The Saga of Burrows Cave

Compiled by Glen W. Chapman- August 2001

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION By James P. Scherz Col. Russell E. Burrows Emerging from Burrows' Cave

"We can ask why the Burrows Cave Rock Art Pieces, are not in public museums or written about by prominent scholars in our institutes of public learning. The answer is that these pieces, like thousands of similar inscribed rocks, have been rejected as modem fakes by some important authorities in archaeology without analysis or proof of forgery. Such data, if authentic, contradict the currently held belief of what happened on the soil of the New World in the distant past. And such offensive basic data tends to be rejected without analysis in preference to popularly held beliefs on such subjects. Only a very brave American scholar in archaeology who might want to give the Burrows Cave pieces a fair investigation would dare to do so. His or her overwhelming peer pressure would be that such things cannot be found in the New World. When honest inquiry does eventually occur, such investigators should be acclaimed for their bravery and dedication to the scientific method. But in the early part of the Burrows Cave story, real investigation and analysis has been completely up to other people trained in the hard sciences where truth is defined by a fair analysis of the basic data, and not by previous beliefs of the so-called experts in such things. "(America's Pre- Columbian Monroe Doctrine by James P. Scherz ) Russell E. Burrows (also Col. Burrows) discovered "Burrows' Cave" in 1982, and shortly thereafter retrieved several thousand rock art pieces from it. These curious pieces of carved and polished white and black marble and slate have created considerable excitement, skepticism, and heated controversy in certain circles, after Burrows tried to establish liaison with appropriate authorities and experts he thought would be interested in studying and preserving the pieces and the cave itself, where he says more such pieces remain.
1.Opposing Belief Systems

On one hand, some people (representing positions of established authority who could have preserved the rock art pieces that Burrows brought forth) have ignored them, rejected them and even accused Burrows of faking the work. On the other hand, another group (consisting of interested amateurs who have handled and pondered the pieces) has gone to great lengths in creating stories of fiction and fantasy about how the pieces came to be in Burrows Cave. Included in this later group was Jack Ward, then operator of a local museum in Vincennes, Ind., to whom Burrows loaned about 2000 rock art pieces for display and study. Jack Ward, years before, during his career in highway construction in Illinois and Indiana, had come into contact with other rocks in the region, which he said had man-made modifications on them. He had even written a book (largely historical fiction) relating to what he said were Old World-type artifacts collected from fields in Illinois and Indiana. (This was before he became involved with Burrows Cave.) His book Ancient Archives Among the Cornstalks contains about 1/3 facts and description of marked rocks, but is mostly historical fiction based on an ancient hero who Jack said married a prostitute in a Mediterranean city and came to this country. Taken as a historical novel, the book can be interesting reading, provided that one keeps in mind that Jack made up the story. But as

Jack advanced in age, the newly-discovered pieces from Burrows Cave seemed to convince him of the truth of his own novel. He preached his story with evangelical vigor as if trying to gain converts to his new story about ancient peoples who came to America from the lands of and in the days of the Old Testament. Chief Raz, he said, had formed a group called "The Flying Dove United Company" to move copper between the New World and the Old. Jack loved to elaborate on his hero Raz and his descendants, who Jack said lived in America in the vicinity of Vincennes, Indiana. The new scriptures for his story were the marks on the rocks from the Burrows Cave, which Jack said he had learned how to decipher. Between 1982 (when Burrows discovered the cave and delivered many hundreds of the rocks to Jack Ward) and 1991, it appears that neither Ward nor those working with him made any sort of an adequate catalog of the art pieces Burrows had loaned to the local museum. But during this time there appeared numerous articles about the pieces in certain amateur journals such as that of the Epigraphic Society. Many of these articles have been attacks on the pieces as being fakes (and therefore indirect attacks on Russell Burrows). The content of the attacks has been largely based on the fact that the art work and script found on the rocks vary from styles that American epigraphers (studends of ancient inscriptions) have seen on rocks from other parts of the New World. Even Dr. Barry Fell (a pioneer in bringing to light ancient Western Old World-type scripts found along the eastern parts of the Americas) has said that the Burrows Cave rocks are fabrications. Reportedly, Barry Fell's statements were made without examining the rocks themselves. It appears that his stand was taken based on sketches, non-scaled photographs of the pieces, and opinions of his colleagues. Many of the rock pieces from Burrows Cave clearly have on them marks that must be classified as some sort of script or ancient writing. It also seems that the epigraphy (ancient script) on these rock pieces does not correlate with that which American epigraphers have found in the New World, mostly along the eastern part of North America. The types of script that Dr. Fell and his colleagues have been working with correlate to that on ancient pieces found in Western Europe and Africa; the marks on the Burrows Cave pieces do not correlate so nicely. It appears to me that by merely using sketches or photos of the pieces from Burrows Cave, some people have concluded that the script is not like that found on ancient artifacts in Western Europe and Africa and therefore must be faked. If this is really the reason they have taken their stand against the Burrows Cave art pieces, then they have used the following logic to form their opinions: the rocks can not be real because they do not contain the type of ancient Western writing that should be on them if they were real. The same sort of logic was used by those who have attacked Barry Fell's work about possible preColumbian contacts from western Europe and Africa to America. For example, conventional experts have said that the Ogam-type writing that Dr. Fell and others have reported finding in America is an Irish writing system and cannot be found in the New World. In their logic system, it follows that Fell's work on Ogam and other Western Old World scripts in America are fabrications. It seems to me that some the Burrows Cave material has been attacked by use of the same type of logic. The art and script on the rocks from Burrows Cave is not like that found on pieces that researchers are familiar with from western Europe and Africa, and so, not fitting the mold of what they expect, it is dismissed as impossible or a fabrication. And it follows that if the Burrows Cave pieces are modern fabrications, then they are not worthy of preservation and

careful analysis. I disagree with this sort of filtering system being used to decide what data is preserved for future study. 1.a) Attempts to Deal with the Belief-Based Trap Being trained in the "hard sciences", where our view of the world must continually change to be in agreement with new basic data, I find it offensive when belief systems in other fields selectively determine what data they will preserve and examine, often ignoring, suppressing, or destroying basic data that seem offensive or threatening, and, in effect, keeping such data from the view of the rest of us. My natural reaction is to champion the cause of preserving basic data and giving it fair and thorough analysis, regardless of the uncertainty in the data. Over the years, I have seen so much evidence of white historians and scholars ignoring, repressing, or destroying data relating to the history of the Native Americans, that I have made a study of how a culture represses unpopular data. I have called the results of this study "the rules of ism-ism." These rules can be used to predict how belief-based systems ignore, dismiss or repress data, or modify it to be more in line with our beliefs. These rules are useful when working with old Indian legends; and I have found them to also be useful for understanding what might otherwise seem irrational actions of modern governments (including our own). Furthermore, I have been amused at the way these rules work for predicting how many of my colleagues who profess the scientific principle, but are subconsciously driven by their own belief systems, will react when in unfamiliar situations. Since it appears to me that some American epigraphers used the same kind of belief-based stands against the Burrows Cave pieces as others have used against the pioneering work of Dr. Fell, I see a pattern here for human reaction that I simply must try to "capitalize" on. These reactions are perfect examples for explaining the principles of ism-ism which can be used to predict what people will see and what they will not see based on their belief systems. The marks on the Burrows Cave rocks are so foreign to what is generally believed can be found in Illinois, that they have been declared fraudulent. And this conclusion could be reached by merely glancing at some sketches or non-scaled photos of the pieces. In our modern scientific age, proof of authenticity or fakery should be based on a much more rigorous analysis than that. Those who call themselves scientists should demand a more rigorous analysis than that. And the general public who support the experts in our institutions of higher learning should also demand a more rigorous analysis. And that analysis should be primarily focused on careful analysis of the basic data, and not a mere comparison of what is believed to be possible and not possible. Since Dr. Fell has been a true soldier in fighting for hidden truths, I hope that he will not mind my using his writings as examples of how all human beings seem to react to data not in accordance with our beliefs and views of the world. If it can be demonstrated that the rules of ism-ism apply to Dr. Barry Fell, I feel that this is excellent evidence that they apply to us all. And if we are ever to understand the past, we must strive to understand rules of human nature that were in force as the stories and histories of the past were preserved--along with the ancient artifacts that the victors and the vanquished tribes (or isms that take the place of tribes) left for us to ponder. In my view, an understanding of human attitudes and predictable reactions of how humans consciously and subconsciously handle historically-related data is extremely useful for those who wish to dig for hidden truth. 1.b) Unworthy Basic Data It follows from the second rule of ism-ism (see second footnote on page 5) that when basic data conflicts with our belief systems, we will tend to embrace some unsupported claim to explain away the data, declare it a fraud, or force the troubling data out of view by repression or neglect.

And that is what is happening with the rocks from Burrows Cave. Within the past decade, most of them have already been scattered or lost. Unless someone does something soon, the pieces will all be lost forever or hopelessly confused with other pieces (authentic or otherwise)--so that it will be nearly impossible to conduct any meaningful study on them in the future. Since the cave's discovery in 1982, controversy raging about the Burrows Cave rocks has been mainly from two camps holding opposing belief systems. In one camp has been Jack Ward and his followers, and in the other camp those who attack the Burrows Cave pieces because "they cannot possibly be real." Interestingly, as this unscientific controversy has been going on, the basic pieces (upon which any scientific investigation must rest) have essentially been ignored, neglected, and allowed to become scattered and lost. In August, 1991, I could find no inventory relating to the many hundreds of pieces that Burrows collected and turned over to the Vincennes museum. I saw no evidence that they had ever been indexed, cataloged, or even adequately sketched (although I talked to a person who said he was a Biblical archaeologist who apparently had been hired by Ward to accomplish this task). Also I saw no evidence that the pieces had ever been thoroughly studied according to any proper scientific standard. \ Sadly, by the summer of 1991, all but 116 of these pieces had been either sold by Jack Ward or had otherwise disappeared from our view. In June, 1991, Jack Ward died and these remaining pieces again came into the possession of Russell Burrows. (Photos of 114 of these 116 pieces are shown in Chapter 3.) 1.c) Attempts to Organize a Complex Situation In August, 1991, I visited with Russell Burrows and helped him index, photograph and pack the remaining pieces in his possession. Naturally we needed to produce a catalogue of the photographs of the pieces that we packed away in the boxes for safe storage, along with a sort of deposition or story in Burrows' own words relating to the pieces. I felt that we also needed some historical facts on how I and various other people had become involved with Burrows Cave, and some elaboration on my background so that the reader would be aware of my biases, as well as my past experience with the biases of people of other professions whom our society naturally assumes are the experts on strange and out-of-place pieces such as the rocks from Burrows Cave. At the same time that I was pulling together the support material for our little catalogue, Russell Burrows and Fred Rydholm were completing a book to document the bizarre human reactions that have occurred in certain circles since 1982, when Burrows brought forth his first pieces. The book by Burrows and Rydholm was edited by Buck Trawicky. Buck also agreed to edit the material we put together to go with our catalogue of photographs, and assure that our different works adequately complemented each other. Buck spent time in Asia (in Nepal) with the Peace Corps, and presently is secretary of the Ancient Earthworks Society of Madison, Wisconsin. Talented people in this organization, from many varied backgrounds, have for years been studying and discussing their views on the geometry, verbal traditions and art styles relating to the Indian mounds in Wisconsin, and other pre-Columbian features. Some of these investigations involved art patterns similar to some art on the rocks from Burrows Cave. This group also examined how these art styles seem to fit into a larger pattern of esoteric lore that most people in our Western culture are generally unaware of, and sometimes tend to be hostile towards. It seemed that these patterns of art and human attitudes are also part of the overall story that needs to be told relating to the remaining pieces in Burrows' collection. Consequently the original goal of this work (which was merely to provide a photographic catalogue of the pieces packed away for safe keeping) has evolved into the more encompassing goals of also presenting a composite picture of overlooked (if not hidden) histories, and pertinent cultural attitudes in our country towards pieces such as those from Burrows Cave. Such American attitudes involve a habitual pattern of filtering out from serious study many pieces of basic data--

data (not unlike the Burrows Cave pieces) which would challenge the popular belief that Columbus was the first Old World explorer to make significant impact on the New World. This pattern of filtering also extends to histories of peoples--extremely important peoples from northern Asia, who produced styles of art similar, in some respects, to those found in Burrows Cave. The evolved purposes of this work are thus (1) to document the pieces that came back into the possession of Burrows in August, 1991, (2) for Burrows to tell in his own words his story of discovery and, (3) to the best of his recollection, for him to tell in what part of the cave each piece was found--in the hope that some future scholars may attempt to solve the Burrows Cave controversy by something that might resemble a scientific approach based on the basic pieces themselves, rather that on belief systems that define what one is "allowed" or "not allowed" to find within the soils of the New World. (4) We will also try to lay a foundation of data that supports the possibility of pre-Columbian contact from Asia. With such data as a backdrop, the pieces from Burrows Cave might not seem so outlandish to the casual reader. But I wish to emphasize that the main effort in our work is to attempt to salvage what I think could prove to be potentially very important basic data from loss due to neglect or mismanagement. It is basic data and not victories in arguments of opposing belief systems that will define the bounds of truth in such cases. People who will vigorously defend their belief systems, while at the same time ignoring or suppressing basic data, are on very shaky ground indeed. 2.) A Map Maker's Approach to the Burrows' Cave Affair It might seem unusual that I, as a teacher of modern surveying and aerial mapping methods in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (part of the so-called "hard sciences") at the University of Wisconsin, should be involved in trying to help preserve, in photo and written form, data relating to the Burrows' Cave art pieces and their story of discovery. Such matters are traditionally handled by people in the so-called soft sciences, such as scholars in the fields of archeology, anthropology and history. The principal reason that I am involved is that people in the soft sciences simply did not do the job, and the basic hard data upon which all scientific inquiry must rest has not yet been adequately recorded or preserved. I took the photographs in this book with a hand-held camera in Burrows' back yard during three days of my summer vacation. I also briefly examined the type of rocks from which the pieces were carved, making hurried notes of such observations as we indexed and packed the remaining pieces into boxes for safe storage. I also requested Russell Burrows to state in his own words the circumstances of the cave's discovery and, to the best of his recollection, what part of the cave each piece came from, because I felt that this information might prove extremely valuable to future researchers. This work was hurriedly done over three days of my summer vacation because over the past decade no one else had done it; it appeared to me that the basic data might completely disappear unless something was done, and done soon. A surveyor is trained to record basic data, which are usually field measurements, but also can be personal observations and occasionally verbal stories that relate to land use and old boundaries. Since such data are often used for legal purposes and sometimes as support for appearance in court as an expert witness, the collecting of such basic data is something with which the surveyor should be proficient. Therefore I feel competent to assist Burrows in documenting his story of the discovery of Burrows' Cave, to make an initial catalog of the pieces, and to help him write an initial report about the rock pieces that remain in his possession. Since photography and photos are now important tools in map making, it was not hard for me to focus these skills on helping

Burrows obtain scaled photos of the remaining art pieces he had in his possession in the summer of 1991. Because I minored in Geology and Geophysics while obtaining a Masters and PhD degree in Civil Engineering, and have various friends who are professional geologists, I have drawn upon this background and friendship in briefly describing the types of rock from which the art pieces were made. These preliminary results on rock analysis will be presented, along with the photos, and observations on what I sense to be related data on art, history, and patterns of human reactions--a sort of multi-dimensional map of events that relate to Burrow's Cave. 2.a) Related Work Mapping Indian Mounds Another reason for my involvement with Burrows' Cave is because over the past 10 years I have surveyed Indian mounds in Wisconsin and learned from Native American teachers some verbal histories related to the construction of effigy mounds and their use. The picture that emerges from the analysis of the geometry of the mounds and from the verbal histories indicates pre-Columbian contact between northern Asia and the Upper Mississippi River Valley. I see the Burrows' Cave pieces as possibly being a part of the larger collection of neglected, ignored, and repressed data from the Upper Mississippi that indicates this contact. 2.a.1) A Possible Asian Connection Working with a talented group of multi-disciplinary volunteers (in the Ancient Earthworks Society), my analysis of both the geometry of the mounds and the verbal histories from different tribes suggests a pre-Columbian connection between the Upper Mississippi Valley and an area of the Old World near northern India and China. A probable period of active contact is from the days when the silk trade routes were being set up (about 200 BC) and until about 200 AD. And it would appear that there was further sporadic contact for another millennium. In the 1200's, it appears that the Chinese had a merchant navy with large ships to support the sea otter fur trade to the so-called Fox Islands in a land to their east. These were very likely the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The Mackenzie River and Great Lakes river systems complete one possible ancient route for trade, and for lodge, ceremonial, and religious contacts. Of course, there would have been other routes as well, similar to those used during the historical period for the European fur traders. (Additional routes through the waterways of the mainland, as with the European fur traders, would have required outposts and relative or allied tribes living along the river systems.) The Old World tribes that were associated with the silk and sea otter fur trade included the Yuehche, thought to be an ancient Turkic tribe from northern India and China. 2.a.2) Those Intriguing Yueh-ches, Kushanas, and Sakas During the period when these Yueh-che (also appearing in the records as Yueh-chih, Yue-chi, etc.) people in northern Asia set up and controlled the trade between China and Europe, they also helped spread Buddhism into China and southeast Asia. Buddha was of the Sakya (also spelled as, Shakya, etc.) tribe. A group of people called Saka, Shaka, Sak, etc., also appears in later histories as a ruling and trading people from this part of the Old World. In the New World, one group of people who controlled the area of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois (and the trade along the upper parts of the Mississippi River system on this continent) were known by the name of Sauk, Sac, Sak, or Saka. There was also a Yuchi people along the southern Mississippi River system at this time. The Yuchi were incorporated with the Cherokees on the forced march from their ancestral homeland near Columbus, Georgia over the Trail of Tears, and live today in Oklahoma. It is claimed that the New World Yuchi people were a priestly caste and were associated with the temple mounds of the so-called Mississippian period.

