rock coating (Figure 6).
2. Formation of post-WH1 yellow-orange microlaminae. When the climate of the Western United States dried after the Little Ice Age, the post-WH1 coating formed (Figure 6). Lead concentrations underneath the very surface micron reflect natural background levels of PbO.
3. Lead contamination during the twentieth century. In each of the profiles where PbO was measured (lines in Figure 6), the surface-most micrometer shows contamination with lead, likely from automobiles that generated lead pollution in the area after the mid-1920s.
In summary, the Marcos de Niza inscription likely predates growing use of automobiles in Phoenix in the mid-1920s, but it is younger than the Little Ice Age that ended in the mid-nineteenth century. These analyses suggest that the petroglyph is not authentic and could have been inscribed about the same time it was first reported, in the early 1920s.
1. Inscribing the petroglyph. Pecking exposed the quartz and feldspar minerals seen underneath rock coating (Figure 6).
2. Formation of post-WH1 yellow-orange microlaminae. When the climate of the Western United States dried after the Little Ice Age, the post-WH1 coating formed (Figure 6). Lead concentrations underneath the very surface micron reflect natural background levels of PbO.
3. Lead contamination during the twentieth century. In each of the profiles where PbO was measured (lines in Figure 6), the surface-most micrometer shows contamination with lead, likely from automobiles that generated lead pollution in the area after the mid-1920s.
In summary, the Marcos de Niza inscription likely predates growing use of automobiles in Phoenix in the mid-1920s, but it is younger than the Little Ice Age that ended in the mid-nineteenth century. These analyses suggest that the petroglyph is not authentic and could have been inscribed about the same time it was first reported, in the early 1920s.
In Desert Varnish I wrote:
Desert Varnishes grow fastest in damp environments, slower in arid areas, staying on physically stable rock surfaces that are less subject to frequent wind abrasion, heavy precipitation, or rock fracturing.
Different rocks have varying abilities to accept and retain varnish.
Limestones typically do not retain varnish because they are too water-soluble and therefore do not provide a stable surface for varnish to form on.
Basalt, fine grained quartzites, sandstones, and metamorphosed shales often develop shiny, dense and black varnishes and retain them because of their high resistance to weathering.
During the Little Ice Age varnishes in many areas resulted in the accretion of three very narrow secondary black bands - generally accepted as the "Little Ice Age Signal" (Liu and Broecker 2007).
Composition:
A major part of desert varnish is wind driven clay wetted by dew, which then catches additional substances Such as Manganese, Iron, other heavy metals, and bits of vegetation that chemically react together when the rock reaches high temperatures in the desert sun.
In iron rich but poor manganese conditions, orange hematite varnishes develop. In extremely dry areas orange hematite may change to black goethite.
Black desert varnish often has an unusually high concentration of manganese. Manganese is relatively rare in the Earth's crust, making up only 0.12% of its weight. In black desert varnish, however, manganese can be 50 to 60 times more abundant.
Alternating humid and arid climates probably accounts for Mn/Fe fluctuations.
Multiple researchers have since confirmed that lead and other pollutants contaminate the active surface of desert varnish and other iron-rich rock coatings.
Electron microprobe profiles reveal that lead is a contaminant in the uppermost surfaces of rock varnishes, but these concentrations drop to background levels below the very surface of natural rock coatings that have formed since lead additives were introduced into gasoline in 1922. (Dorn 1998, 139)
Radioactive cesium from nuclear bomb tests, lead released from automobiles, and zinc from smelters were found in the surface-most layer of varnish (Fleisher et al. 1999), including in eastern California distant from cities (Broecker and Liu 2001).
Another study (Wayne, Diaz, and Orndorff 2004) noted that “the surface layers of all varnish samples studied display an extreme enrichment in Pb that is not always reflected in the abundances of most other trace elements. Varnish Pb isotope signatures contain a distinct atmospheric Pb component, relative to those of the substrate rock.”
Still others reported similar surficial contamination by lead and other heavy metal contaminants (Thiagarajan and Lee 2004; V. F. Hodge et al. 2005; Wayne et al. 2006; Spilde, Boston, and Northup 2007; Nowinski et al. 2010).
Read more: forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/79409/desert-varnish#ixzz4m1Hf3ZsU
Different rocks have varying abilities to accept and retain varnish.
Limestones typically do not retain varnish because they are too water-soluble and therefore do not provide a stable surface for varnish to form on.
Basalt, fine grained quartzites, sandstones, and metamorphosed shales often develop shiny, dense and black varnishes and retain them because of their high resistance to weathering.
During the Little Ice Age varnishes in many areas resulted in the accretion of three very narrow secondary black bands - generally accepted as the "Little Ice Age Signal" (Liu and Broecker 2007).
Composition:
A major part of desert varnish is wind driven clay wetted by dew, which then catches additional substances Such as Manganese, Iron, other heavy metals, and bits of vegetation that chemically react together when the rock reaches high temperatures in the desert sun.
In iron rich but poor manganese conditions, orange hematite varnishes develop. In extremely dry areas orange hematite may change to black goethite.
Black desert varnish often has an unusually high concentration of manganese. Manganese is relatively rare in the Earth's crust, making up only 0.12% of its weight. In black desert varnish, however, manganese can be 50 to 60 times more abundant.
Alternating humid and arid climates probably accounts for Mn/Fe fluctuations.
Multiple researchers have since confirmed that lead and other pollutants contaminate the active surface of desert varnish and other iron-rich rock coatings.
Electron microprobe profiles reveal that lead is a contaminant in the uppermost surfaces of rock varnishes, but these concentrations drop to background levels below the very surface of natural rock coatings that have formed since lead additives were introduced into gasoline in 1922. (Dorn 1998, 139)
Radioactive cesium from nuclear bomb tests, lead released from automobiles, and zinc from smelters were found in the surface-most layer of varnish (Fleisher et al. 1999), including in eastern California distant from cities (Broecker and Liu 2001).
Another study (Wayne, Diaz, and Orndorff 2004) noted that “the surface layers of all varnish samples studied display an extreme enrichment in Pb that is not always reflected in the abundances of most other trace elements. Varnish Pb isotope signatures contain a distinct atmospheric Pb component, relative to those of the substrate rock.”
Still others reported similar surficial contamination by lead and other heavy metal contaminants (Thiagarajan and Lee 2004; V. F. Hodge et al. 2005; Wayne et al. 2006; Spilde, Boston, and Northup 2007; Nowinski et al. 2010).
Read more: forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/79409/desert-varnish#ixzz4m1Hf3ZsU
Interesting test results, BUT what if a nearby volcano erupted lead fumes, changing the atmosphere profile?
What if a sandstorm removed the original delicate outer layers from 1539?
What if, as was frequently done, someone in the 1820's removed layers by making a rubbing of the inscription?
I have more doubts of the detractors than of Fray Marcos.
... to the New Guys from The ChatBox V.2 Crew