Again, we are left speculating in an attempt to explain bizarre hybrid artifacts:

1. A band of explorers, perhaps from the Mediterranean area with a knowledge of Christianity, Latin, and Hebrew, could somehow, circa 800 A.D., have gotten themselves to the American Southwest, established a colony, recorded their history, and then proceeded to pass into obscurity. Some of the Hebrew words found jumbled in with the Latin are "Jehovah," "Peace," and "Mighty Empire." Did the explorers consider themselves part of a mighty empire--or did they find themselves confronted by the representatives of a mighty empire already existing in the American Southwest?

2. The language is not Latin at all, but the language of the "Lost Nation of Iynkicidu," which is composed of the same characters and perhaps has a good many cognates because the civilization that existed hundreds of thousands of years ago on the North American continent was the culture that seeded the Mediterranean.

In a letter dated December 5, 1879, a Mr. Hannibal Fox of Milton, Sullivan County, Missouri, wrote to The American Antiquarian (Vol. 3, p. 336) regarding his discovery of a silver and iron mask, which he had uncovered while plowing a field. The publication commented that "melting iron and silver in a crucible, and preparing a matrix by placing clay over the face after death, and pouring the metal so that the vessel tipped, do not seem to be operations which are usual among the aborigines, or, as far as we know, among the Mound Builders."

The Scientific American for July 22, 1882, tells of a curious find of "Pre-Indian Relics from Virginia":

The objects [found between the ranges of the Blue and Allegheny mountains, near Mount Pisgah, North Carolina] are said to be of a type absolutely unique, consisting partly of human, partly of animal figures, either in the round or in various degrees of relief. Some are household utensils. They appear to have been sculptured by metal instruments, so perfect is their workmanship.

The correspondent for Scientific American comments further that the human figures were not fashioned in the likenesses of Native Americans, and that the images were fully clothed in tight-fitting garments. Some of the figurines were represented as seated in armchairs; others were astraddle a most remarkable variety of animals--bears, prairie dogs, birds.

It is strange enough that an ancient artist would depict such animals as those mentioned above as bearing unrecognizable riders on their backs, but then comes the zinger: Some of the riders are seated upon two-humped camels, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses. Either our unknown artisan observed such African animals for himself, or he saw representations of such animals, or he was more than imaginative--he was a prehistoric Nostradamus.

The Scientific American hazards a theory that "the articles were made by an earlier and more civilized race, subjugated and partially destroyed by the Indians found in Virginia on the arrival of the white men." However, they concluded, the specimens of the Old World animals were "obviously" made by a white man at a later time.

Rather than pursuing the possibility of "an earlier and more civilized race," The Scientific American leaves us with an image of some frontiersman discovering a cache of remarkable figurines left hidden in the Allegheny Mountains. He pauses, admires them, then becomes so moved by their craftsmanship that he sits down and uses his hunting knife and axe to chip out his own impressions of men riding African creatures. His work done, he adds his own objects d 'art to the cache, then walks on his way, never to mention to anyone the trove of ancient figurines or his own craftsmanship.

In its June, 1851, issue the Scientific American reprinted an item from the Boston Transcript about a metallic vessel that was blown out of an "immense mass of rock" when workmen were blasting on Meeting House Hill in Dorchester:

On putting the two parts together it formed a bell-shaped vessel, 4 1/2 inches high,6 1/2 inches at the base, 2 1/2 inches at the top, and about an eighth of an inch in thickness. The body of this vessel resembles zinc in color, or a composition metal, in which there is a considerable portion of silver. On the sides there are six figures of a flower, or bouquet, beautifully inlaid with pure silver, and around the lower part of the vessel a vine, or wreath, inlaid also with silver. The chasing, carving, and inlaying are exquisitely done by the art of some cunning workman. This curious and unknown vessel was blown out of the solid pudding stone, fifteen feet below the surface…. Dr. J. V. C. Smith, who has recently travelled in the East, and examined hundreds of curious domestic utensils... has never seen anything resembling this.. . There is no doubt but that this curiosity was blown out of the rock. . . .

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