The Yuchi of the New World had subtribes which included the Muscovee and an ambassador group or lodge called the Shawaeno. Since we have verbal legends and place names of Muscoda (also known as the "under-the-earth-people") in Wisconsin and Michigan, and place names of Shawano and Keshena in Wisconsin, it is natural that we should look to the Old World records about the Yueh-che (or Yueh-chih) and Kushanas and to the legends of the New World Yuchis for clues to pursue the possibility of pre-Columbian trade and religious connections. Verbal traditions in Wisconsin (preserved by Native Americans who lived near Keshena and Shawano, Wisconsin) tell of pre-Columbian contact with India. And the geometry of the Indian mounds of Wisconsin also indicates a pre-Columbian contact with the Old World, and most likely with roots to northern India. I see art styles in the rocks from Burrows' Cave which suggest to me a possible supporting link to the "India Connection" that we have been working on from other sources. Several other researchers (as indicated in the footnotes) have been actively engaged in gathering data to support the possible early connection between northern Asia and the New World, especially during the period from about 200 BC to 300 AD, when the Yueh-che people (and their neighbors) were dominated by the Kushanas (a branch of the Yueh-che tribes). Scholars in India say that the Kushana traders and missionaries had not only a marked influence on the cultures of Asia during this period, but also on that of the Roman empire (and therefore also on the new religion of Christianity, which was taking root "underground" in Rome during the days of the Caesars). Their work also indicates that Kushana (or Yueh-che) coins have been found as far away from India as Africa, Russia, and Japan. In the American South-west, we have the Hopi Indians who preserve in their verbal legends and ceremonies the memories of the days when the Kachinas once came to visit them from the other side of the world. The present-day American Yuchi people of Oklahoma are interested in the probable truth of their old legends, and so are their long-time friends and relatives the Sauk, who live near them today in Oklahoma. (These Sauk include remnants of the Wisconsin Sauks who were driven from their ancestral home in Wisconsin and Illinois after the Blackhawk War.) It is in the best interests of all such interested people and scholars that the basic data relating to the rock pieces taken from Burrows' Cave be properly recorded and documented, and available for the careful sifting and winnowing that must follow in any proper analysis. (Without an adequate record of the basic data, the truth can never be found, and resulting debates will degenerate into battles between opposing belief systems--a process that has already begun in relation to the Burrows' Cave pieces.) It is also with these scholars and other interested people in mind, that I have helped Burrows photograph and document the rock pieces in his possession, and encouraged him to record in his own works his story of discovery. 2.b) A Very Personal Reason to be Interested I have yet another very personal interest in Burrows' Cave, and where a full analysis of its data might lead. Like Russell Burrows, I have a bit of Native American genes in my ancestry and thus have a very personal reason to help uncover the truth of the history of vanquished Indians (which for various reasons has been ignored, suppressed and distorted by the victorious white culture). And like Russell Burrows, I too had an earlier career as an officer with the United States Army. There I worked with classified information, and became further aware that there has been much data relating to the history of man that the general public has not been aware of. My second career as a teacher and researcher at the University of Wisconsin has provided ample opportunities to search archives relating to the Native Americans in this part of the world, and to become acquainted with some very special people in various tribes who have seen fit to share with me some of their verbal knowledge--knowledge which cannot be found in any textbooks.

The Burrows' Cave investigation is but one in a series of intriguing spare-time projects I have been involved with while searching for data relating to the unwritten past of the Native Americans. 3.) My Introduction to Burrows' Cave I first heard of Burrows' Cave from Bart Jordan, a talented musician who has traveled and done research in the Old World, and is also a scholar of ancient music and of the sacred Old World "canons of proportion" (which were used in ancient times to tie together our calendars, musical scales, and units of land measure into one harmonious system). My students and I had completed some initial work on precisely surveying some of the rock structures and effigy mounds in Wisconsin. The data indicated a harmonious correlation between calendars, ratios of musical scales and units of land measure--similar in many respects to what a small group of scholars say is found in the geometry of sacred ceremonial sites in the Old World. Since I knew how to precisely survey ancient ceremonial structures of the New World which had not yet been adequately studied, it was not long before my students put Bart and me in contact with each other. The first notation of Burrows' Cave in my journals occurs in early 1987, when Bart asked me to contact a Russell Burrows (a former Army Colonel) in Olney, Illinois. Bart said that Burrows had discovered a cave of great importance, and Bart was worried that the situation was being handled in an incompetent manner and that they needed the help of someone who had a background in the hard sciences. I later learned that Dr. Warren Cook, whom I had visited years before in relation to his work with the stone structures of Massachusetts and Vermont, was then in charge of the Burrows' Cave investigation. I had confidence in Dr. Cook and assumed that he would make contact with me if he needed any engineering help. I made no attempt to interfere in the project. Then, in the summer of 1987, Bart said he had arranged for me to take a reconnaissance trip to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, and that we could stay in the archaeologists' cabins at the site. He wanted me to come down and gather some basic survey data for him relating to the geometrical layout of the ancient structures there. This sounded like a great adventure, and with two teen-age children and one of their friends from Germany, we went to Chaco Canyon. We gathered some preliminary data, but the amount of the survey work required at the site was enormous. Our field equipment and labs at that time did not have the capability to support the type of study that would be needed to even attempt to gather adequate survey data which could reliably indicate the geometrical principles used for the layout of that enormous ceremonial complex. Our initial data did, however, indicate the same long-range geometry we were finding in the mounds of Wisconsin. Consequently, I viewed the exciting and enjoyable adventure as a great success to be picked up again at some future date when I had the time, and the access to proper surveying equipment and laboratory facilities needed to do an adequate and thorough study of the site. What I did not know then was that Bart Jordan had also invited Russell Burrows to join us in the reconnaissance of Chaco Canyon, but that Burrows decided not to come. There indeed was reason for Burrows to view the trip with a bit of suspicion, for in that month thousands of people from all over the continent were to converge at Chaco Canyon for what was termed in the press as a meeting to celebrate the "Harmonic Convergence" (a popular happening supposedly to honor one of the closing cycles of the Mayan Calendar). The crowds of people were coming to Chaco Canyon the day that we were leaving. From other surveyors, I learned of Jack Ward and his book Ancient Archives Among the Cornstalks; these friends even bought a copy of his book for me. I also heard rumors that Jack

Ward was associated with an important cave that would soon come into "open light." But I made no attempt to contact Ward nor visit the area. Then in 1990, Lee Linehan, one of the members of the Ancient Earthworks Society which was formed in Madison, Wisconsin, to survey, study and preserve Indian mounds, arranged for Dr. Joseph Mahan of Columbus, Georgia, to come to Madison to give a lecture at one of our meetings. I was impressed with what Dr. Mahan was doing with his ISAC organization and he evidently was impressed with the geometry in the Indian mounds of our area. He showed us some of the pictures of rock art pieces from Burrows' Cave and invited me to attend the annual meeting of ISAC that next summer in Columbus, Ga. 3.a) The First Meeting With Burrows It was at that meeting that I first met Jack Ward and Russell Burrows. An ad-hoc committee was established in ISAC to advise how to proceed in working with the Burrows' Cave situation. (Dr. Cook, who had initially been in charge of the investigation, had recently died.) I accepted a position on this committee, whose members included Burrows, Virginia Hourigan, and Fred Rydholm, among others. I had met Fred years before while studying prehistoric structures associated with the ancient copper mines of Michigan. In the summer of that year, Hourigan, Burrows, Rydholm and I met in Wisconsin to brainstorm and come up with initial recommendations. These recommendations were sent to the rest of the committee, which was chaired by Dr. Cyclone Covey. One of the prime recommendations was that there be strict security on the cave itself lest the data that is still there be stolen or destroyed by vandals or overenergetic, unqualified amateurs. I was certain that it would be a long time before members of the establishment would posture themselves so that a proper scientific investigation could be made to check out Burrows' claim, and it was essential that the site be protected until that time. 3.b) The First Trip to Vincennes In the spring of 1991, I traveled to Vincennes (old Saukville), Indiana, to visit with Jack Ward and Russell Burrows. We looked at some of the rock art pieces that Burrows said he took from the cave and had turned over to Jack Ward. But these pieces from the cave were mixed up with other pieces carved from brown sandstone which Jack said came from the "Monroe City Site." I asked where the Monroe City Site was and who had collected the pieces. He said that a highschool dropout neighbor of his had collected them. Jack bought the pieces from his young friend. "Did you find any of the pieces yourself?" I asked. "No," was his reply. Jack then wove a story of how the people who had left the pieces at Burrows' Cave later moved to the Monroe City Site and made pieces in a completely different style out of a completely different material; but he said it was all part of the same culture. Some of these pieces from the Monroe City Site had what appeared to be fresh cut marks. I photographed some of these, and I decided that the pieces that Burrows could testify had come from Burrows' Cave had to be separated from the Monroe City pieces. The pieces from the two sites were displayed together and Jack talked about them as if they were all part of one culture or collection. The casual listener and observer would assume that they had all come from the same source, when indeed they had not. Then Jack pulled out a copper needle that his young friend had sold to him. He elaborated on how the people from near Monroe City had used this needle to sew rawhide baskets for transportation of copper nuggets from the copper mines of Michigan to Illinois, where they were prepared for shipment to Egypt. The copper needle was clearly not the same as the prehistoric copper needles found in Wisconsin, and I took a photo of it for comparison. It appeared to me to be clearly a modern piece, but one could not conclude that Jack's young friend had not found it in a field as

Jack claimed he did. As Burrows later pointed out in confidence, it appeared to be an electrode from an electric welder with a clearly manufactured square hole for an anchoring lug rather than a round hole for holding a piece of thread or leather. I was very suspicious of the Monroe City pieces and the copper needle. But in fairness to the claims about the Monroe City site, Russell Burrows and I visited the area where the Monroe City pieces supposedly had been found. There was no question that the site had been important in prehistoric times. Recent bulldozer action had flattened an ancient mound and pushed the debris into a windrow which also included the remains of trees that had been on the site. We picked up some pieces of flint from the spot and some crystals and ocher (obviously carried there for ceremonial purposes by the ancients who had either built or used the ancient mound). But we could find none of the brown sandstone pieces similar to the many Monroe City pieces that Jack Ward had on display, all mixed up with the pieces from Burrows' Cave. This data was quickly noted in my field book and soon thereafter summarized, as is my practice with such matters. By the rules that one would use to collect depositions or other data for court purposes, it was clear that anything associated with the Monroe City data should be discarded from further study unless we could talk to Jack's young friend and have him give his own story of how he obtained the brown sandstone pieces. Jack said he was a shy lad and would not talk to us. Besides, these pieces would have been suspect, even if we could have had a personal interview with the lad who supposedly found them. But the pieces that Burrows said he took from the cave were of a completely different type. Except for some pieces made from white rock, and what appears to be a piece of ceramic art work, the Burrows' Cave pieces were essentially made of black or dark grey rock, most having a common turtle-shell shape. Some are highly polished with a glass-like surface. Many which have carvings and inscriptions on them are well worn--not unlike old coins. Others show signs of slight corrosion where the shiny surface has peeled off, like the outer layer of an onion. Others are badly corroded and flaked. The art work on many of the pieces is well done and often of a rather haunting nature. Some of the pieces were made of what appeared to me to be black slate, shale or similar soft and layered rock. Other black pieces are of a harder material. I was uncertain of the type of rock. Jack reportedly had spent much of his professional life involved with rock quarry operations, and I asked him what he thought the rock was . He said that some of the hard pieces were sand-eroded diorite and that there was a desert in Egypt where you can find such pieces. He said that the bottoms of such pieces had rested on the sand, and the blowing sand had polished the rest of the rock. Then, he said, the art work and inscriptions had been carved on these naturally polished rocks. The bottoms of many of the pieces, indeed, did appear to have bases that were not polished, while the rest was smoothed off. But I was not content with Jack's explanation. If the rocks were of a calcium carbonate material rather than igneous diorite, then the rough bottoms could be caused by corrosion by water over long periods of time from setting on a damp, flat surface. I asked Burrows for a few pieces of the rock that could be taken to the Wisconsin Geology Survey for analysis by professional geologists. Jack lamented that no qualified geologists from Illinois had ever come to examine his collection. Then I sat back to listen to Jack Ward's story of what he had written in his book, about Chief Raz who formed the "Flying Dove United Company" to come to this land for trade, and about the descendants of Raz who, he said, are described in the script on pieces from Burrows' Cave--script that he could decipher . Finally he got around to talking about the local history of the region, about the white settlers who came in

the 1800's and the Indians who were in the area before they came. On the latter matters, I found Jack to be a very well-informed man. I jotted down a great deal of data to check out more thoroughly at some future date. It was deep into the dark of the night when I finally left Jack's house and began the long drive back towards Madison, Wisconsin. 3.c) Jack Ward Delays Our Inquiry A short time later, I talked by phone to Russell Burrows and to Virginia Hourigan (who had photographed rocks in Jack Ward's collection). I said that the rocks that Burrows could testify had come from the cave had to be separated from the rocks of the Monroe City site. Displaying the pieces together would clearly raise the flag of possible forgery. I would defer judgement on the Monroe City pieces, but off-hand, they looked suspect. Also, we had no defendable trail of evidence that could be used to document the Monroe City pieces. I was certain that the copper needle was modern. I then asked Burrows if he could arrange for another meeting with Jack because I had two highly-trained geologist friends who were willing to come to Illinois in a private plane to look at the pieces. I wanted a second opinion on the kind of rocks from which the pieces were made. If the composition of the rocks were known, then we could say much about the possible corrosion patterns on the pieces. A day or so later, Burrows called back to say that he had pointed out to Jack that the copper needle looked like a modern spot welder electrode, and also that Jack said that the three of us could come down to examine and photograph his collection, but that the rate was $1000 a day. Our finances for such volunteer adventures could not support such rates, so I was content to focus further examination on the few pieces of rock that Burrows had loaned to us. All of these pieces proved to be a black limestone that fizzed when subjected to an acid test. One of the rock experts at the Wisconsin Geological survey said that the pieces could be classified as lithographic limestone. In any case, all the pieces examined in Madison were cemented with a calcium carbonate material (indicating that they were of sedimentary nature), and were very fine-grained and black or dark grey in color. Based on this knowledge, we could partly explain the corrosion patterns on the pieces, as a later part of this report will indicate.

An Exercise With Art Symbols

Also about this time a member of the Ancient Earthworks Society of Madison was inquiring about what part of the world produced art types similar to those on coins or medallions found in Wisconsin and Michigan. During this academic exercise, art styles were checked which might be associated with the rocks from Burrows Cave (the Monroe City pieces were excluded from the study). The conclusion was that the best correlation was with Asia, encompassing ruling cultures from India to Iran and Iraq, where upper-class traders such as the Sakya, Kushana and Yueh-che were active (and with other associated ruling kingdoms of the area at that time, such as the Satavahanas). Figures 1-2 and 1-3 show images of the two coins or medallions that were used in this exercise. One is called "The Isle Royale Coin." The other "The Sauk City Coin." The Isle Royale coin, or medallion, is a piece of basic data that was reportedly found beneath the ground at Isle Royale in the area of the prehistoric copper mines of Michigan, by a worker when excavating for the basement of a hotel on the island in the early 1900's. The coin was in the possession of the finder's daughter, who in the 1980's was a patient of a Dr. Peter Carmody. (I learned of the piece from Dr. Carmody.) The Sauk City Coin (or medallion) reportedly was found by a farmer near Sauk City, Wisconsin (summer home of the Sauk leader Blackhawk), and was associated with the foundation of a pigpen. All experts on coins that we have contacted assert that the pieces were made by the Shriners in the late 1800's and early 1900's and that there are many such pieces to be found in Michigan and

Wisconsin. The Shriners are a part of the Masons (a semi-secret society). This line of belief is easily agreed upon and one that many people accept. Although possible, this does not explain why a Shriner could lose such a piece on the remote island of Isle Royale in the 1800's, nor why it would be well below the ground surface by the early 1900's when it was reportedly found. In general, I am suspicious about pat belief systems that the experts agree on, but which they do not support with hard data. However, we did no real investigation of the two pieces shown in Figures 1-2 and 1-3 until the fall of 1990 after Lloyd Hornblostel, a former director of Parker Pen Company, reported that he saw a medallion similar to the Sauk City coin in a local museum in the Cayman Islands. That piece reportedly was taken from an ancient shipwreck located under a Spanish galleon that divers had been excavating, and had been given a date of about 200 BC. He further stated that when he went back to the museum at a later date to photograph it, the piece had already been purchased by a German for a considerable sum of money; this person was described as a collector of Old World trade medallions. In the fall of 1990, at a meeting of the Ancient Earthworks Society in Madison, a challenge was made to two groups of members to find basic evidence relating to the Sauk City and Isle Royale Coins. One was challenged to find evidence that the Shriners (a Masonic group) had made the pieces (as the experts claim). This group included an active Mason. They were challenged to find out which Masons or Shriners made these pieces, and in what lodge or city they had been made. The other group was challenged to find evidence that someone besides the Shriners had somewhere, at some time, made similar art work, and to report when and where they had made such pieces. 4.a) A Trail Leading to Kushana / Yueh-che Traders From Asia In this second group was an expert in art and Asian history. For starters, some visits were made to a group of Tibetan monks who had set up a monastery in Madison, Wisconsin. The initial visit (through an interpreter) provided some clues and a suggestion that the script on the Isle Royale coin was associated with a dead language from India. Soon thereafter, the trail led to the trading people called the Yueh-ches (also called Kushanas) from northern India and surrounding areas. These people are of a mysterious origin, but some refer to them as being "Turks." They are also listed in books from India as one of the Scythian tribes. (Some sources say that both the Sakas and the Kushana/Yueh-ches of Asia were Scythians and were therefore related.) The horned figure with the heavy coat in Figure 1-3 correlates to the figure called "Manaobago" on Yueh-che (Kushana) coins from about 200 BC to 300 AD. Like the Sauk City Coin and the Isle Royale Coin, many of the Yueh-che coins are decorated around the edge with a rim of dots. A partial ring of dots is shown on the Kushana coin in Figure 1-4.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Journal of The Ancient Earthworks Society, Vol III, Autumn, 1991. Ancient Earthworks Society, Inc., PO Box 1125, Madison Wisconsin. 53701. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. Summit Books. 1991. Russell E. Burrows and C.Fred Rydholm. The Mystery Cave of Many Faces Superior Heartland, Marquette, Michigan. 1991. Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, M.A., D.Phil(Cal).

