ANCIENT CHINESE INSCRIPTIONS IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO – REALLY?

 

Petroglyphs at Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. From Ruskamp, 2017.

Abstract symbols from two locations in the American Southwest have been supposedly translated and read as 2500 year old Chinese inscriptions. This, from a publication by the Early Sites Research Society, a group of fringies which advocates a large number of eccentric beliefs regarding human presence in the New World. I first became aware of the group back in the days of the Ogam controversy and Barry Fell in the early 1980s. Not only Ogam, but many other languages such as Phoenician and other North African and Mediterranean dialects are supposedly found in New World inscriptions according to these people. No wonder they can read ancient Chinese inscriptions in Arizona and New Mexico.

Now, readers of RockArtBlog may remember that I have, in fact, in the past expressed my openness to more prehistoric contact between the Old and New Worlds than just the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. If we were talking about some sort of prehistoric Chinese evidence found along the Pacific Coast of America, I might suspend some of my skepticism, but here we are talking about prehistoric Chinese presence hundreds of miles from the coast through the Mojave desert. I just cannot go this far. I will, however, summarize the gist of the arguments and let you decide for yourself.

Highlighted petroglyphs at Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. From Ruskamp, 2017.

“In the roadless Rinconada Canyon area of Albuquerque, NM’s, Petroglyph National Monument, high above a sandy trail frequented daily by hikers, joggers, and dog-walkers, is a set of very old petroglyphs, readable as ancient Chinese script. Here, in public view yet remaining unrecognized and miscategorized, are the ancient written Chinese symbols; xiàn ‘to offer sacrifice in worship to deceased ancestors’, quặn ‘dog’, dà ‘great’, jiẻ ‘to kneel down in reverence’, Dà Jiặ (the name of the third(or fourth) king of the Shang dynasty), and gệng (the seventh Chinese Heavenly Stem).” (Ruskamp 2017:1) Now all of the other rock art at Petroglyph National Monument is known to have been produced by the ancestral First Nations people of that region.

Arizona petroglyphs claimed to be an ancient Chinese Inscription. From Ruskamp, 2017.

“In the Upper Little Colorado River drainage of east-central Arizona, approximately 250 miles to the southwest of Albuquerque NM, there exist three ancient and uniquely subdivided petroglyph cartouches, each filled with readable combinations of what clearly appear to be ancient Chinese logograms. Instructively, these cartouches were numbered by their ancient author, for written beside them is the Chinese character yī, meaning ‘one’, and similarly inscribed beside the adjoining cartouche is the symbol yĭ, meaning ‘second’. Together, the equivalent positioning of these numeric designations, one beneath what is meant to be the bottom of each cartouche, provides a visual clue for the intended alignment as well as the reading order of these writings.” (Ruskamp 2017:5 &6) In this example we are talking about an area in which the Hopi claim a deep prehistoric connection. (Riggs 2022)

Hopi Nakwach symbol. From Ruskamp, 2017.

Ancient Chinese jiū symbol, From Ruskamp, 2017.

Obviously, Ruskamp is relying on what he sees as similarity of symbols in his interpretation of the petroglyphs. “More than once, the ancient author of the cartouches described above recorded his message with graphic images that were, and still are, understood in the same manner by both Native American and Asiatic populations. The first of these mutually symbolic figures portrays the interlocking fingers of two hands. Persisting into modern times, the Hopi people of Northern Arizona refer to this figure as Nakwach, their symbol for ‘brotherhood, friendship.’ Chinese calligraphers, both ancient and modern, use an identical figure, jiū, which for them represents the twisting of multiple items into one.” (Ruskamp 2017:11) I have written previously that one can easily go too far in relying on similarity of symbols to make connection. After all, there are only so many shapes available to the human mind. The fact that the Hopi nakwach symbol somewhat resembles the Ancient Chinese jiū is meaningless. There are tens of thousands of similar symbols in the rock art of cultures around the world.

Linked Native American rectilinear spirals. From Ruskamp, 2017.

Ancient Chinese huí symbol. From Ruskamp, 2017.

The same goes for Ruskamp’s second example, the rectilinear spiral. “A second prominent example of the parallel symbolism employed by North American and Asiatic authors, evident in the study cartouches, is their joint use of a rectilinear spiral to convey the concept of a ‘round trip journey.’ This symbol, which the Chinese pronounce huỉ, appears frequently in North American rock art, both as a single object and in repetitive patterns. Historically, the Hopi have used this symbol to portray the four complete migrations that their legendary god Massau instructed them to make, once to each of the four cardinal directions and finally to the ‘Center Place.’” (Ruskamp 2017:12) This symbol is found in rock art around the world and from all chronological periods. Ruskamp makes a point to discuss the resemblance of these symbols to Hopi symbols, of course they resemble Hopi symbols, they are Hopi symbols.

“Accordingly, what does seem certain is that the origin of the significantly repatinated and uniquely styled Asiatic script symbols identified in this report must be assigned to China, for ‘The Chinese script is obviously and original system of signs created to record an ancestral form of the Chinese language’ (Houston 2008:258). Never in the history of humanity has such a uniquely complex and readable set of characters been invented more than once.” (Ruskamp 2018:18)

“The comparative evidence presented in this report, which is supported by both analytical evaluation and expert opinion, documenting the presence of readable sequences of Archaic Chinese scripts located upon the rocks of North America, indicates the creation of these images prior to the extinction of memory of oracle-bone script. Therefore, in contrast to any previous historical uncertainty, we may conclude that trans-Pacific exchanges of epigraphic intellectual property took place between Chinese and North American populations approximately 2,500 years ago.” (Ruskamp 2018:18)

In evaluating Ruskamp’s thesis I am not just a skeptic, I am a non-believer, yet I hope that my evaluation has been fair. I do not even go so far as to say that there could not have been prehistoric trans-Pacific contact. There are a few interesting arguments for that to have actually happened. It is just that I do not see Archaic Chinese inscriptions in these examples. My reasoning relies on two main arguments. First, I would expect ancient Chinese inscriptions, if they exist in North America, to be fairly near the Pacific coast, not hundreds of miles across the Mojave Desert. And my second objection is the same one used for decades now in arguing against the epigraphic diffusionism of Barry Fell – the resemblance seen in the symbols is just a coincidence as they have been used by hundreds of cultures over thousands of years. They are the result of independent invention, not cultural diffusion, and certainly not the result of an Ancient Chinese expedition.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

Also, I have no idea why Blogger decided to make the text background for most of this column white, but, as I have said before, I am an Art Historian, not a techie.

PRIMARY REFERENCE:

Riggs, Sarah, 2022, Hopi Connections to the Little Colorado River, 5 January 2022, Grand Canyon Trust, https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/hopi-connections-little-colorado-river, accessed 9 November 2022.

Ruskamp, John A., Jr., with a comment by Stephen C. Jett, 2015-2017, Two Ancient Rock Inscriptions Indicate and Archaic Chinese Presence in the American Southwest, from Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts, Volume 6, Numbers 2-4, Early Sites Research Society, Independence, Missouri.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Houston, Steven, ed., 2008, The First Writing: Script Inventions History and Process. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wieger, Lèon, 1965, Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification. A Thorough Study from Chinese Documents, 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: Para[1]gon Book Reprint Corp.; Mineola, NY: Dover Publications (orig. pub. Hsien[1]Hsien, China: Catholic Mission Press, 1927).