We need the American
Archeologists to face Dighton Rock

By Manuel Luciano da Silva, M. D.

Inside of the Dighton Rock Museum,  in Berkley, Massachusetts,  (40 miles south of  Boston),   there are panels for four theories: (1)  American Indian; (2) Phoenician; (3) Viking,  and (4) Portuguese. 

Various scientific techniques have been suggested,  and some have been applied,  to examined the inscriptions engraved on the 55 square  feet face of the Dighton Rock. 

Here is a list of them: 

(1)      Drawings of the inscriptions  (done before the discovery of photography) 
(2)      Black and white photos; 
(3)      Black and white photos with tangential lighting; 
(4)      Color photographs; 
(5)      Color photographs with tangential lighting during the night;
(6)       Rubbings; 
(7)       Infra red photography; 
(8)       X Rays ; 
(9)       Florescent material and then photography with black light; 
(11)    Sonogram ; 
(12)    Computer analysis; 
(13)    Neutron activation analysis

Up to now, the Dighton Rock inscriptions were
never examined and diagnosed by any archeologists or better still by any epigraphist!

 With this article I want to call the attention of all Archeologists and epigraphists  in America, Canada and all over the world! Dighton Rock is a big challenge and ‘gold mine’ for the archeologists and for their students to write articles for the magazines of Archeology!

Do the archeologists have any new scientific techniques to examine the Dighton Rock inscriptions?  

Dighton Rock is a very important American Monument!  We need the help of the American Archeologists to solve the mystery of America's  'Rosetta Stone' = Dighton Rock.  Come and help us solve the puzzle of  Dighton Rock! 

Dighton Rock Museum on the left bank of the Taunton River, in the Dighton Rock State Park,
Photo by Stanley Ulbrych

 Dighton Rock with tangential light, by Lou Mazzatenta, National Geographic Magazine, January, 1975

Because Dighton Rock is a bolder, most people think that the geologists are the ones responsible for  making  the diagnosis of  the inscriptions engraved on this famous monument. No Sir, the geologists are scientists who deal with the history of the earth and its metamorphosis. Geology studies  the earth, until man started living on this earth. The geologists can tell us that Dighton Rock is made of sandstone, that  it  is an immigrant rock during the last glacial period 11,000 years ago, that  it weighs 40 tons and  that it is upside down. Geologists are not responsible for interpreting the Dighton Rock inscriptions. Who should do it, then? The historians? No, Sir. The Archaeologists!

What is Archeology? Webster’s Dictionary tells us: “Archeology is the scientific study of extinct  peoples,   or of  past phases of the culture of historic peoples through skeletal remains, fossils, and objects  of human workmanship (as implements, artifacts, monuments, or inscriptions) found in the earth.”

Archeological  Cartouches

For us  to investigate Dighton Rock inscriptions we have to do a similar analyses like Jean Champollion did to be able to decipher the mystery of Rosetta Stone. 

What did he do? He prepared himself to decipher the archeological cartouches of Rosetta Stone. 

What is cartouche? A cartouche  is like a cartridge. It is an oval cylinder  that has inside gun powder, lead and wad and is used in a double-barrel gun. Similarly an archeological cartouche is a set of hieroglyphic characters  placed inside an oval space frame describing  a royal Egyptian name.   

It was the great archeologist Jean  Francois Champollion, who, in 1822, finally found  the decipherment to the mysterious cartouches with  hieroglyphics on  the famous Rosetta Stone. After this  sensational discovery the humanity was able to appreciate in detail more than four thousands years of Egyptian History. 

(Left) Jean Francois Champollion, who unfortunately died age the age of 42.

  How come he was able to decipher  the secret of the Rosetta Stone? Because he started  preparing  himself even before he was a teenager!  At the age of  eleven he became interested in hieroglyphics! He decided to obtain linguistic ability by learning Greek and Latin. He assumed a self appointed task of learning English, German and Italian, the modern languages to keep abreast with current scholarship about hieroglyphics. Furthermore  he learned several other languages, very important for the research of hieroglyphics: Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldean, Sancrist, Zend, Pahlavi, Parsi, Persian, and Coptic. He accomplished all this by the time he was seventeen years old! Amazing,  he became a polyglot who  learned  fourteen languages!   He was the best  prepared  archeologist, with such great variety of languages,  to be able to make the correct diagnosis of the Egyptian cartouches! 