The Age of the Kushanas: A Numismatic Study. Punthi Pustak, Calcutta. 1967. Printed by Arun Kumar Dey Hazra at Calcutta Oriental Press (Pvt.), Limited, 9, Panchanon Ghose Lane, Calcutta-9. Professor Roy Ward Drier and Octave Joseph DuTemple, editors. Prehistoric Copper Mining in the Lake Superior Region-A collection of Reference Articles. Privately Published by Drier & DuTemple, Calumet, Michigan; edition limited to 1000 copies. 1961 . Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld. The Evolution of Physics. Simon and Schuster. 1938, 1966. Doyle C. Fitzpatrick. The King Strang Story. National Heritage, Lansing, Michigan. 1970. "Lake Wingra" The Wisconsin Archeologist Vol.14, No.3 (Sept. 1915). Wisconsin Archeological Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Chapman Lal. Hindu America? Bhavan's Book University, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chaupatty, Bombay. 1960. Joseph Mahan. The Secret. ISAC, Inc., 202 The Rankin, 1004 Broadway, Columbus, Georgia 31902. B. N. Mukherjee. The Rise and Fall of the Kushana Empire Firma KLM, Private Limited, Calcutta, India. 1988. Printed by ALPHABET 211, Dr. A.K.Pal Road, Calcutta-700 034. Rev. Stephen D. Peet, PhD. The Mound Builders--Their Works and Relics. Volume I of Prehistoric America. First edition; 1892. Office of the American Antiquarian, Chicago. Rev. Stephen D. Peet, PhD. The Mound Builders--Their Works and Relics. Volume I of Prehistoric America. Second edition; 1903. Office of the American Antiquarian, Chicago. Robert J. Salzer. "Preliminary Report on the Gottschall Site (47 IA 80)." The Wisconsin Archeologist. Volume 68, No.4 (Dec., 1987). Edited by Robert A. Birmingham and William Green). Ethel G. Stewart. The Dene and Na-Dene Indian Migration 1233 A.D.-- Escape from Genghis Khan to America. Superior Heartland, Inc., 221 Lakewood Lane, Marquette, Michigan 49855; and the Institute for the Study of American Cultures (ISAC), Inc., 202 The Rankin, 1004 Broadway, Columbus, Georgia 31902. 1991. James Valiga.

Visual and Computer Assisted Analysis of Amerindian Rock Paintings. Master of Science Thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. 1987. John A Ward. Ancient Archives Among the Cornstalks. MRD Associats, Vincennes, Indiana. 1984. James P. Whitthall, Jr., editor. Mythmakers: Epigraphic Illusions in America. Early Sites Research Society, E.S.R.S. Epigraphic Series, No. 1, 1990. Long Hill, Rowley, MA, 01969

An important update from Russell Burrows In January, 1998, I was informed by the person now in charge of the property that my responsibility to what has become known as Burrows Cave had ended. I was also informed that the anthropologist who entered the cave with me in 1984 or 85 had accepted the responsibility of the cave. Who is he? I don't know! I was not introduced to him by name at the time and I have never had the desire to know who he is, for the obvious reasons which are; The likes of Harry Hubbard, Rick Flavin and a host of others would pester the man to no end. That is why no introductions were made. We knew, in 1984 or 85 that this would happen and, it is no different now. I am told that he may or may not elect to do a study. If he does, it will begin this spring and, he will do the reporting through the Ancient American as well as his own channels. However, we all must realize that those who have condemned that site as a fraud, without the slightest bit of training and qualifications are the ones who bear the responsibility for "no scientific information" being available. No anthropologist or archaeologist in his or her right mind would have been willing to jump into that fire. However, this gentleman has seen what is there and he has, I am told, a reputation solid enough to withstand the attacks which will be leveled at him. We will see! I have also made it clear that I am going to wait a reasonable length of time for something to be made public. I have also made it clear that if nothing is forthcoming, I may very well reveal the location Again, we will see! Russell Burrows

Official Disclaimer BCC is the official body representing Burrows Cave, and the discoverer of the cave, Russell E. Burrows. BCC is not associated with any of the following organizations which are owned by Brian Boyd Hubbard; aka? "Harry Hubbard", who with his collegues and financial backers is searching for the cave, claiming it is the lost tomb of Alexander the Great and the last members of the royal Ptolomy dynasty.

(1) Burrows Cave Inc. (a Illinois based organization) (2) Alexander Helois (a Florida based organization) (3) Lazaria (a Florida based organization)

(4) Ptolmy Productions (a Florida based organization)

The "Burrows Cave" Controversy

Introduction
Many tales of buried treasure and allegedly "mysterious" sites make their way into popular culture and folklore. The story of "Burrows Cave" is a fairly recent addition; it involves no treasure in the normal sense and no mysterious legends. Instead the basic facts, if facts they are, are well known and available from a number of sources. The people who were initially involved in the tale are still alive to discuss their side of the story, and the site is supposedly somewhat undisturbed and available for study. So what's the mystery, and why is the site controversial? We need to examine the reasons in some detail before discussing the "facts" surrounding the discovery of the site. First, numerous individuals and groups (often referred to as diffusionists) believe that significant pre-Columbian interaction took place between native American peoples and various ancient and early modern civilizations (such as the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Celts, and so forth). It is definitely possible that some communication did take place but so far little or no verifiable, objective evidence has been found to support such theories. It's one thing to find a fragment of Phoenician pottery in Boston Harbor; this can easily be passed off as the result of a European ship that discharged a load of stone ballast that happened to contain the fragment. It would be quite another if we found translatable, legible writings (as opposed to a forgery, or cracks and weathering marks that just happen to resemble such writing) that can be attributed to ancient Phoenicians carved on a datable stone standing in a field in Missouri. It is certainly not true that some shadowy group is attempting to "suppress" legitimate evidence; this is the cry of the pseudoscientist or conspiracy theorist who believes himself to be in sole possession of the "truth" while vast forces are arrayed against his attempts to spread the gospel to others. It may be the case that certain individual scientists or historians allow their own beliefs to influence their objectivity, but this is simply human nature. The same can be said of people in any field. Second, it has always been the case that certain theories become targets for those people who wish to make names for themselves by overturning "establishment" systems. When Newton proposed his gravitational and other theories they were almost immediately attacked by various opponents; some of these attacks were

legitimate challenges to the new ideas while others were nonsensical and irrational claptrap offered up by people who had no knowledge of the subject. Attacks on Newton largely ceased once Einstein proposed the theory of relativity; deniers then aimed their barbs at the new quantum theory and Newtonian physics became the "sacred cow" they were trying to defend. As a corollary to the above, many pseudoscientists and cranks become mortally offended when their theories are not immediately accepted by mainstream science. These people often do not understand that a single piece of evidence, or one successful experiment, will not result in a sudden, massive shift in opinion by other researchers in the field. Academic study moves slowly and deliberately; experiments must be verified through repetition, and evidence needs to be evaluated for alternative explanations so that no one rushes headlong down the wrong path. History is rife with stories of researchers who embarrassed themselves and others by announcing "discoveries" that were later found to be the results of misinterpreted evidence or poorly-controlled experiments. Last, the alleged discovery of the cave and the events that followed it are subject to debate, and some of the persons involved certainly have hidden agendas that are affecting their objectivity. This last point is obviously related to the others; the site may be an intentional hoax, or perhaps it represents a desperate attempt by one or more individuals to focus attention on the diffusionist agenda. Even more sinister is the possibility that it was created deliberately to embarrass or mislead legitimate researchers. Of course, it is also very possible the entire story was fabricated for the sole purpose of bilking potential investors out of large sums of money. Burrows Cave represents an ideal data point for anyone who seeks to deny "establishment" history for whatever reason, whether personal, religious, or professional. But is it a legitimate find or a hoax?

The "Discovery" of the site

According to any number of accounts (many of which are available on the Web) a man named Russell Burrows was walking through the countryside in Illinois one day in April 1982 when he either a) fell on a large rock that suddenly tilted sideways under his weight, nearly throwing him into a pit or b) stumbled across the mouth of a cave where he noted the presence of numerous artifacts. Inside the cave he claimed to have found hundreds, perhaps thousands of carved stones, each bearing figures or letters of some unknown language as well as (in many cases) depictions of deities, humans, ships, and so forth. Burrows is said to have taken some of these items away for analysis and later examination by a number of archaeologists and epigraphers. Many, including epigrapher Barry Fell (who had previously proposed similarities between certain native American languages and Hebrew) pronounced the stones to be fakes, as did many members of the

Epigraphic Society. However other researchers - mostly non-academics - disagreed and supported the assertion that the inscriptions were written in Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek, Etruscan, and any number of ancient languages that were never spoken in North America. There were also claims that many of the stones bear a strong resemblance to others found in each of these ancient lands. Thus, say Burrows and his supporters, we have strong evidence of significant contact by these ancient cultures with the North American continent long before Columbus or the Scandinavians set foot here. These same people claim that other such sites must exist and point to allegedly similar carvings found in Michigan and other locations. To date, the cave has received scant attention from mainstream archaeology and no scholarly journals have attempted to document the "finds" made there, though the Epigraphic Society and several other diffusionist newsletters apparently carried stories about it sporadically for several years. No archaeological digs have been conducted under properly controlled conditions; indeed supporters of the cave's authenticity have derided science's inattention to the subject and claim it represents a near conspiracy to "suppress" evidence that history as it is now being taught is massively incorrect. However, a significant body of evidence suggests that Burrows and his close associates have consistently prevented such studies from being carried out and have even refused to allow the extant artifacts to be closely examined by professionals who are qualified to judge their authenticity. In one case, in 1986, a group called the Early Sites Research Society contacted Burrows about the cave; by one account he was "quite enthusiastic about Early Sites interest" but then A list of ten (10) suggested points of procedure was sent to him, including: the creation of a data base for all the material submitted for a radiocarbon determination; samples of metal and lithic artifacts to undergo nondestructive analysis; and most important of all, "the cave must be seen by an outsider who has archaeological expertise, and probably, a geologist as well. At the time of observation, the event should be video-taped" (Whittall, 1986). By return mail, Burrows addressed a letter to the membership of Early Sites in which he stated that he hadn't asked for help from Early Sites and that basically my proposed methodology was unacceptable to the point that he stated "NOT ONE OF YOU WILL EVER SEE THIS CAVE and that is a statement that I will abide by for as long as the grass grows, the wind blows, and the rivers run (Burrows, 1986). A discussion with Burrows on the telephone thenceforth, suggested to me that Early Sites

was out of the picture. No further correspondence took place." (Whittall, 1990) Thus, rather than an active avoidance of the subject on the part of "mainstream scholarship," it seems that Burrows himself deflected academics from performing legitimate studies of the cave's alleged wonders. At last report, Burrows refuses to divulge the location of the cave on the grounds that he is afraid it will be looted and destroyed by artifact hunters--not an unreasonable viewpoint since legitimate sites are regularly looted by pot hunters and others. He also claims to have no further involvement with the site and claims to have been told to stay away from the area. There are allegations that Burrows and others removed "thousands" of artifacts from it for sale to private collectors; indeed, one seller claimed to have purchased hundreds of pieces from Burrows only to find later on that the "artifacts" were fake and worthless. At the time this article was written, few professional scholars support the authenticity of the cave, and only a few die-hards continue to believe it represents a legitimate find.

What Are The Odds?

It seems at least strange that one site would house huge numbers of these "rock art pieces" though no similar artifacts have been found at known native American villages, burial grounds, or other locations in North America. Some supporters have suggested that the Cave represents a "central repository" of these supposedly ancient, possibly sacred objects; while this is certainly possible, it is also fairly certain that at least a few similar stones would have been found at other sites, or that anthropologists and/or archaeologists would have encountered them long ago. Given the large number of sites that have already been investigated and the hundreds of years worth of continuous contact between European and native American peoples, one would expect at least a few artifacts of this nature to have been brought to the attention of historians or anthropologists. Also, if ancient Eurasian or Middle Eastern cultures were in regular contact with tribes in North America, one would expect folktales or other stories to have been created by one or both cultures to describe the ways of the other. If a group of native Americans held these "carved stones" in such reverance that they created a special repository for them, then oral traditions and legends about the "great ones" or "mysterious people from the East" - with accompanying art, descriptions of the other country, and so forth - would also be expected among these same tribes. Instead there are none, or at least none which have come to light as a result of anthropological study (some allusions to "gods who plant trees on floating islands" and so forth have been found, however). And if Etruscans or other cultures left carved stones containing written records of some type, it

follows that native American tribes should have learned at least some of the writing system and integrated it into their own culture. Aside from Barry Fell's assertions that Algonquin contains elements that bear a resemblence to Hebrew, what evidence exists to support this? The answer, to this writers' knowledge, is "little to none" -- leading to the conclusion that little or no such contact occurred. Some occasional travelers might have landed in North America from Europe or the Far East, but present evidence does not support widespread contact over long periods. Supporters of Burrows Cave claim that certain academics are actively suppressing the "secret" that these ancient cultures had regular contact with native American tribes; they assert that scholars want to maintain an "orthodoxy," and refuse to re-write history texts or admit to their error. This is simply preposterous since such a discovery, properly documented and presented in the academic community, would be the cornerstone of any scholar's career - like Einstein and quantum theory, the sudden introduction of a radical new piece of supportable, well-researched material would guarantee a life's worth of grants and notoriety. So what possible motivation could so-called "mainstream scholarship" have for suppressing such a discovery, and how could it possibly be done in any case, since scholars are free to present their views in any forum they might choose?

Why the Controversy?

A site in Newfoundland known as L'Anse aux Meadows was the location of a Scandinavian settlement that far predates Columbus' sea voyage in 1492, but it is generally accepted that this was the earliest European settlement in the new world. However some diffusionists believe some ancient North American sites may represent evidence of the "lost tribe of Israel" while others insist the controversial Book of Mormon is actually a legitimate Biblical document that discusses what is now known as North America in great detail. Still others have no religious or cultural bias and are solely interested in the search for hard evidence, if any truly exists. The sudden appearance of a site like Burrows Cave-a location apparently stuffed with likely-looking artifacts that seem to validate diffusionist theory--would be, to say the least, hailed as a major step forward. From the above it can be inferred that diffusionists themselves are not a monolithic group. A short reading of diffusionist literature demonstrates a significant gulf separating the academics from those who support the theory on religious or other grounds. Many archaeologists and other scholars have labelled Burrows Cave as an outrageous hoax, infuriating those diffusionists who feel it's a legitimate and important find. Some academics may be reacting in a very predictable, pedantic manner and rejecting outright a "find" that seems to invalidate a great deal of widely accepted historical data, but they are correct in being very skeptical of the

site since it does represent an extraordinarily bizarre situation. As we noted earlier, why would we find a high concentration of these artifacts in only one location, when by all odds others should have turned up at numerous native American sites over the years? The situation is an unusual one and deserves to be handled with special attention. If the site's authenticity were established it would represent a staggering find with repercussions across numerous fields -history, archaeology, anthropology, and others. But if it's a hoax then whoever perpetrated it deserves jail time and public censure for misleading those who long to find validation of their beliefs. Thus, the subject of Burrows Cave involves two highly polarized camps. On one side are the academics, who may be rejecting the "artifacts" prematurely and without sufficient study. Ideally, someone in the archaeological community should conduct a valid, unbiased test excavation of the site--presuming its location is revealed by Burrows or someone else who possesses this information. Validation of the site is a relatively simple matter since faking the deposits and strata one would expect to find in such an area would require incredible expertise and a great deal of labor. Faking a number of carved stones is a relatively simple proposition (though such fakery is easy to expose through proper scientific study), but faking the context in which legitimate, ancient items would be found is a very different thing indeed. On the other side are those few diffusionists who feel the Cave represents a treasure trove of artifacts proving their pet theories. They may be correct and the "scientific establishment" is ignoring a legitimate or valuable find; conversely it could also be argued that since these people have already decided to "believe" in their theory of ancient contact, their own biases may be causing them to accept the site's legitimacy without having conducted sufficient study. Complicating matters further, at least a few people who support diffusionist theories are the heirs of 19th century racist attitudes toward native American cultures. At that time it was widely held that the "lost Moundbuilder culture" could not have possibly been related to the "savage Indian tribes" regularly encountered by white settlers. Thus a theory arose that the Moundbuilders must have been of a race that died out prior to the arrival of Europeans, since the "savage" native American tribes were obviously "too primitive" to have created such wonders. It is certainly not the case that all diffusionists are racists, but some racists have apparently seen fit to associate themselves with this movement in order to give themselves a measure of respectability, much as social Darwinists who promulgated "Aryan superiority" myths in the early 20th century hijacked and twisted the theory of evolution in pursuit of their own goals.

Is it a Hoax?
In the past hundred years there have been several attempts at creating forged artifacts that "proved" Moundbuilder or other native American sites

were created by some other culture, so it would not be a unique event if Burrows Cave were to be exposed as a hoax. Also, the tale of the "lost tribe of Israel" has been associated with the American west for at least 150 years and supporters have constantly looked in vain for corroborating evidence to support the idea. One of the more infamous hoax attempts involved the so-called "Soper-Savage artifacts," said to have been found in Michigan around the turn of the century, and the authenticity of numerous other allegedly ancient artifacts such as the "Michigan Artifacts" and "Bat Creek Stone" has been an ongoing source of debate. Many researchers accept their authenticity while others feel they're certainly hoaxes for various technical reasons. Burrows cave may well be a hoax, and a reading of past interactions--such as his interaction with the Early Sites group, described above--involving Russell Burrows and the academic community supports this theory. Between roughly 1985 and 1995 numerous academics contacted Burrows to arrange for a viewing of the cave; in every instance he managed to find some reason to cancel their visit, set unacceptable conditions on their research, or otherwise prevent the sort of academic study that would have either confirmed or denied the authenticity of the site. On at least two known occasions professional archaeologists offered to conduct studies of the site on a volunteer basis; each time their request was denied. Burrows often blamed these changes on the owner of the property where the cave is said to be located, but as no one but Burrows had any contact with this landowner there is no way to know for certain. In 1986 an archaeologist (James P. Whittall) "...offered to inspect the cave and suggested guidelines for proper study. But his insistance on scientific rigor angered Burrows, who denied him further information about the location" (McGlone, et. al. 1993). On at least two instances Burrows himself contacted the Illinois State Archaeologists' office to ask about appropriate measures when ancient burial sites and artifacts were discovered; on both occasions he asked for and received the necessary instructions and documents but made no further effort at registering the site with the state. Later he asserted that he avoided doing so because he thought the state would "steal" the $60 million in gold he claimed was concealed in the cave (Benedict, 1992). To date, Russell Burrows is apparently the only person who has actually been inside the alleged cave. No one else has been allowed into it or given its location. The shadowy landowner's name is still unknown though many people have guessed at his identity. Some people have been taken to a wooded area and told that the cave is nearby, and at least one was shown an overhanging rock ledge purported to be close to the cave's mouth, but none have ever been inside the actual cave. The only evidence of its existence is Russell Burrows' testimony to that effect. Apparently one of Burrows' excuses for not taking people into the cave itself is that "Illinois

has taken over the cave, and refused to to let me dig anymore, or I have to ask their permission to take anyone to see the cave without an appointment (of course when he is asked, he tells those asking, that the request was denied, as there is such tight security and personnel involvement to allow visitors)." (Benedict, 1992). This contradicts a letter from the Illinois State Archaeologists' Office, which stated that no one ever attempted to register the site. The artifacts themselves are by all accounts ludicrous, obvious fakes created by someone who paged through various books, found likelylooking inscriptions, and copied them onto available pieces of stone. Many of the "rock art pieces" depict the same "lantern-jawed" profile of a human male, and numerous artists and archaeologists have noted that all appear to have been drawn by the same individual. Several pieces have been recognized as copies of known artifacts that have been depicted in various works over the years, and Barry Fell commented that the "Elephant stele" was an obvious copy of one he depicted in his book America BC. The forger even copied a mistake Dr. Fell made on the transcription in the first edition, which allows the forgery to be dated to sometime after 1976. Many comments have been made, in fact, that numerous stones closely resemble other known examples of various art forms which have been found in various parts of the world. This, say supporters of the cave's authenticity, is evidence in their favor. However, an alternative interpretation of this similarity is that someone simply copied known inscriptions and images from readily-available books! From a technical standpoint, several researchers commented upon the condition and material from which the "artifacts" had been made. One said "on close inspection of the artifacts it was determined that they were recently created as the stone they were made from showed geologic characteristics that only exist during a short span of time after being exposed to the atmosphere." This same researcher commented "...one other aspect of these stones that differs from the norm is the nodular nature and uneven shapes that were used for the art work. Normally art of this nature is found on well formed flat surfaces...and not soft shale. These stones also showed two textures and color differences that are indicative of fresh and not ancient buried artifacts" (Pyle, 1994). In yet another report, it is stated that "every professional archaeologist who has seen photos (or in the rare instance been allowed to examine actual artifacts) has judged them to be very modern and very crude fakes made by someone with no real knowledge of ancient cultural symbols" (Hayden, 1994). Burrows once admitted that ten of the stones were forgeries created by a young relative of the landowner. This is extremely difficult to verify since the young man was killed before Burrows made this assertion, which was later retracted when it apparently became inconvenient. Jean Hunt, then

president of the Louisiana Mounds Society, noted that in 1990 when this tale was fabricated, Burrows told her he was attempting to get it published "to get [Barry] Fell off his back." When he thought the information was about to be published he made a feeble attempt to have it retracted and when told it could not, he "laughed...and told me that the story of the stolen artifacts was a lie...he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, laughing or chuckling throughout the call" (Hunt, ESOP V. 21. 1990). As for those researchers who claim to have made successful translations of some of the inscriptions, at least one is highly suspect since the translator made free use of various alphabets and languages in constructing his results. Some characters were taken from Etruscan, others from Hebrew or another language. An academic who reviewed the translators' efforts commented that "if one is allowed to pick and choose the letters and their translations, and fill in the blanks with vowels of one's own choosing, then words can be composed to fit any story." (Chapman, 1995) If the rest of the translations are similarly flawed, then Barry Fell's assertion that the stones were "nothing but gibberish" becomes all the more likely.

Even More Complications

The matter of the Cave's provenance is further complicated by some of the people who have become attached to it. Writer Rick Flavin recently wrote a column about a fellow named Frank Collin, who is best known as a neo-Nazi who attempted to organize a march through predominantly Jewish Skokie, IL in the 1970s. In the article Flavin touched on the subject of Burrows Cave and the apparent relationship between Frank Collin (who is no longer a neo-Nazi but has picked up a new vocation as a "new age" icon and writer while operating under the pseudonym "Frank Joseph") and Russell Burrows, the discoverer of the Cave. Collin is an editor for Ancient American magazine, a glossy, non-scholarly publication that publishes numerous articles in support of diffusionist theory (it is also the only national magazine to publish any articles about the Cave). Several of the magazine's backers are Mormons. ame which is strongly associated with the Cave is that of Dr. James Scherz, a gineer and surveyor who has written numerous articles in support of the Cave's ty. It should be noted that Scherz is (or was?) the president of a diffusionist group e Ancient Earthworks Society; thus his support for the Cave may be somewhat the reasons noted above. sing coincidences came to light when an odd article was discovered on the ccording to the site admin it "appeared in his inbox one day" and no author is text describes the discovery of Burrows Cave and then goes on to describe some nders found there, including Etruscan, Greek, and Sumerian texts and pictograms.

e appears to be a very scholarly work, and drops the names of various rs who've examined the artifacts and judged them authentic. First we hear of "Fred Rydholm," who apparently has been involved in some archaeological research in the past, apparently as an amateur, in association with Russell Burrows and James Scherz. He is also said to have produced an excellent 2-volume work on another topic unrelated to Burrows Cave. Next there is a reference to "Dr. Arnold Murray of Arkansas." Research reveals that far from being a scholar, Murray is a fundamentalist Christian televangelist whose views are strongly condemned by mainstream Christianity. Exactly what credentials he is supposed to have to assist in the decipherment of Hebrew, Etruscan, or other texts are not mentioned. It's also obvious that Murray would be happy to support diffusionist ideas since some of his teachings involve "AngloIsraelism," i.e. the idea that "Anglo-Saxons are the chosen race, and America and Great Britain are the lost tribes of the children of Israel. Murray claims that the northern ten tribes of Israel are the 'the same tribes that later went north and populated Europe and North America.' " (1) "Zena Halpern" is cited as "a Hebrew scholar from New York." Another source says that she is "a scholar who CAN do good work" but has become a "true believer" regarding Burrows Cave and therefore refuses to believe any evidence contradicting her interpretation that it's legitimate. "Dr Joe Mahan" was the founder of the Institute for the Study of American Cultures (ISAC), described by the same source (who is on this group's board of trustees) as a "pro-indian, pro-diffusion group." This source, as well as numerous other academics who've written commentaries on Burrows Cave, claim that Mahan was a very good scholar who was "suckered" into the Burrows controversy, and apparently also became a "believer." During a meeting of the group another scholar called for validation of Burrows Cave (a standard practice-ALL archaeological sites must be validated). At this, Mahan "stood up and yelled at her: Burrows Cave needs no validation" (Buchanan, 2001). This is an unconscionable attitude for a supposedly impartial scholar since it means his personal feelings about the site were interfering with his ability to approach it from a rational, analytical standpoint. The list continues. If the other names listed are also people of the same stripe, i.e. "believers" who have naturally come to accept the validity of the evidence, then the article is merely a smoke screen. It pretends to be a scholarly work while tossing out important-sounding terms and dropping lots of impressive-sounding names, but really says nothing much at all. Something of a parallel can be drawn between the perpetrators of the SoperSavage hoax and the principals involved in Burrows Cave, as well as the discoveries themselves. Daniel Soper was a former Michigan secretary-of-state who was thrown out of office for demanding kickbacks; his partner, James O. Scotford, was described as "a sleight-of-hand performer turned sign painter." He

was also involved in the finding of the so-called "Michigan Artifacts." Almost as soon as the men formed their partnership they were selling "rare copper crowns that had been found on the heads of prehistoric kings, whose heads crumbled into dust when exposed to the air." (2) Later they claimed to have access not only to copies (!) of Noah's Diaries, but also the original Ten Commandments. Compare these two men with Burrows and Collin (aka Joseph); the former was a prison guard about whom unsubstantiated rumors involving confidence games have been circulated. The latter served time (in the same Illinois prison where Burrows was a guard) for pederasty, after which he changed his name and began a new career as a New Age guru and editor. In too many cases the people who make grandiose claims regarding mysterious artifacts are later found to have "colorful" backgrounds that suggest a history of charlatanry. Soper claimed to have found his site by accident, upon viewing the debris an animal was excavating from its burrow. Russell Burrows claimed to have nearly fallen into the cave that now bears his name.

Conclusions
The major problem with Burrows Cave is that the more one examines the story, the more hoax-like and fabricated it begins to sound. At first glance it sounds plausible--a hiker falls into a cave and finds a trove of potentially-important artifacts. Then we find that the artifacts appear Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Scandinavian, Roman, Vedic (from India/Pakistan), Hebrew, and so forth. The situation begins to sound suspicious since it's highly unlikely that all these cultures would've been interacting with the same native American tribes, much less at the same time, without leaving records of their own to tell the tale. The situation is further complicated by the appearance of Frank Collin/Frank Joseph, a former neo-Nazi and convicted felon who's restyled himself in a new and more respectable mold. But loud alarms begin going off once murky relationships involving certain diffusionists, Mormons, and fundamentalists begin to emerge. Here we are presented with groups who desperately want to believe in extensive contact between native American tribes and various Old World cultures, for a variety of reasons, and who reject interpretations that fail to support this theory. Worse still, these same groups label mainstream science as the "defenders of orthodoxy" who are attempting to "suppress" their new discoveries. These are the rantings of the pseudoscientist who believes in his own genius and that everyone else is simply misguided or wrong. One is reminded of UFOlogists who treat government denials as "proof of the conspiracy," or hawkers of perpetualmotion devices who claim their revolutionary breakthroughs are being ignored or "suppressed" by jealous scientists. Burrows Cave may be a legitimate find or it may be an elaborate hoax; given the

available data the latter conclusion seems far more likely. If it is the former, then it behooves its supporters to bring it more fully to the attention of mainstream archaeologists using the same channels and publications that are used for scholarly purposes; write and publish solidly researched articles, allow a legitimate archaeological survey of the site, and let the evidence stand on its own. If it is indeed a hoax, then the reason the location of the cave (if one even exists) is being kept secret becomes obvious--a close examination would reveal the lie. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Until Burrows supporters allow proper studies to be done by competent and unbiased researchers, and until they are willing to accept legitimate criticism from scholars who find their evidence sketchy at best, their claims will remain relegated to the "junk science" file. Likewise, scientists and historians who have dismissed the site as a hoax would do well to publish at least one detailed refutation discussing all the available physical evidence to support their own viewpoint. A blithe dismissal of the site without publishing a readable, accessible refutation only provides additional fuel to support the views of those who accuse mainstream science of excessive orthodoxy and an inability to accommodate new ideas. But the burden of proof is firmly upon the supporters of the cave's authenticity since their extraordinary claim has, to this date, produced only sketchy evidence and a great deal of suspiciously evasive maneuvering. To echo the words of several academics, it's time for Burrows supporters to put up or shut up.

Saga of Burrows Cave: Egyptian Artifacts in America?

Saga of Burrows Cave: Egyptian Artifacts in America?
see http://www.net22.com/bcc/, which has some very nice pictures of these artifacts. A bizarre collection [of artifacts] was found in a remote cave system in the American State of Illinois. The cavers who made the discovery encountered a derisive response from the first academic experts they approached, experiencing a lot of difficulty finding necessary specialists to help them document and identify the artifacts. There were problems of site security, disappearing artifacts, as well as people bending data to suit their personal agendas. As the site researcher Fred Rydholm remarks: "For this kind of

research you have to be thick-skinned, brave or crazy!" It's one thing finding these things, its quite another to explain them. In the United States the saga of "Burrows Cave" has been going on for well over a decade. Over three thousand rock fragments, engraved with a variety of ancient drawings, hieroglyphs and script, were presented to the world by Russell Burrows in 1982, who discovered them in a cave system in Southern Illinois. The story of the cave and its contents is so strange, that it's little wonder it has met strong skepticism. Recently deciphered for the first time, the stone tablets tell such a wild tale that it will require quite a turn around to accepted history. I was stunned into disbelief when I first laid eyes on the Burrows Cave evidence. This is no straight forward set of hieroglyphs but, an inexplicable display of several cultures, a huge library preserved on stone tablets, collected together and sealed in a cave sometime around the first millennium. The first photographs of the artifacts were forwarded to me by Filip Coppens, who writes about world mysteries in Belgium. He had heard about my investigation of the anomalies surrounding the presumed hoax of Egyptian hieroglyphs in the NSW Hunter Valley. He was struck by certain odd similarities between the two finds and sent pictures of the carvings which depicted a wolf-headed god, similar to an "Anubis" carving photographed in the Hunter Valley. Certainly, the Burrows Cave boasts a few forms of wolf and jackal-headed deities, from the classical Anubis to half human versions. One of the Burrows Cave examples is executed in bas-relief, with accompanying hieroglyphs, embossed on a gold plate. However, there is much more than wolf-headed deities, the carved tablets display an extraordinary cultural array. There is a hodgepodge mixture of images and cultural influences which make the artifacts very hard to explain. Even worse, some of the carvings seem amateurish or dimly remembered copies of ancient Greek and Mesopotamian sources. Whereas, others involve a high level of skill and obvious knowledge of ancient cosmology. One of the images depicts a "wolfish" deity in priestly regalia, wearing a bishop-style hat decorated with a solar emblem. The deity has been identified as the god "So-Bek-Ra", who is so pictured on a temple by the Nile. The figure stands, as the lone representative of an ancient priesthood, against an advancing enemy army. There are also many carved heads, mostly warrior profiles, wearing both Greek, Roman and Egyptian headgear. Curiously, there are even images of ancient Amer-Indians wearing feathers and facial designs, some showing clear Meso-American style head-dress. Records of ancient travellers? Amongst them are many ancient mystical and sacred designs, as well as maps, pictures of ships and non-indigenous animals. Astonishingly, one of the carvings portrays the cloven-hooved

god Pan, holding his pipes and consorting with a nymph. Another stone (as well as an ancient metal coin) excavated from the cave carry the bold image of an elephant underlined with Hebrew characters. Oddly, an artifact inscribed in exactly the same way was found on a pyramid-shaped stone in Ecuador some years earlier. Some of the carvings are meticulously executed in full bas-relief, some completely carved into the shapes of animals and deities, while other tablets were etched to render the designs. Even a small collection of solid gold artifacts and coins have been excavated. More than just pictures, there are numerous tablets with coherent linear script carved on them. Examples and influences appear to range from Hebrew and Sumerian to Roman, Greek and Egyptian. In my correspondence with Fred Rydholm, the best theory I could offer, was to speculate about a colony of resourceful pirates, who in some distant time, raided and collected the strange quasi-cultural cache of artifacts for themselves. Together with an associate Dr James Scherz, who helped in the study and documentation of the artifacts, Fred Rydholm found correlations between symbols on the Burrows Cave coins and coins produced by dynasties along the "Silk Road" between China and Rome, the most predominant being "Kushana" and "Satavahana"symbols. ( NOTE: The Kushanas once controlled a trade dynasty along the Silk Roads, uniting various ancient people's in the days of the Romans. They disintegrated with the collapse of the Western part of the Roman Empire about AD 300. The Satavahana's were a seafaring people who lived on the coast of the Indian Ocean and had large ships represented on their coins before they collapsed around 210-230 AD. This suggests the likely time period of early in the first millennium around or after 200 AD. ) Finally, Fred Rydholm was able to report a significant breakthrough with two young Florida researchers, Paul Schaffranke and Brian Hubbard, who were successful in deciphering some of the inscriptions. Schaffranke and Hubbard recognised them as being one of several ancient Etruscan alphabets which could be translated into "street Latin", as used around the time of Christ. T he two Florida men were able to translate stone tablets from the Burrows Cave that the great epigrapher, Dr. Barry Fell and others, had insisted were gibberish and could not be translated. Mixed in amongst the Etruscan script there is also the added mystery of Hebrew and Egyptian stone tablets. These were also recently identified and are being translated by Dr. Arnold Murray of Arkansas and, Zena Halpern, a Hebrew scholar from New York. The Egyptian material is still being assessed. Over half a dozen professional archeologists and linguists have now examined the collection and have been definite in their support of the artifacts' authenticity. At last contact, the Burrow's team had dug out and classified an astonishing four thousand stone tablets. Another breakthrough came,

when a retired engineer Bill Kreisle, found several of the stones recorded accurate maps of the Mississippi River system as it appeared 2000 years ago. Another map stone shows a river on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) with the ancient city of Cadiz near its mouth. But, most astonishing of all, they have reported the discovery of several stone crypts, excavated from limestone deep in the cave system, containing a number of interred skeletons with jewellery, artifacts and statuary. The mystery people who left the cache of records are, apparently, themselves, buried there. The biggest continuing mystery of the discovery is, WHO carved all these message tablets and from whence came this hidden dynasty of bodies? Fred Rydholm, who works with and writes, for the retiring Col. Burrows, reports in his recent correspondence : "Although I speak with caution, as it is still too early to say for sure, there are many indications that the bodies found in the crypts are the leaders of a colony of refugees from Ptolemaic Egypt, including a Jewish contingent from the Roman controlled Kingdom of Mauritania. Dr Joseph Mahan, founder and longtime president of the Institute for the Study of American Cultures (ISAC), has examined the evidence from the new translations and presents this interesting scenario: "They were secretly sent to America in ships provided by the Mauritanian King Juba the Second and his wife Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony. Included among the refugees were the Queen's two brothers, who disappeared from Rome (and recorded history) in 17 AD, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Alexander Helios." The graves of these people have been the object of a comprehensive historical search for the past two thousand years. We appear to have an advanced and well funded group of priest/scholars who, with the ex-Royal families, escaped the Roman Christianisation of Egypt and set off into the unknown somewhere around 200-300 AD. The engraved maps and their collected storehouse of knowledge, shows a deliberate transplanting of culture, perhaps to escape the religious persecution of the Roman Invasion of Egypt and establish a remote colony which could preserve the ancient records. Indeed, Dr Joseph Mahan, an archeological anthropologist who made a close study of the cave artifacts, reveals a detailed cosmology and religious lore from the cave material which is remarkably similar to that which survived amongst the Indian tribes of the area. The area of Southern Illinois and Indiana, where Russell Burrows stumbled into the limestone cave system, is richly endowed with the scattered evidence of several different early cultures which archeologists know too little about. There are log tombs, skeletons and artifacts from the Adena culture, which is believed to have developed around 500 BC and to have died out by 200 AD. There was the Hopewell culture, 100 BC to 350 AD. A mysterious

culture concentrated along the Mississippi, known as the "Mississippian", crystalised around 800 AD, and was thought to still be in existence when the Spaniards arrived. Researcher, Joseph Mahan, points out, that archeologists have collected evidence for fifty years of an elaborate and uniform Earth/Sun religion, associated with the building of flat top temple mounds, which spread out from the Mississippi in the later part of the first millennium. These pyramid-like mounds, which carried a permanent fire at the top, contained a variety of art, impressed on copper and stone, depicting animal-headed deities, crosses, swastikas, and people in ceremonial dress performing rituals. Examples of these mound sites are spread from Oklahoma, to Illinois, Alabama and Georgia. Could the Burrows Cave, indeed, be the lost library and resting place of the founders of this mysterious culture? Founders, the inscribed tablets puport to be, the exEgyptian Royal family escaping the sacking of ancient Egypt early in the first millennium

The Mystery Of Burrows Cave

In the past decade some strange and unexpected discoveries have been made around the world. Some of the more inexplicable finds, especially if they challenge the dominant paradigm, have yet to see the full light of day. The Burrows Cave saga is one of these. It is the story of a very unusual find, an archeological time-capsule of rock crypts containing mummified bodies, life size statues and over three thousand carved stones of mixed cultural origin.