Champollion  discovered that the hieroglyphs cartouches were a “combinations of  alphabetic symbols, representing letters, some phonetic representing a complex syllable or sound,  and  others were pictographs representing words”. An archeological cartouche is similar to a license plate of an automobile with different characters: symbols of  each  state, letters and numerals. 

Rosetta Stone. 

The top is hieroglyphic (close to the lady ‘holding’ the stone)  The middle is Demotic, old Egyptian

The bottom is Greek

The inscriptions of Rosetta stone celebrate a decree commemorating the crowning of Ptolemy V, King of Egypt from 203 to 181 Before Christ.  The  same message is written in three languages: (1) Greek, (2) Demotic (popular Egyptian),   and (3) Hieroglyphic, the old Egyptian language.

Champollion translated the Greek portion first. Using this translation as a guide he next analyzed the Demotic Egyptian text. This enabled him to learn and understand the Egyptian hieroglyphic characters. He used the deductive method, without preconceived ideas, even though he reviewed  all the results obtained by the previous scholars, he was able to think  anew to make the  differential diagnosis solving  the mystery of thousands of years!  

Ptolemy and Cleopatra

Here are the cartouches for the names of  Ptolemy and Cleopatra with Champollion’s decipherment.  Please note that  the characters are read from top to bottom and from left to right. They also show a combination of letters , syllables and sounds . If I were to write my middle name  LUCIANO in hieroglyphic cartouche it would look like something like this, from top to bottom:

L  C  A O

U  I   N

The two cartouches Champollion deciphered

The two above  belong to the name of  Ptolemy The two on the bottom  are for the name of Cleopatra 

Spend some time comparing the same symbols, on both names, so this way you will get into the heart of the great discovery made by Champollion. Now all this  seems very simple to us.  All the great original discoveries  in history and archeology have been made by amateurs. They all seem so easy after their discoveries  have been accomplished.

Archeology, an exact science 

Archeology is a more exact science than even Medicine. In archeology  the  precise diagnosis is made with the object itself. But there is one condition:  the archeologist has to be prepared with the know how in order to make the correct diagnosis.  In archeology,   circumstantial   evidence is not valid. The proof of any theory  ARE  the inscriptions   THEMSELVES.  You can have a very fancy theory, but if there are no engravings   displaying,  very clearly,  the symbols to affirm  that theory, you are all wet, you have no legs to stand up,  you do not have any theory!   It is as simple as that. That is why I love archeology! It is very pragmatic, concrete!

Many years ago I wrote an article entitled: " The Portuguese theory goes from Dighton Rock to Portugal, and not from Portugal to Dighton Rock!". This is a statement based on archeological evidence! 

Portuguese Cartouches

I have been studying the Dighton Rock inscriptions for more than fifty years. Being a medical doctor I am always open to new diagnosis. This is the reason why I am making an appeal all over the world by the Internet inviting the archeologists  to come and examine with  their scientific experience the Dighton Rock inscriptions. They will perform a service to science and to America.

I am able to decipher the archeological Portuguese cartouche of Dighton Rock because since I have been in U. S. A, I have crossed the Atlantic seventy nine times on trips to Continental Portugal, (from north to the south), and  I have learned directly the language and also became acquainted with the type of lettering and the type of numerals used in Portugal in the XV century and at the same time become familiar with the Portuguese National Symbols. 

Here is the Portuguese Cartouche with the Portuguese characters for any one to be able to read the original inscriptions on the face of the  Dighton Rock

Portuguese Coast of Arms “U” shaped,  with five Quinas of Portugal 

Portuguese Coat of Arms “V” shaped, a triangle inside of triangle  

Portuguese Cross of the Order of Christ, with 45 degree extremities. There are 317 different types of Crosses in the world, but this is unique. It is the symbol of the Portuguese sails of the Caravels. 

Miguel Corte Real is the name of the Captain that left Lisbon, Portugal on May 10, 1502,  in search of his brother Gaspar and neither  returned to Portugal. Pay attention to the shape of the letters. They are Gothic, Roman and Uncial.

The date 1511 engraved on Dighton Rock. Pay attention to the shape of the numeral 5. It is written like a capital S.

The Portuguese Cartouche of Dighton Rock

The American archaeologists need to go to Portugal and verify the symbols of this cartouche and then, upon their returning to America,  compared them with the  original inscriptions engraved on the face of Dighton Rock !

This photo was taken on November 2^nd, 1959. By Dr. Manuel Luciano da Silva and Dr. Luís Charles Wilcy Dupont  (Both Physicians)

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