The artifacts date to an early AD time period and seem to predominately relate to ancient Egypt. Similar to anomalous discoveries elsewhere, the find has been seriously challenged by the academic community, with cries of hoax and fraud. Yet, despite the claims of impossible, translations from the cache are beginning to unravel a hidden side of history.

The bizarre collection was found in a remote cave system in the American State of Illinois. The cavers who made the discovery encountered a derisive response from the first academic experts they approached, experiencing a lot of difficulty finding necessary specialists to help them document and identify the artifacts. There were problems of site security, disappearing artifacts, as well as people bending data to suit their personal agendas. As the site researcher Fred Rydholm remarks: For this kind of research you have to be thick-skinned, brave or crazy! Its one thing finding these things, its quite another to explain them.

In the United States the saga of Burrows Cave has been going on for well over a decade. Over three thousand rock fragments, engraved with a variety of ancient drawings, hieroglyphs and script, were presented to the world by Russell Burrows in 1982, who discovered them in a cave system in Southern Illinois. The story of the cave and its contents is so strange, that its little wonder it has met strong skepticism. Recently deciphered for the first time, the stone tablets tell such a wild tale that it will require quite a turn around to accepted history.

I was stunned into disbelief when I first laid eyes on the Burrows Cave evidence. This is no straight forward set of hieroglyphs but, an inexplicable display of several cultures, a huge library preserved on stone tablets, collected together and sealed in a cave sometime around the first millennium.

The first photographs of the artifacts were forwarded to me by Filip Coppens, who writes about world mysteries in Belgium. He had heard about my investigation of the anomalies surrounding the presumed hoax of Egyptian hieroglyphs in the NSW Hunter Valley. He was struck by certain odd similarities between the two finds and sent pictures of the carvings which depicted a wolfheaded god, similar to an Anubis carving photographed in the Hunter Valley.

Certainly, the Burrows Cave boasts a few forms of wolf and jackal-headed deities, from the classical Anubis to half human versions. One of the Burrows Cave examples is executed in bas-relief, with accompanying hieroglyphs, embossed on a gold plate. However, there is much more than wolf-headed deities, the carved tablets display an extraordinary cultural array. There is a hodgepodge mixture of images and cultural influences which make the artifacts very hard to explain. Even worse, some of the carvings seem amateurish or dimly remembered copies of ancient Greek and Mesopotamian sources. Whereas, others involve a high level of skill and obvious knowledge of ancient cosmology.

One of the images depicts a wolfish deity in priestly regalia, wearing a bishopstyle hat decorated with a solar emblem. The deity has been identified as the god So-Bek-Ra, who is so pictured on a temple by the Nile. The figure stands, as the lone representative of an ancient priesthood, against an advancing enemy army. There are also many carved heads, mostly warrior profiles, wearing both Greek, Roman and Egyptian headgear. Curiously, there are even images of ancient Amer-Indians wearing feathers and facial designs, some showing clear Meso-American style head-dress. Records of ancient travellers?

Amongst them are many ancient mystical and sacred designs, as well as maps, pictures of ships and non-indigenous animals. Astonishingly, one of the carvings portrays the cloven-hooved god Pan, holding his pipes and consorting with a nymph. Another stone (as well as an ancient metal coin) excavated from the cave carry the bold image of an elephant underlined with Hebrew characters. Oddly, an artifact inscribed in exactly the same way was found on a pyramidshaped stone in Ecuador some years earlier.

Some of the carvings are meticulously executed in full bas-relief, some completely carved into the shapes of animals and deities, while other tablets were etched to render the designs. Even a small collection of solid gold artifacts and coins have been excavated. More than just pictures, there are numerous tablets with coherent linear script carved on them. Examples and influences appear to range from Hebrew and Sumerian to Roman, Greek and Egyptian.

In my correspondence with Fred Rydholm, the best theory I could offer, was to speculate about a colony of resourceful pirates, who in some distant time, raided and collected the strange quasi-cultural cache of artifacts for themselves. Together with an associate Dr James Scherz, who helped in the study and documentation of the artifacts, Fred Rydholm found correlations between symbols on the Burrows Cave coins and coins produced by dynasties along the Silk Road between China and Rome, the most predominant being Kushana and Satavahanasymbols.

( NOTE: The Kushanas once controlled a trade dynasty along the Silk Roads, uniting various ancient peoples in the days of the Romans. They disintegrated with the collapse of the Western part of the Roman Empire about AD 300. The Satavahanas were a seafaring people who lived on the coast of the Indian Ocean and had large ships represented on their coins before they collapsed around 210-230 AD. This suggests the likely time period of early in the first millennium around or after 200 AD. )

Finally, Fred Rydholm was able to report a significant breakthrough with two young Florida researchers, Paul Schaffranke and Brian Hubbard, who were successful in deciphering some of the inscriptions. Schaffranke and Hubbard recognised them as being one of several ancient Etruscan alphabets which could be translated into street Latin, as used around the time of Christ. The two Florida men were able to translate stone tablets from the Burrows Cave that the

great epigrapher, Dr. Barry Fell and others, had insisted were gibberish and could not be translated.

Mixed in amongst the Etruscan script there is also the added mystery of Hebrew and Egyptian stone tablets. These were also recently identified and are being translated by Dr. Arnold Murray of Arkansas and, Zena Halpern, a Hebrew scholar from New York. The Egyptian material is still being assessed. Over half a dozen professional archeologists and linguists have now examined the collection and have been definite in their support of the artifacts authenticity. At last contact, the Burrows team had dug out and classified an astonishing four thousand stone tablets. Another breakthrough came, when a retired engineer Bill Kreisle, found several of the stones recorded accurate maps of the Mississippi River system as it appeared 2000 years ago. Another map stone shows a river on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) with the ancient city of Cadiz near its mouth.

But, most astonishing of all, they have reported the discovery of several stone crypts, excavated from limestone deep in the cave system, containing a number of interred skeletons with jewellery, artifacts and statuary. The mystery people who left the cache of records are, apparently, themselves, buried there. The biggest continuing mystery of the discovery is, WHO carved all these message tablets and from whence came this hidden dynasty of bodies?

Fred Rydholm, who works with and writes, for the retiring Col. Burrows, reports in his recent correspondence : Although I speak with caution, as it is still too early to say for sure, there are many indications that the bodies found in the crypts are the leaders of a colony of refugees from Ptolemaic Egypt, including a Jewish contingent from the Roman controlled Kingdom of Mauritania.

Dr Joseph Mahan, founder and longtime president of the Institute for the Study of American Cultures (ISAC), has examined the evidence from the new translations and presents this interesting scenario: They were secretly sent to America in ships provided by the Mauritanian King Juba the Second and his wife Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony. Included among the refugees were the Queens two brothers, who disappeared from Rome (and recorded history) in 17 AD, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Alexander Helios. The graves of these people have been the object of a comprehensive historical search for the past two thousand years.

We appear to have an advanced and well funded group of priest/scholars who, with the ex-Royal families, escaped the Roman Christianisation of Egypt and set off into the unknown somewhere around 200-300 AD. The engraved maps and their collected storehouse of knowledge, shows a deliberate transplanting of culture, perhaps to escape the religious persecution of the Roman Invasion of Egypt and establish a remote colony which could preserve the ancient records. Indeed, Dr Joseph Mahan, an archeological anthropologist who made a close study of the cave artifacts, reveals a detailed cosmology and religious lore from the cave material which is remarkably similar to that which survived amongst the Indian tribes of the area.

The area of Southern Illinois and Indiana, where Russell Burrows stumbled into the limestone cave system, is richly endowed with the scattered evidence of several different early cultures which archeologists know too little about. There are log tombs, skeletons and artifacts from the Adena culture, which is believed to have developed around 500 BC and to have died out by 200 AD. There was the Hopewell culture, 100 BC to 350 AD. A mysterious culture concentrated along the Mississippi, known as the Mississippian, crystallized around 800 AD, and was thought to still be in existence when the Spaniards arrived.

Researcher, Joseph Mahan, points out, that archeologists have collected evidence for fifty years of an elaborate and uniform Earth/Sun religion, associated with the building of flat top temple mounds, which spread out from the Mississippi in the later part of the first millennium. These pyramid-like mounds, which carried a permanent fire at the top, contained a variety of art, impressed on copper and stone, depicting animalheaded deities, crosses, swastikas, and people in ceremonial dress performing rituals. Examples of these mound sites are spread from Oklahoma, to Illinois, Alabama and Georgia.

The first archeologists to recognise the spread of this mound building style called it the Southern Cult. Mahan says Mississippian is believed to have been introduced by a priestly organization, the members of which re-introduced the cultivation of maize to the area. There is indisputable evidence, in the written and spoken form, of the former tribal languages of the area that a North African tongue, similar to Libyan, was disseminated by this Southern Cult.

Could the Burrows Cave, indeed, be the lost library and resting place of the founders of this mysterious culture? Founders, the inscribed tablets purport to be, the ex-Egyptian Royal family escaping the sacking of ancient Egypt early in the first millennium.

PAUL WHITE c 1997 Transatlantic precedence in Algonquin CULMINATING five centuries' predecessor labors, especially Silas Rand's 1875/88 Micmac primer and dictionary, Fell found Semitic (Arabic specifically separately), Celtic, Greek, Norse, and Egyptian extractable from Algonquin. Without differentiating Egyptian from unlisted Libyan, he knew that originallyLuvian Libyan grew so nearly like Egyptian that "Egyptian" could also or instead be Libyan. Micmac-Algonquin writing was Egyptian hieratic. Arabic Fell detected besides Punic, Hebraic, and the Semitic in Egyptian could have remained from Silk-Road Arabs or pre-Islamic Arabic coeval with Ptolemaic Egyptian, Greek, and Numidian (Egyptianized/Punicized Old Libyan, i.e. Berber) as found together with 1st-century B.C./A.D. Latin in Etruscan (or Neapolitan Chalkidik) alphabet in Burrows Cave that Paul Schaffranke demonstrated 1994. By March 1996 he detected a Numidian//Latin and Numidian/Neo-Punic bilingual, each hailing the chief deity, interchanged Baratha, Ba'al Hammon, and Jupiter. Roman-provincial Further Spain--Andalusia--adopted the Chalkidik alphabet of Neopolitan usage. Fell astutely identified Numidian but translated it by an Arabic dictionary. We can only regret his pre-poisoned disdain of Burrows-Stone scripts unperused. Other than frontier Turkish and late Norse, the tongues Fell filtered from Algonquin occur discretely on Burrows Stones, if the plentiful but undeciphered ogam is Celtic. APRIL 1982, Speliologist (subsequently Col. and Gen.) Russell Burrows of Olney, Ill. traumatically discovered the cave off Skillet Fork (a branch of the Little Wabash, which branches from the Ohio) after sensing the ground underfoot hollow. The owner of that area c.1840 had found a gold breastplate in a surface cave, but Burrows Cave, indetectible on the valley floor, showed no trace of modern disturbance. The 250-lb. boulder-lid that covered the entrance-shaft was designed to flip and reclose, but Burrows happened to displace it slightly as he ground his foot while turning. Elbow reflex slowed his drop to a stone-walled entrance. The underside of the foiled lid-stone bore a Gobi/Baktrian two-hump camel in a strange inscription. Many days' heavy labor dislodged the wall keystone, linch-pinned from inside. Crawling 165+ yards over inscribed-stonestudded deep silt beneath a soot-blackened ceiling failed to locate an exit. Burrows could stand upright only in the three crypts he opened. Thirteen of these water-tight (thus air-tight) masonry crypts lined either side of the stream that hollowed the cavity, amidst Egyptian-hieroglyphic reliefs and standing statues--one foot forward Egyptian-style; funerary jars; urns containing scrolls; abundant gold; repeated images of Anubis, the Egyptian cemetery-guard and Underworld gateman; recurrent ankh and other hieroglyphics; numerous lion representations such as Ptolemies favored, atypical of bull/hawk previous pharoahs. Prof. Warren Cook, of Castleton College, Vt. named Burrows Cave.

This hidden mausoleum exhibiting immense wealth and labor, where a king had long-distance waterway access in all directions not far from the Mississippi/Ohio confluence in southern Illinois gave Burrows the impression by 1995 of an expatriate multinational pirate den. Potsherds from the topmost (usually latest) level, in association with hundreds of stones he and the property owner hauled out, date borderline Woodland/Early Mississippian (800 +50 A.D.)--cord marking diagnostic of Woodland, shell-tempering and applique of Mississippian-concurrent with Cahokia's sudden rise [Wake Forest U. Archaeologist Ned Woodall 1993]. Cahokia, less than a hundred miles west on the Illinois side opposite St. Louis, could have occasioned the cave sealing/abandonment after seven centuries' rites. The New Madrid earthquake Dec. 1811 plausibly accounts for violently-swept rocks and silt to within a foot or 18" of the ceiling (which renders any hypothesis of Cave use later than that date untenable). The last Yuchi zopathla (sun-king) Samuel Brown Jr. confided to the Columbus, Ga. ethnologist Joseph Mahan nearly a quarter-century before Burrows' discovery that a sealed, secret confederation mausoleum/archive lay in that very vicinity, dangerous to open. A gold Thunderbird and Thunderbird engravings among upraised-wing Aegean forms attest a non-Algonquin, Buddhist-derived Yuchi or Athapaskan presence, consistent with Baktrian camel. Moon-People Yuchis do not understand the Thunderbird a manifestation of Buddha as Sunbird, in fact forgot Buddhist grounding, which Half-Moon Athapaskans may better remember in their more primary Thunderbird emphasis and their name Athapaskan, which means "Protected by the Buddha," i.e. king of Xi-Xia as reincarnation of the Buddha [Stewart 1986, 1991]. A dancing warrior dangling a head on a large Burrows Stone evokes modern Yuchi dancers dangling masks--alternate personalities, said Chief Brown. YUCHIS were Levites among many or all tribes, teaching ritual and medicine but not war dances. They bore a Buddhist ideal of peace and equanimity, succeeding better than others but earlier reputed for perpetual fighting. They in any case crucially bonded the Algonquin Shawano Confederation. Peacock feathers, lotus blossoms, red turbans, coconut rattles betrayed Kushan-Indus association, although in America eagle replaced peacock feathers and dogwood lotus blossoms. Seneca-Iroquois devastation of the Illinois Country 1682, plus early 19th-century Indian cessions/removals, erased mausoleum memory in the region itself. Indians preserved the memory in Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and perhaps Tennessee. Rumors revived among 19th-century immigrants from stray metal artifacts rather than continuity of local native tradition. From old maps Burrows discovered 1995 that Algonquin-speaking Shawano confederates who occupied the Cave vicinity 1805 were Kaskaskians and Piankeshaws, who ceded this land to the U.S. Dec. 30 that year.

MEDIEVAL CENTRAL-ASIAN influence came too late for basic shaping of Algonquin language. Starving Algonquins in pre-agricultural, pre-moundbuilding, post-ocean-fishing stagnation--susceptible to tutelage--had confronted Iron-Age salts who did not differ drastically in uncouthness. By the time of Central Asiatic contact Algonquins had regained stabler identity, yet found common ground in sun worship and readily took to jade and smoking feathered-serpent pipes. First-century-B.C./A.D. Latin lost out to Punic, Greek, Egyptian, Arabic, and Numidian of common and ritual speech. A larger Latin influence came in desperately declining Roman reigns, too late for basic shaping of Algonquin, at any rate superseded by more compatible or more pervasive Uto-Aztec infusion. ALGONQUIN SCAPULIMANCY--divination by cracks in heated caribou shoulderblades --did not spread beyond nuclear Algonquins with the spread of their language--further attesting it was language not lifestyle that bound unrelated tribes in the Algonquin domain. Caribou flourished far north in Canada--further attesting formation of the Algonquin nucleus in Canada. Scpulimancy evokes the tons of surviving Bronze-Age Shang oracle-bones, but Sui Chinese still practiced it, also Athapaskans, Khitan of North China (with large Uighur incorporation), and the Tibetan Xi-Xia empire through the 1st millennium A.D. [Wright 1978; Stewart 1991]. Abundant caribou may have invited independent invention of scapulimancy which, if so, entailed independent invention of both shamanism and bone-crack divination. Scapulimancy was neither a Paleolithic nor Neolithic bequest to Bronze China, and was neither a Paleo-Indian nor Maritime-Archaic bequest to medieval Algonquins. ANTHROPOLOGIST FRANK SPECK observed (1928) the only link of tidewaterVirginia Algonquins with frontier Blackfeet, Cheyenne, and Arapaho (let alone New England and Canadian tribes) was their Algonquin language. Had Algonquin culture coincided with language, we would find scapulimancy practiced throughout the lingual area. Yakut/Tungus tepees of Algonquin-speaking Sioux, who once resided in Kentucky, did not resemble Algonquin wigwams except in smoke-holes. Ethel learned in Ankara that tepee is Turkish for "cone tent." Algonquin wigwams contrastingly resembled Saharan Gaetulian huts, which Sallust misthought introduced to Morocco by Persians(!) turning beached boats upside down for cabins. Prairie Cree, like Sioux and Comanches, dwelt in collapsible, draggable tepees. Early explorers who found Comanches roaming Utah could not distinguish them from Shoshoni. Comanches called themselves Nuhmuhna (The People). EelRiver Yukis of Mendocino County, Calif. call themselves Uk-um-nom (In the Valley People). Comanche is Ute for "Enemy." We have no doubt of close UtoAztec kinship of Shoshoni, Comanches, & Utes. Co (Man) is common to Yuchi, an isolate in America, yet related across an enormous distance to isolate Yuki, spoken by a short-stature, xenophobic tribe whom archaeologists believe continuous occupants of the North Coastal Ranges for 6,000-10,000 years

which, if so, predate the Yuchi language (as may be the case of Algonquins and Algonquin). Yuki is a neighbor Wintun word for "stranger/barbarian." Though sharing a Green Corn dance--something widespread in the eastern U.S., even among Iroquois but anomalous in western--and resembling in other ways; e.g. Yuki shamans, lamshini, correspond to Yuchi miccos; Yuki creator Tai-ko-no to Yuchi Breathmaster Cohantoney; Yuki su to Yuchi shu for "fish." Yuchis and Yukis improbably ever knew each other, let alone at the site of New Orleans, which Swadesh posited the original common home [1954]. To share the Green Corn Dance they would have split on the Ohio in Mississippian times. Sapir saw a Yuchi/Siouan connection as early as 1921. W.W. Elmendorf found a further Yuki/Yuchi/Siouan relationship 1964. Others have tried to construe Yuki & Yuchi a Gulf or Sioux tongue. Yukis & Yuchis reached America from the same matrix but in different eras, Yuchis post-Kushan, Yukis earlier enough to have spawned five dialects. Proximity of both Yukis & Yuchis to Athapaskans & Uto-Aztecs in their separate U.S. regions as in Asia gives pause. CONSIDER THAT CHAUCER and Venerable Bede could not have conversed in English seven centuries separated or we with Chaucer less than six. Resorting to Latin would bear out an analogy to Algonquin as a standard ritual language across eras and cultures afar within a few centuries. We cannot help noticing that the immense area where Algonquin Micmac prevailed was coterminous with the millennia-earlier forgotten Maritime Archaic. Though unrecorded and unremembered, a violent coercive empire in the Woodland period would account for Algonquin prevalence over eastern North America. Maritime Archaic & Beothuk CORE ALGONQUIN STOCK may not have changed basically--which could explain huge stature; but its culture underwent revolutions by the time French and English came upon Gaetulian-type villages. The archaeological record indicates Paleo-Indians grew extinct with their large prey. Whether untraced or migrating post-glacier, Algonquin ancestors wended to Great Lakes forests, whence groups descended the St. Lawrence Valley. One group adapted to the ocean before 7,000 B.C., wrought dugouts to harvest whales, cod, and swordfish, incredibly extended up to North Labrador, down to New Jersey, and communicated with North Europe. Norwegian Anthropologist Gutrum Gjessing applied the term "circumpolar" to this ocean culture 1943 after excavations at Varanger Fiord on the top of Norway at 70 degrees N. (above the Arctic Circle) revealed a duplicate of sites excavated beginning 1882 in Maine. Gjessing could not yet conceive a coastline culture communicating with itself even in ice-sheeted Norway only by sea. Most sites on both sides of the Atlantic submerged at glacier melting. Acid soil dissolved bones in surviving graves--always red from ochring of skeletons

beneath shell or rock heaps. Some beach sites survived by geological uplift with removed glacier weight. Alkalinity of "Red Paint" cemeteries at Port au Choix on the west coast east-facing a harbor of Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula preserved enough skeletons intact enough for Anthropologist James Anderson to confirm neither Eskimo nor European [1968]. He detailed 69 specimens of 100+ individuals 1975. Identity with North Europe thus was not ethnic. Compare later Mycenaean culture--the same on both sides of the Aegean irrespective of nationality or language (with overlap). Port au Choix' abundant cod & swordfish bones, some whale; plummets; barbed and toggling harpoons (caribou-antler tips fitted into whalebone foreshafts); combs in seabird shape; beaks of great auk; and two carved-stone killer-whale amulets moved Archaeologist James Tuck to rechristen "Red Paint People" Maritime Archaic 1970. Bruce Borque in excavating cemeteries at Turner Farm on North Haven Island off Penobscot Bay beginning 1971 realized the slate adzes & gouges meant woodworking capable of carving rugged dugouts. He produced a 2050+ B.C. carbon date. By 1975 six carbon dates from Port au Choix ranged 2340-1460 B.C. plus/minus 110 years. Funeral-fire charcoal from L'Anse Amour, S. Labrador dated 5580 & 5305, 140 & 115-year respective sigmas. The same S.-Labrador Archaic at Forteau Bay dated 7050 B.C., raising a question whether this culture originated in America. But skeleton red-ochring and fine stone/bone/wood work had far older European precedent. At Nulliak Cove, N. Labrador, 1500 nautical mi. north of the Penobscot mouth, William Fitzhugh's Smithsonian expedition (1980) uncovered boulder foundations of 28 Maritime Archaic multi-room rectangular houses extending nearly 100 yards. Translucent gray Ramah chalcedony from its sole source, Ramah Bay, Newfoundland, typified projectile points at Nulliak Cove as at the dozens of located sites, N. Labrador to Maine. Submergence robs us of origin. Red-ochred burials which Martha & St. Just Pecquart excavated 1927 on Teviac off the Brittany coast 1927 eventually carbon dated 5200 B.C. A red-ochred site at Vedbaek, Denmark yielded Danish Museum excavators (1975) 19 burials older than 5050 B.C.--doubly older than Norwegian and (Bohusan) Swedish relatives. European and American sites alike featured standing slabs visible far at sea, anticipating megalithic cultures on both shores. Nulliak Cove displayed a pebble-heaped Mycenaean-type kergan with heavy doorway lintel hard to link to inland Moundbuilders past 2,000 mi. and twomillennia gap. The same Maritime Archaic at the same time on both sides of the ocean might independently coincide because the time was ripe, except that connecting lined dots in geometric patterns betray religious with technological diffusion [Tromso-Museum excavator of Varanger Paul Simonsen 1987]. Divers discovered a dolmen so decorated submerged 80' at Pil Coa Reef off the Brittany coast [Francis Le Quen 1996]. If this sophisticated Archaic figured in the heritage of Algonquins they forgot it, lost its pattern symbolism, and turned away from the ocean.

OLD COPPER CULTURE of NE North America overlapped Late Maritime Archaic and possibly merged in Algonquin ancestry. A solitary copper pendant constitutes known interaction with Maritime Archaic. But a copper traffic between Great Lakes and Norway flourished in the 2nd millennium B.C. whose termination James Scherz attributes to system-collapse at the Norwegian end. Norwegians also apparently forgot it. Copper artifacts found in America do not begin to account for the gargantuan chunks gathered and gouged in the Great Lakes, while Old-World mines do not for the scale of copper and bronze items found there. BEOTHUKS--Red Indians, ochre-stained waist up--may have been regressed remnants of Maritime Archaic. John Cabot encountered them at Newfoundland 1497 approximately three millennia after Maritime Archaic demise. Subsequent explorers confirmed Beothuk possession of the Island of Newfoundland, their red self-staining remarked by late-16th-century Englishmen. Canadians have conflated Beothuks and Algonquin-speaking Montaignais, who resided extensively above the St. Lawrence. Early 20th-century Newfoundland Indians referred to vanished Beothuks and quite-present Montaignais interchangeably as Osa'gan'ax (Red People). Speck regarded Beothuk an eastern branch of archaic Algonquin.
He located their nucleus at elongated Red Indian Lake in NW Newfoundland and beside Exploits River which issues from the east end, flows NE, east, then NE into Exploits Bay on the north coast. He ascertained their early-19th-century headquarters as Red Indian Point south of Millerton at the lake's NE end. Indian myths recall a Me'kwe'isit tribe, red-painted waist up. Ishit in Egyptian is Isis. Micmac for Beothuk: Megwe'dji'djik (Red People). These syllables all have Egyptian equivalents but different meanings. WILLIAM RITCHIE, state archaeologist of New York, located the archaic Algonquin nucleus [1936] in a 75-sq.-mi. area from below Lamoke Lake, Schyler Co., West N.Y., up to Lake Ontario, its distinctive grooved adze recurring northward into Ontario, southward to northern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Skeletons showed archaic Algonquins rather tall, skulls non-Mongoloid, longheaded, long-faced--very similar to earlier Maritime Archaic. Ritchie inferred they entered from Lower Canada as the oldest definitely known population of New York--before agriculture, moundbuilding, or pottery. He found the earliest pottery in the northern U.S. (cord-marked Buff-or-Black Vinette 1) dating c.1,000 B.C. which he traced across New York to Lake Erie, unaware it had a 2,000-year prior evolution in Norway.
A WIDE-HEADED, shorter ethnic group, believed Sioux but not yet Xiong-nu/Athapaskan hybrid, pushed up into New England from the south.

A TWO-MILLENNIA LACUNA separates Late Archaic from Algonquin Moundbuilder Hopewell, which centered in the Ohio Valley and spread east to the Bahamas. It appeared on the Scioto River of southern Ohio c.100 B.C. and raised its last elaborate earthwork there c.550 A.D. These gigantic effigy earthworks, angle-aligned with cosmically-correlated precision [cf. Scherz' 1990 survey of Lizard Mound Park, Wis.] had not characterized Algonquins of Newfoundland/Ontario/New England, as neither had Hopewell deer-antler headdresses, earlobe spools, calumets, or turbans--nor Egyptian

Mystery Cave Could Prove Ancient Visitors Were Here By John Tiffany

A spelunker named Russell Burrows from the southern Illinois town of Olney allegedly discovered a mysterious cave along a branch of the Little Wabash River. If even some of the stories told surrounding this mysterious event are true, what are said by some to be the startling contents of the cave would set traditional American archeology on its ear. In 1982, Russell Burrows was a man with a hobby: He liked to explore places that had been untouched for a long time. He knew of one region in Illinois where, according to rumor, there had once been a number of old homesteads. Burrows decided to explore the area. Burrows headed into the rugged, wooded countryside. He carried a metal detector, with which he hoped to locate relics of a century and more past: parts of old stoves, lamps, wedges, ax heads and other traces of early settlers and homesteaders. Burrows stopped to eat his lunch on a bluff that overlooks a valley. He stood up and stepped on the edge of a flat, round rock. His weight on the side of this rock flipped it as if on a pivot, and Burrows found himself falling into a pit below the rock. What happened next is told in his own words: I found myself falling into a pit which had been secreted beneath a large oval stone which, as I later discovered, was fitted into the pit opening and designed to flip or turn over when stepped on. The unfortunate victim would fall to the bottom of the pit, the stone would swing back in place and the victim would be trapped. I was fortunate: When I stepped on that stone, I was in the act of turning, and the stone, instead of flipping over, slid off to one side and left the pit open. I do not actually remember hitting bottom; my next recollection is of hanging on to the lip of the pit by my elbows, in great alarm. I admit that I have a great fear of holes that Im not ready for, because of snakes. But I found none. When I freed myself and regained my composure, I began to examine the pit and have a look at what was to be the beginning of the greatest adventure of my life. . . . I sat down to calm my nerves, catch my breath and give the situation some thought. Burrows found himself in a chamber, with a huge face on one wall. I did not have to be a genius to figure out that I had stumbled into something that just should not be in Illinois. I have hunted for and found many artifacts of the American Indians and there are many of their sites in my part of the state, but I knew then that this was not American Indian. The face I had been nose to nose with was different from anything I had ever seen. The nose was flat, the eyes were wide-set, and the lips were thick. Then, of course, there were all those strange symbols to consider. I had crawled under a ledge and was looking for petroglyphs such as I had seen in the pit. I had searched all the walls of the entire length of the valley, and while I had seen a few scratchings, I was not all that excited about what I had seen so far. Finally, I gave up on this last place, and decided to quit. In disgust, I tossed my small rock pick against the inside wall of the overhang. The rock gave out a distinctly unnatural sound: a hollow ring, not what Id expect from solid rock. . . . As it was now clear that a cave was on the other side. . . . My first entrance was through this portal and into a tunnel-like passage which has a drop-off of about three feet just inside of the portal. I was met with a strong, musty odor. Not of decay, but musty. As I moved my head and light around, I saw a full human skeleton reposing on a large block of stone. It scared the hell out of me! Then I began to see other things lying there with those bones. I saw ax heads, spear points, and something elsemetal! The skeleton was laid out upon a solid block large enough to hold not only the remains but artifacts as well. The artifacts include ax heads of marble and other stone material, an ax head of what appears to be bronze, a short sword of what appears to be bronze, and other artifacts which might be considered personal weapons. There were also a set of three bronze spears, the longest

being about six feet long and the shortest about three feet. . . . The skeletal remains bear several fine artifacts such as armbands, headbands and other such items, all of gold. The cave is said to lie somewhere along the Skillet Fork of the Little Wabash River in southeastern Illinois. It supposedly contains 13 elaborately ornamented burial crypts. It is unclear and a matter of controversy who, besides Burrows, has actually been inside the cave. But Burrows has produced hundreds, if not thousands, of curiously carved stones that he says came from the cave. And some of the artifacts allegedly were not of stone, but of gold. It is claimed that Burrows sold off enough artifacts to unknown buyers that he was able to place $7 million in Swiss numbered bank accounts. According to Swiss journalist Luc Buergin, this money derives from the illegal sale of gold artifacts from the North American burial site. (Other sources claim that Burrows melted down all the gold and sold it as ingots. Still others question whether there ever was any gold in the first place.) Buergin accuses Burrows of having clan destinely sold thousands of burial gifts. In his recently published book Geheimakte Archeologie (Secret file: Archeology, ISBN 3-7766-7002-9, Munich 1998) he presents documents, financial papers and pictures which indicate that Burrows has removed enormous quantities of gold from the cave system. TBR managed to reach Mr. Burrows personally at his home in Windsor, Colorado on August 15. He told us that Buergin got his information from Harry Hubbard and Rick Flavin, both of whom are high school dropouts. Hubbard is trying to sell stock in a company called Ptolemy Pro ductions, but has been on the run from the police for selling fraudulent stock for over a year. Flavin is a guy who stole artifacts from a woman in Cadillac, Michigan and who just likes to shoot his mouth off. Fred Rydholm is an amateur archeologist (with 50 years experience) who, along with Russell Burrows, authored a book about the site, called Mystery Cave of Many Faces. TBR interviewed him regarding the discovery, which many have labeled a hoax. Rydholm was asked how much gold, in terms of weight, has been taken out of, or is in, Burrows Cave. He replied that Bur rows claims huge amounts of gold are involved. However, Rydholm himself has only seen one small box of golden artifacts, and has not examined them closely. Bur rows himself told TBR that over a ton of gold was found in the cave, and that none of it ever left. According to Hu McCulloch of the Economics Department at Ohio State University, Vol. 3, No. 16 of Ancient Ameri can magazine has a series of interesting articles on the Burrows Cave, which is surely either the biggest find or biggest running hoax of 20th-century American archeology. McCulloch said on the Internet: Most if not all of the gold on the cover and inside Ancient American is known to be gold-painted lead casts of purported original artifacts. (He did not explain how this was known.) TBR asked Rydholm, Has any of the gold been analyzed to determine its origin or fineness? I dont know anything about that, he replied. Burrows told TBR that none of it was ever tested. However, he was of the belief that the gold must be very fine, because you can bend it with a thumbnail. Rydholm was asked whether any accepted or establishment organization has taken an interest in Burrows Cave. And if so, what have they done? He replied that a Dr. John White, of Columbus, Ohio, who is a physicist and is also an officer in the Midwestern Epigraphic Society, believes the artifacts are authentic. Zena Halpern, of the Midwestern Epigraphic Society and the Institute for the Study of American Culture (ISAC), is working on an inscription that she claims appears to portray a Jewish menorah, from the cave. He said she also claims that a silver menorah was removed from the cave by Burrows. White said: I have not been confronted by physical evidence that would tend to prove it is a fraud. I am a scientist, and the type of things that have been said that are negative seem to have little substance; but they do open your

eyes to the possibility that you are never really sure, even when you enter a major museum. Very few artifacts have a good pedigree. No more than 1-10 percent really have a good pedigree. Nearly always (in museums, for example) they are called Greek because they look Greek; they are called Egyptian because they look Egyptian. By the way, I have no certainty that there is a Burrows Cave. I am just talking about the artifacts. So you look at these artifacts, and they look old. I know nothing about the gold objects, other than just the talk. As long ago as 1994, I was offered a chance to pick up a set of lead replicas. I have about 50 replicas that are gold painted. I am sort of an authority on Burrows propaganda. If it is fraudulent, it would have taken a team of about 10 experts and I do not know how many craftsmen to make them. The going price for these objects would not compensate anyone for making them. No one that I have ever been introduced to has ever seen the cave, other than Burrows. What I can authenticate, Zena Halpern told TBR, is a very, very rare menorah with a triangle base. The unusual aspect of a triangle base menorah is what distinguishes these stones and makes them so unique. There are only two known examples in ancient Jewish sources of this unusual menorah with a triangle base, and they date from the first century B.C., when the menorah still stood in the Second Temple. Prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, menorahs were not depicted due to the prohibition against reproducing sacred objects from the temple. How ever, after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., in about the second and early third centuries A.D., menorahs began to be represented in the diaspora, and they all had three legs as a base. The first example of a menorah with a rare triangle base is relatively unknown and is found on coins minted by the last Judean king in the years from 40 to 37 B.C. The name of the king appears on the coins: Mattathias Anti gonus II. This was a daring and innovative act for the king, as the reproduction of the menorah was forbidden by Jewish law. However, he was engaged in a desperate struggle against Herod and the Roman legions for control of Jeru salem, and he minted the coins as a Jew ish symbol to rally the people to his cause. This triangle-base menorah never appeared again on coins and did not appear on any Jewish objects until the late second or early third centuries A.D., and when it appeared it had a base of three legs. The second example of a menorah with a triangle base is from an archeological dig in 1969 beneath the Old City of Jerusalem from a house partially destroyed in the Roman assault on Jerusalem. This menorah was incised in plaster on the wall of the house and is considered the earliest clear depiction of the menorah which stood in the temple. It is dated to the Herodian era, 37-4 B.C. Prof. Nahman Avigad, director of the excavation, stated that the menorah had been found only a few hundred yards from the Temple Mount, and the artist probably saw the temple menorah every day. The depiction is rare because of the holiness of the object. (New York Times, Dec. 3, 1969) Two other objects were also represented on the plaster and were reconstructed to be the altar and the shewbread table, objects which stood in the temple. The golden menorah was carried off to Rome by Titus, and a representation of the menorah was carved on the Arch of Titus; but it had an octagonal base. A description of the construction of the menorah is given in Exodus 25:31-37, and while the specifications are [otherwise] extremely detailed, no mention is made of the base. The appearance of this menorah, an obscure and rare object, from a brief window of time, on these stones remains an intriguing mystery. Along with the menorah, three ancient Hebrew letters also appear on the stones, which are yod, heth and daled, possibly an ancient spelling of Judea, but more analysis is needed to confirm this. There are also depictions of sacred objects from the temple on some of the stones such as the shewbread table, musical instruments and a possible shofar. There are many unresolved questions remaining about the cave, and much controversy has occurred over the years. However, the reproduction of this rare, triangle-base menorah poses a most intriguing and fascinating mystery. Cyclone Covey, a historian who has studied many languages and epigraphy, is convinced the cave is genuine. He stated: Carthaginian religion was Egyptian, and their outpost was the Siwa oasis, a place visited by Alexander the Great, and called by them Amonia, from the Egypt ian god Amon. It was a famous oracle throughout antiquity because it was like the Delphic oracle; it was one of the four major ones that could predict the

future. It was visited by the Emperor Hadrian. All the Libyans of north Africa adhered to the Egyptian religion. The cave is an Egyptian-style mausoleum. The tombs of the kings of Egypt are constructed in the same way as those in Burrows Cave. They are water-tight. Burrows had not been to the tombs in Egypt, but his de scription matches it completely. Many of the stones from the cave are written in Numidian, and some are in Libyan, while others are in Ptolomaic Greek. The Yuchi Indians used to live in a large area, among all the tribes that were Algonquin speaking. Their own language is of Scythian derivation. The Yuchi tradition is that they had a sacred mausoleum in that vicinity, which they sealed, about A.D. 800. Ca hokia rose like a mushroom and became the dominant power in the region. Russell did not know anything about this tradition when he discovered the cave. The cave owner was known as Neff, but his real name was a lengthy Italian one. Carthaginian gold coins were molded, and they have a horse head on one side. The Yuchi tradition is that there was gold in the cave, and an archive. The Yuchis in the time of De Soto lived in houses, not teepees, and were lighter-skinned than other Indians. I do not think Burrows has made a lot of money out of the cave. He lives rather simply on his military pension, like lower middle-class people. He has a motorcycle, and not a Cadillac. Is it possible that the artifacts were manufactured by a 19th-century cult, as some have alleged? he was asked. No, sir, I think it is utterly impossible. Utterly impossible. There are no signs that the cave was discovered before Burrows fell into it. No one knew enough to fake Numidian, Keltiberian and other languages which were not known until the 20th century. It is like the Paraiba inscription that recounts how a Phoenician expedition was carried to Brazil, and the language in the inscription is Phoenician, which is very close to He brew and had certain turns of phrases that were unknown at the time the Paraiba inscription was discovered. Wayne May, publisher of Ancient American, told TBR: By the finder, a lot of gold has been taken out of the cave. Testing tells us there is still more gold in the ground. Burrows melted the gold down and sold it. He looted the sit. Burrows now claims the site [which we are preparing to excavate] is not his site. A little over 7,000 artifacts have come out of the cave, not counting the gold items. A lot of scientists have looked at the material, but they are being quiet until the location of the site is divulged. We have an archeologist on hand, and will have Ho-Chunk [Winneba goes] from Black River Falls, Wisconsin on the site upon opening late September this year [2001]. Burrows told TBR that, as a retired prison guard, he is living on Social Security, and that he manages to support a middle-class lifestyle on this as his only source of money. Beverly Mosley, former director of art at the Ohio Historical Society, and currently president of Midwestern Epigraphic Society, told TBR: There is a lot of creativity in these artifacts. Some of it is what we call minimal art, like Eskimo art. We are talking thousands of artifacts, and they are all different. They could not possibly have been made all by one person. There is no way in hell that the average Joe Schmo can put together an ancient style of writing and make it readable. There are probably 10 different alphabets written on these stones. For someone to duplicate these things, they are going to have to know five or six alphabets, and know how to draw things correctly. Probably out of the stones I have seen, I have seen 500 with ancient script on them. There is a lot of Iberian writing, ogam and tifinag writing. (Tifinag is a script of unknown origin, used by the Tuareg in certain objects, like bracelets and rock inscriptions.) Geologist Dr. Jim P. Scherz (author of Rock Art Pieces from Burrows Cave) has studied the stone artifacts. According to him, there is weathering on their surfaces that proves the stones are very old, quite possibly going back to the time of Christ, if not older than that. Certainly they are far older than the century or so that some establishmentarians have suggested as a maximum.

Of course, it is not unusual for discoverers of politically incorrect evidence to run into serious problems with the establishment. In his book, Burrows tells of his first unpleasant brush with academia: I contacted [Eastern Illinois University] and inquired if they had an anthropologist on their staff. They did, and I was put in contact with him. A meeting was arranged, and I made the trip up to the university to meet with this young fellow, whom I will refer to as Mr. Brown. . . . This probably could have happened at a number of universities across the country. . . . The first thing he asked me was, Where is the cave? I told him I didnt want to reveal the location of it at that time because of the fact that I had not yet worked out an agreement with the land owner, and, as a matter of fact, I had not met him, nor did I know who he was. Brown was a little put out with the fact that I was not going to spill the whole pot of beans to him, but he said that he doubted the artifacts were all that old. He told me he would attempt to find out what they were and that he would get back to me as soon as he could. I left the university and made the trip back to Olney. While doing so, I was doing a lot of thinking. Why didnt he think those artifacts were old? . . . The trip home took about an hour. I sat down at the kitchen table to ponder the situation. Just as I was getting into my second cup, the telephone rang. It was Brown. Great news, he said, I found out what your artifacts are. I called the state archeologist at Champaign, and after I described the artifacts to her, she said, Oh, I know what those things are. They were made by a cult in southern Illinois about 100 years ago, and they must have hid them in caves or buried them. You mean she was able to make that determination from your description by telephone? I asked, when I found my tongue. Oh, sure, came back Brown. She is a very sharp person and has studied the history of southern Illinois at length. She really knows what shes talking about. What do you do when you are backed into a corner like that? My first thought was to walk away and forget it. They must have had a very low opinion of my judgment. But now I had the same opinion of theirs. In conclusion, it can only be stated that nothing can safely be concluded regarding Burrows Cave at this time. Hopefully, some time within the next few months, there may be some official statement by a university or reputable archeologist, but for now, all anyone has to go on is hearsay. Rydholm says that seismographic tests are presently being conducted around the site to verify the existence of chambers. He adds that definitive results should be due out in the fall. If it turns out that Burrows Cave is for real, it could be the hard evidence diffusionists have been looking for for a generation. Not many publishers would be disappointed either. It would mean every schoolbook in America would have to be reprinted with the truth about the feats and abilities of our ancient ancestors.

An Ancient North African Treasure-Trove in Southern Illinois

By Frank Joseph
On an early spring aftern- noon in 1982, a man was slowly walking alone through a forsaken cemetery in southern Illinois. In his hands he carried a common metal-detector. He hovered its saucer-like device about six inches above the ground, while watching its dial for the slightest movement, sure sign that something of possible worth lay just beneath the surface. A resident from a nearby town, he was an avid collector hoping to find the occasional lost coin or even some shiny artifact from the Civil War era. This day, however, his meandering quest among the unvisited tomb- stones failed to elicit any response from the mineral-sensitive instrument until he neared the far end of the burial ground. The metal- detector became increasingly agitated with every footstep, until it led him entirely out of the cemetery, down a shallow ravine and up the side of a steep hill. Its dial oscillated violently, as though the explorer were treading over Fort Knox. He continued across the desolate country, waiting for the indicator to become still. Walking along the top of the hill, his eyes fixed steadily on the instrument. He suddenly fell into a perfectly vertical pit just wide enough to accommodate his shoul- ders. Shaken but recovering his senses, he realized that he had landed on his feet on a soft, dirt floor some eight feet beneath the surface of the ground. The metal-detector had not followed him down. He remembered the small pocket-flashlight in his jacket. Fetching it out, the narrow but bright beam of light immediately revealed what appeared to be a chamber opening directly in front of him. He cautiously entered the dank room. He saw stone statues, large urns and edged weapons scattered across the floor. The walls were covered with the sculpted friezes of Egyptian-like scenes. Moving to the far end of the chamber, he found an adjacent room, in... which reposed a large sarcophagus of gold gleaming in the steady beam of his flash- light. There were more chambers, but they appeared to have collapsed and become inaccessible. Returning to the first room, the now amazed explorer filled his pockets with strange, gold coins from small, unlocked caskets. Nearby were stacked enormous piles of roughly hewn black stones, all engraved with the likeness of bizarre- looking men and women accompanied by written scripts of some kind. His flashlight battery failing, he pushed outward with his hands and feet against the walls of the narrow pit through which he had fallen, and clambered out of the subterranean darkness back into the sunlight. For the next 17 years, he removed thousands of artifacts from the underground site. Most of these have been the black stones engraved with singular portraits of largely non-Amerindian persons. Although he sold them throughout the U.S., his steadfast refusal to reveal their place of origin led many investigators to conclude that they are modern fakes, and not the genuine artifacts of overseas' visitors to pre-Columbian Illinois. But collect- ors who pay high prices for these peculiar stones insist they are genuine for fundamental reasons. Approximately 7,000 examples are known to exist, far too many to have been manufactured by one man, even with assistance. More convincingly, they feature internal evidence in the form of esoteric and even arcane images far beyond the experience of the provincial man to have faked.

After nearly two decades, the controversy may be resolved in the near future, as excavation proceeds at what researchers believe is the previously undisclosed, underground location itself. If and when it is finally opened, the chambers' bizarre contents may prompt more questions than answers. But so many objects have already been removed and examined, that a credible, even convincing interpretation of the site now seems possible. The chief argument against its authenticity may in fact be the most persuasive evidence on its behalf as a repository for indisputable, abundant, material proof of peoples from the Ancient World in the American Middle West. That interpretation begins, not in 20th Century Illinois, but on the other side of the globe, in a forgotten kingdom of North Africa once known as Mauritania. Encompassing the equivalent of today's Morocco and parts of western Algeria, it was governed by King Juba II, 2,000 years ago. He and his people stemmed from ancient Caucasian stock: the Mauri, who were believed to have migrated from Asia Minor after the fall of Troy in the late 13th Century B.C.. They were thus culturally and racially different from the darkskinned inhabitants who presently occupy North Africa. Juba was a great statesman, who led his country to unprecedented heights of cultural splendor and material prosperity. When neighboring Numidians staged a revolution, Juba volunteered his army to defeat the unconventional guerrilla forces that had eluded Roman commanders. In gratitude, the Senate of Rome granted Mauritania virtual independence, the only state to have achieved a free status within the Empire. A cultured monarch more inter- ested in art and science than conquest, Juba was the author of twenty books (all in Greek) on such widely varied subjects as geography, geology, astronomy, mythology, music, dance, painting and sculpture. He built a large library at the nation's capital, Caesarea (today's Cherchel, in Algeria), and sponsored several sailing expeditions down the west African coast, even to the Canary Islands. These voyages of discovery were part of the Phoenician tradition that pervaded Mauritanian life. A few centuries before, Phoenicians from Carthage built important cities at Tangier, Lixus (modern Larache) and Mogador (Essaoira) in what later became Mauritania. Juba also believed in religious freedom, and early Christians flocked to Caesarea. So did many Jews, who brought their wealth with them. But the predominant religion of the Mauri was a synthesis of Phoenician and Egyptian beliefs and practices. Skilled at international diplomacy, Juba established cordial relations with his southern neighbor, the black kingdom of Senegal, well-known for the boat-building abilities of its shipwrights. When he died an old man in 24 A.D., Juba was succeeded by the Queen, Cleopatra Selene, who maintained his wise policies. She similarly groomed their son, Ptolemy XV, to one day rule his country in the same, enlightened fashion. Meanwhile, Mauritania became a center for great wealth and cultural opulence. Relations with the Empire were exemplary, so much so, prosperous Romans often vacationed in the sunkissed North African land, and many stayed to form their own community. But these halcyon days of high civilization were about to come to a catastrophic end. In 40 A.D., the new Emperor, Gaius Caligula, invited Mauritania's popular leader to a party in Rome. Such an invitation was not to be turned down, so young Ptolemy sailed for Italy. There he was magnificently feted by Caligula, who referred to him as his brother and loaded the Mauritantian monarch down with costly gifts. However, on his way to Ostia, the port of Rome, where a ship was waiting to take him home, Ptolemy was suddenly stabbed to death by members of his own Roman guard. The killers fled, but botched their escape, and were apprehended soon after by centurions. The murderers confessed under interrogation that they had been commissioned by none other than Caligula himself. The Emperor, having drained the imperial purse through his grandiose debaucheries, planned to blame Ptolemy's death on Numidian assassins, then pose as the avenger of the betrayed king and the protector of his people by occupying Caesarea and seizing its royal treasury. But when the plot was exposed, the Mauri rose in angry revolt against Rome.

Before he could do anything about it, Caligula was himself assassinated. His successor was a sane and liberal-hearted man, Claudius, who wanted to make amends with the Mauritanians and restore them to their previous position of friendly semi-independence within the imperial system. He was unanimously opposed by both the Senate and his generals. They argued that colonized peoples elsewhere would interpret any lenience toward Mauritania as proof of Roman weakness and stage their own revolts. Soon, the whole Empire would be aflame with insurrection. Moreover, the Mauri, in their wrath at the death of Ptolemy, had gone too far, and massacred innocent Romans peacefully residing in their country. There was another consideration, now more palatable, given the nature of the situation: Claudius had inherited a bankrupt imperial purse, thanks to the profligacy of his lunatic predecessor. Seizing the Mauritanian treasury, as standard practice in any such punitive operation, would have a salubrious impact on the royal household's financial affairs. But the Mauri were not some colonial exotics to be pacified by the mere sight of a Roman standard. They operated a large navy whose vessels bested Roman warships in the open seas of the Atlantic Ocean. Their army, trained and equipped by the Romans themselves, had never lost a battle. Claudius was forced to dispatch an entire army to Mauritania in what soon developed into full-scale warfare for seven months, involving 20,000 troops and several corps of chariotry. Although the Mauri slowed the Roman invasion, they could not stop it. Defeat seemed inevitable to the wealthy men who initially backed the revolt. They were confronted by two alternatives: Await the Romans, who would execute some and over-tax the survivors, or flee. But to where? Rome controlled the world to the north. To the east sprawled the largest desert on Earth, the Sahara. In the south was Senegal, within easy reach of Claudius' legions. The broad ocean, which the landlubber Romans feared as "the Pasture of Fools," rolled westward, the Mauritanians' only escape route. In short, they could only hope to survive as "boat-people." Perhaps the scholarly Juba, in his long-since lost geography texts, described distant territories on the other side of the sea-- lands he learned of from the Phoenicians, who used North African ports for their commercially secret, transatlantic voyages. Indeed, the Canary Island Current runs like an underwater conveyor-belt from the Mauritanian shores of North Africa, westward across the Atlantic Ocean, straight into the Gulf of Mexico. It seems unlikely that the scholarly Juba or Phoenicia's prodigious sea-farers knew nothing of this obvious phenomenon. After all, it was the same current used nearly 1,500 years later by another sailor, Christopher Columbus, as his direct route to America. Meanwhile, the invading Romans announced their intentions of reducing Mauritania to indentured, colonial status. It was clear, too, that their immediate objective was to seize the Mauritanian treasury. It had been moved from Caesarea, ever further southward, ahead of their advancing columns. The Mauritanian royalty, into whose keeping the treasury had been entrusted, fled toward the Senegalese border. All the events described up to this point in our narrative comprise the historical record, as documented by several Roman writers, including Plutarch and Dio Cassius. What follows is speculation based on their factual accounts. Faced with imminent seizure, the supporters of Mauritania's revolution appealed to their admirals for help. But the navy could spare no ships in its life-and-death struggle against Roman armadas. Instead, the admirals assigned a number of marines, sailors, captains and shipwrights to the Mauri leaders. Perhaps they could induce the boat-builders of neighboring Senegal to construct a make-shift fleet. Continued resistance against the Romans bought time for the Mauri and their commissioned Senegalese laborers, working under the direction of Mauritanian naval architects. With military catastrophe descending from the north, the just-completed ships were boarded by survivors of the royal family, the aristocracy and financial backers with their household guards and priests. Senegalese mariners were also on board. Trusting their lives to the open sea rather than facing certain death or slavery on land, they saw the African Continent gradually fade away with every lunge their ships took over the surging waves. Sailing by the stars and coasting westward in the invisible grip of the Canary Island Current, the refugee fleet of some forty vessels was at sea for perhaps three months. But even if they all succeeded in crossing the Atlantic, landing opportunities in the Americas were more than hazardous. Putting in at somewhere along the coasts of Florida or Cuba. Warring cannibal tribes of the Arawak and Caribb Indians,

respectively, made settling there impossible. Pushing on to Mexico, the Mauritanians would have had to confront native peoples intent on human sacrifice, in which beating hearts were removed with obsidian knives from tens of thousands of victims. Further to the south, in Yucatan, even the Maya (generally characterized as gentle colonizers, until the decipherment of their written language showed them otherwise) were prone to ritual evisceration. The Mauritanians learned to avoid these bloody native peoples through bitter experience, or were forewarned by information preserved in the annals of previous Phoenician visitors to the Americas. In any case, the only route open to the African refugees was through the mouth of the Mississippi River. Up it they sailed until they came to the Ohio River. Steering eastward, they traveled the Little Wabash River into the heart of southern Illinois, where the peaceful Illini Indians, after whom the state was later named, welcomed them. Here the Mauritanians excavated a series of subterranean chambers, into which they placed their precious cargoes. A long, arduous quest from the destruction of their homeland and transatlantic crossing culminated in a prehistoric American refuge, around 45 A.D.. The factual story of Mauritania and the undocumented but possible consequences of its defeat are remarkably reflected in the thousands of artifacts found by the man exploring in 1982. The bizarre, apparently contradictory and generally unrecognizable variety of cultures his illustrated stones depict has even led many diffusionists-- expecting evidence of Vikings or Celtic Iberians in pre-Columbian America-to reject all the items as fakes. The mix of white European, black African and Middle Eastern Semitic faces seems incomprehensible to them. So too the jumble of Egyptian, Jewish and Christian religious imagery. Yet, these are the very elements unique to the 1st Century A.D. refugees from Mauritania. The Mauri were an Indo-European people heavily influenced by Roman Civilization; hence, the stone portraits of white men and women dressed in Roman and quasi-Roman styles. Their religion was an import from the mystery schools of the Nile Valley, which may explain why persons un-Egyptian in appearance are shown performing arcane Egyptian rituals. Less frequently represented are Jews and Christians, who were welcomed to Mauritania and established themselves there. The incised stones depict other Semitics-- Phoenicians. They still lived in North Africa and spoke their language as late as the 8th Century A.D.. The blacks portrayed on artifacts from the Illinois site often evidence ritual scarification, the same facial mutilation West African Senegalese still practice. Theirs is a living tradition going back to 45 A.D., when their ancestors helped build and sail the ships in which the Mauri leaders sought escape. At least one of the recovered stones shows a black man wearing a sailor's cap with a ship in the background. This odd, even disparate collection of peoples and religions depicted on the Illinois stones could only fit Mauritanian events of the early 1st Century, but they comprise a nearly perfect fit. And there is another, although still missing piece of evidence that may some day be the most dramatic confirmation of the Illinois location's identity as a pre-Columbian site. Caligula wanted the Mauritanian treasury; that was why he had King Ptolemy assassinated. It became one of the chief objectives of the invasion launched by Claudius shortly thereafter. But the Romans never found it. The Mauri removed their gold reserves from Caesarea ahead of the enemy legions until it disappeared from history. When ground-penetrating sensors were brought into play at the suspected location of the subterranean chambers last summer they detected an unusually large concentration of gold far beneath the surface. If the instrument readings have been properly interpreted, then the Illinois site may feature not only unquestionable proof of overseas' visitors to our continent nearly fifteen centuries before Columbus. It might also contain the fabulous Mauritanian treasury, rescued from military disaster in North Africa and brought across the ocean to eternal safekeeping in distant America, almost 2,000 years ago.

Gold Coins From Burrows From Cave Burrows Cave

Jewish Star Stone From Burrows Cave

Stone Showing Ancient Roman Type Boat From Burrows Cave

Stone Showing Roman Style Soldier From Burrows Cave

Update on Burrows Cave by Wayne May, Ancient American Vol. 6 Issue # 42 On March 24th, 1999, Russell Burrows led Wayne May to what he claimed was the location of the Mystery Cave of Many Faces, site of a cache of inscribed, illustrated stones documenting Old World visitors to Illinois in pre-Columbian times. Above, Mr. Burrows points to the alleged cave entrance where he supposedly made his discovery 17 years ago. The following day, Mr. Burrows entered into a contractual agreement with Discovery Resources, wherein he agreed to reveal the place of entrance. Upon signing the agreement, Mr. Burrows accompanied Wayne May, Ralph Wolak of Discovery Resources and three other investors to the same site as the day before, where Mr. Burrows declared, this is the cave! The June/July, 1999 issue of Ancient American published exciting news concerning the disclosed location and planned excavation of the controversial Burrows Cave. It allegedly contains thousands of inscribed and illustrated stone tablets deposited by Old World visitors to southern Illinois almost 2,000 years ago. Discovered by Mr. Russell Burrows in 1982, the precise whereabouts of the Cave, has caused a great commotion among the many participants including Harry Hubbard (his site is in Marion or Wayne County) and Robert Ghostwolf who claimes to have a site somewhere in the midwest. Since our announcement three years ago, representatives from Ancient American and Discovery Resources (a California-based research organization) have joined forces to identify and open the Cave site Mr. Burrows identified to them in 1999. Early in their joint venture, they were surprised to learn that the landowner of the site had no previous contact with Mr. Burrows. They were subsequently forced to enter into a new agreement with the landowner, before they could even attempt an entry. After 42 months of painstaking fund-raising and arranging for the professional participation of specialists in geology, archaeology, excavation, metal detection and ground penetration radar, we are finally ready to proceed with opening the Cave. We were additionally surprised to discover that its known openings seem to be deliberately collapsed and filled in sometime during the recent past. What we now feel reasonably sure is the main entrance comprises a 20 to 30 foot horizontal tunnel with a 110 foot drop to the floor of the corridor. The formerly open spaces are filled with collapsed rubble, and there are indications that the doorway to the site was collapsed intentionally. We were surprised yet again by a statement from Mr. Burrows. He now claims that the underground site we have identified is not his, which, he insists is more than forty miles away. According to Burrows, the location we are working was revealed years ago to him by local Indians as a Chickasaw treasure trove, which he has never visited. Of course, we will honor Mr. Burrows request that the location which has become the focus of our labors will no longer be referred to his site, and henceforth be known, not as Burrows Cave, but as Tombs of the Embarras (pronounced Ahmbrah). Mr. Burrows has made an announcement that his site Is currently being excavated by an anonymous archaeology team from an unidentified major university. He claims that work at this undisclosed location is presently taking place. Artifacts removed, examined and photographed by the unnamed professor in charge will be allegedly turned over to him as his personal property because the landowner has deeded the site to him in some fashion. Meanwhile, Ancient American Magazine and Discovery Resources are bringing to bear virtually every kind of high-tech equipment to our site. Results have been encouraging. Ground Penetration Radar read-outs from the summer of 1999 scanned by members of Wisconsins Ho Chunk Nation from Black River Falls, Wisconsin have been made. The main tunnel system was surveyed electronically and (coincidentally?) proved to be a very close match to the map purporting to be Burrows Cave, published in Ancient American, volume 1, issue number 4. According to Mr. Burrows, five 8-foot tall, anthropomorphic statues stand in the main tunnel passageway. He further stated that these objects have what appears to be gold metal encircling the neck and continuing down to the feet. Following the g.p.r. discoveries, a megatomer specialist from Utah, Gary Hewlett, went to the site with his sensitive instruments. Mr. Hewlett has been and still continues to locate subterranean features, as far as 200 feet beneath the surface. He made three passes across the site to verify its underground tunnels and cavities. Amazingly, Hewletts survey revealed that the subterranean openings were virtually identical to those indicated on the map provided by Mr. Burrows years before. We also understood then that the site was much larger and more complex than previously imagined. G.P.R. uncovered four cavities in a row at uniform depth and size . In his professional opinion, Mr. Hewlett stated that these cavities are highly probable non-geologic spaces. Discovery Resources brought in a special metal detector able to differentiate between

smelted metal and ore. Burrows always described the underground location as filled with precious and semi-precious metals. Our detector did indeed show that large metal objects, some of copper and gold, were in vertical piles, or standing upright like statues. Burrows said that anthropomorphic art-works were common at the site, and our detector seemed to have identified vertical metallic objects. Later, Gene Storm, a mining engineer from Reno, Nevada, brought along a piece of mining instrumentation new to us. Linear Radar projects a signal through the ground sideways, and is especially effective on hillsides. He showed us how the main underground door of the site runs for 20 to 30 feet, but with a vertical down-turn of 110 feet to hit the tunnel floor. This space was filled with collapsed rubble, so we had to find another place to dig a vertical hole. using a well-drilling rig. Thanks to his expertise, Mr. Storm found the only area that rises within 30 feet of the surface, ideally suited for the entry we will attempt in the coming weeks. We plan to enter this tunnel system as soon as possible, probably soon after Christmas, 2001. Ancient American readers will be the first to get an inside look at this challenging discovery. On-site will be a licensed archaeologist, a mining engineer and a Ho Chunk Elder to represent Native Americans. Be sure to read our next issue for the latest ground-breaking news!

Map of Burrows Cave (From Ancient American Issue 42 page 38 )

The Discoverer of Burrows Cave tells how he found it

by Russell Burrows (From Ancient American Issue Number 48, 2002 ) In summer, 2001, Russell Burrows (discoverer of a prehistoric cave in southern Illinois), James P. Scherz (Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin, Madison). and Wayne May (Ancient American publisher) were Invited to participate in a combined lecture and exhibition of artifacts at Austrias Vienna Art Center. Hosted by Klaus Dona and Manfred Vikas, their Unsolved Mysteries conference played to an international audience In fifteen lecture rooms. Highlighting the event was Mr Burmws description of his subterranean discovery. Following Is the complete text of his lecture, in which he delivered the most most complete and succinct description of the potentially revolutionary site he found twenty years ago. Editor. My presentation will not bring forth to you any scientific knowledge or evidence, since I am not one who is qualified to make a determination which would lead to such a presentation. 1 wIll, instead present what I have found and what the results of that discovery are. My associates, Dr. Scherz, Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Wayne May. publisher of the Ancient American magazine at Colfax, Wisconsin, will present the scientific evidence available to them. As It turns out, discovering something such as Burrows Cave Is the easy part of new discoveries in the United States. The reason for that statement Is the fact that the present day scholars in America are stuck In the quagmire of tradition and cannot, for fear of running afoul of their peers, accept that there is history of which they are not yet aware, Still today, there are archaeologists who will tell us that Indeed Columbus discovered America and that no travelers from distant lands had knowledge of North America existing and that it was reachable (sic). Most archaeologists will tell us. as it is presented on the education channels of American television, that North America was populated via the ancient land bridge of the Bering Straits. What happens when a new discovery Is made in America? On 2 April, 1982, 1 managed to make a new discovery, of what is now called Burrows Cave. After making an effort to bring It to the attention of scholars, I was amazed when I was labeled a fraud and other titles which I wont mention here. Why? Because, as I was told by one so called scholar. nothing like this has ever been found In America before; therefore, it must be fraudulent. When I asked. How can that be true?, I was told. because that is what I was taught. In actual point of fact, many such discoveries have been made in America. One of note is the one In the Grand Canyon. Here, the U.S. Government stepped In and promptly closed It down, and, as far was we know, removed what they could to the Smithsonian Institute, where the entire thing has been lost. The second was a discovery made in Arizona. In this discovery, swords, armor and other objects were found. It was promptly labeled fraud, and every effort was made to silence all Information about It. One of the scholars Involved was Dr. Cyclone Covey, Professor Emeritus in history at Wake Forrest University. According to Dr. Covey, these objects were found In undisturbed calcite at a depth of six feet. According to the scholars who pronounced judgment on this discovery, the entire thing was an elaborate hoax. The problem with that Is that calcite is a naturally occurring sediment which Is difficult If not Impossible to create. The third Is the Michigan Plates or Soper/Savage material as they are sometimes called. Common sense dictates that there must be something wrong with the pronouncement of fraud by the experts because of the number of objects involved; they number into the thousands. I wont get into that subject because Wayne May plans on speaking on the subject and he is much more of an expert on that material than I am. The question is, What Is Burrows Cave; what or who does It represent and when?

The cave its self is 535 feet deep to Its terminal breakdown, and It is filled with a fine silt ranging from eIght feet deep to twelve feet deep. There are twelve to eighteen Inches head room between the ceiling and the top of the silt, and in width, the distance, wall to wall is, at its narrowest point, just over four feet. and at its widest, close to one hundred feet; so, it is really more on the order of a cavern than a cave. The down angle Is six degrees.
The artifacts which I recovered from Burrows Cave were located in the silt on the most part. However, some were recovered from niches and shelves along the walls. Also to be seen are lamps cut out of knobs of rock on the walls. There are several of these lamps since they seem to be positioned every fifteen or twenty feet. The area above these lamps is blacked by smoke from the lamps which most likely burned animal fat or oil of some kind. I once lit ten candles at some of the lamp positions and then turned off my lights, and was surprised that the area was well illuminated (sic). In the largest area of the cave there are five statues made of the same black material as are the artifacts displayed here. These statues are arranged in a semi-circle and they are in appearance, on the order of Egyptian figures. the left foot forward and the left arm forward. Held in left hand is a staff. These statues are dressed in gold: headdress, belts, arm bands and such. Since these statues are some eight or more feet tall and are made of the black material, I will estimate (heir weight to be four to six tons, this, since this black material is very dense and heavy. I should clarify a point here. I had to guesstimate the position of the left foot since one cannot dig that silt. When one removes one bucket full, three buckets of silt fall back into the hole. 1 also discovered that there are thirteen doorways cut Into the walls of the cave. These doorways are closed by cut and well fitted blocks of stone, the seams of which are sealed with a pitch or bees wax. I removed one of the blocks and was amazed to discover that the sealed doorways were the entrance Into a burial crypt which was about twelve feet square with a stone bier in the center. In this crypt I found the skeleton of a male, this was determined by the pelvic bone. On his skeleton was copper, gold and jewels and lying on the bier with him was his sword, ax and shield. There were, and still are, large jars, one of which was fallen and broken. Inside the broken jar was to be seen twenty or so rolled up scrolls. I did not touch them knowing full well that by doing such. I could destroy them. They are still as I left them. The next crypt which I opened and examined was much the same as the first in size and structure. However, the skeletal remains was that of a female and two children. In the area of the heart of the womans skeleton was embedded through a rib a golden blade large enough to have penetrated the heart. It appeared to me that since the blade, which was shaped like a large spear point or blade, had become locked in place by bone so that, when the effort to remove it was made, it was pulled lose from its shaft and was left in place. The children each had a large hole in their foreheads. Lying on the bier with the remains were two ax heads made of pure white marble. One of these axes fit the holes in the childrens heads perfectly. Also to be seen in this crypt is more of the large jars. but none are broken, so I cannot report what is contained in them. There is also much burial finery on all three of these skeletons. Further back and in a lower level of the cave is another burial crypt which is much larger and different in that there is a sarcophagus in the center which has a stone lid closing It. Inside is to be found a fine golden coffin much like those seen in Egyptian burials. Inside the coffin is another what appears to be a mummy. I cannot state for certain that that is the case, because I did not disturb the decaying cloth around tile body. In this crypt which was closed by a round rock wheel-like device, which, when the final cut was made, dropped into a trough and rolled downward, closing the crypt, is a shelf cut out of the stone wails, many statues of what appears to be Amen-HA the Egyptian god. There is also to be seen in this crypt many other artifacts such as what appear to be bronze spears of all sizes. Bronze swords and shields, as well as other personal items. None of this material was disturbed

by me, and the coffin was closed as well as the sarcophagus and the crypt itself. When I discovered that the cave was a burial site, nothing further was removed, and until this past year, when the site was turned over to an archaeologist. it had remained sealed, just as I had left It in July, 1989. It was that time and date that the cave was sealed. I believe Burrows Cave is truly an ancient site, the result of diffusion and, from what I observed, could date back as far as 2000 BC. From artifacts and other such objects I observed, I now believe that the site was in use until the 1600s AD. I also believe that nothing is going to be done with regards to a full-blown study of the cave. It now appears to me that the person to whom I relinquished control is giving in to peer pressure and does not want to proceed with his study. However, I will wait and see. If that Is, in fact, the case, then I will provide the information concerning location to my two associates, Scherz and May, and let them do whatever they decide with It. Since this last stateinent was made one-and-a-half years ago, Mr. Bin-rows has not divulged the whereabouts of the cave. Editor.

Sun Stone and Stone With Writing From Burrows Cave (From Ancient American Issue Number 48- December 2002)

Warrior With Sword and Severed Head From Burrows Cave (From Ancient American Volume 7 Number 47, page 10 )