The Bourne Stone
The Bourne Stone
The Bourne Stone is a 300 pound, four feet by one and a half feet slab of pink granite that is shrouded in mystery. Currently, it is displayed in the Bourne Historical Center, located at 30 Keene St. In Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. It has been displayed there since 2003. Its origins are debated, but most agree that it was originally used as a doorstep for a Native American meetinghouse. [1] The slab itself has two sides, each being unique. One side contains an inscription of some sort of language and is smooth, and the other side is rough and natural. (figure 1) It is speculated that the smooth side is from natural weathering. [2] There are many theories on what kind of language this is and the implications this could bring to the history of this area of New England.
History
The Bourne Stone has made its way around the state of Massachusetts. The estimated date it began its journey is in the 1680’s [3] as the stepping stone into a Native American meetinghouse in the Native American community of Herring Pond. According to the oral history collected by the Bourne Historical Society itself, the meetinghouse (or mission) was owned by a man by the name of Captain Tupper of Sandwich. Captain Tupper was a missionary in the 1600’s and was very influential in the area where the Bourne Stone originated. He and his father owned a lot of land in the area, and they established this meeting house to try and spread religions to the Native Americans living in this area. The meetinghouse was built close to a pond called Herring pond, and by a burial ground as well. (find a grave). It was here until 1900 when a Native American woman named Katherine Parker she moved it to her property, since the mission was no longer in use. (plymoutharch website).The property then passed on to a white family, and then finally to Percival Lombard. Percival was the one who really started to explore the property and the Native American relics held within it. (cape cod museum trail website). Lombard is the one who was important in founding the museum that exists in Massachusetts today. Many relics from his property of Native American origin rest here.
Context In Which it was Excavated
According to many sources, this relic was never truly excavated by an archeologist. Instead, it has changed hands many times between Native Americans and white people and ended up in the museum where it stays to educate many generations. The year 1935 is the first recorded time someone of an educational background looked at the stone
Psuedoarcheological Claims
The claims and theories that surround this artifact are vast. These have to do with the inscription on the stone itself. Many have tried to decode the language, its meaning and the implications behind it. Most agree that these are Native American in origin, but some disagree and have ideas of their own on where this inscription has come from.
- Edmund Delabarre from the Brown University Psychology Department explained that he thought they were petroglyphs carved into the stone by Native Americans. He said that from what he saw, these were pictures of Native American objects like a moon, a pipe, and a few colonial objects like a cross, and a Native man shaking hands with a white man. The other inscriptions he thought looked like wigwams (bourne stone timeline pdf). He went on to say in multiple articles he wrote, that he believes that “that the Portuguese explorer Miguel Corte-Real accidently began exploring New England between 1502 and 1511. Most historians agree that Corte-Real had been on mission to find his brother Gasper, who had never returned from a previous expedition to the New World. Like his brother Gasper, Miguel was never heard from again. Most believe he and his crew were lost somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean or along the coast of Newfoundland.” (wicked yankee blogspot). He thinks that the Portuguese settled in this area and made families with the Natives. (same)
- Barry Fell is the next big name to investigate the Bourne Stone. Fell is a marine biologist from the esteemed Harvard University who has made an impact in the archeological community. In his eyes, many groups had made pre-Columbian contact with the New England area. His proclamation about the Bourne Stone was that it translated to “A proclamation of annexation. By this Hanno takes Possession.” – (pre-Columbian transoceanic contact by Fitzlinger). He came to this conclusion by using the Punic alphabet from Carthage (an ancient Phoenician state). Fell thought that this writing had been used on the ancient Iberian Peninsula which is close to modern day Portugal. (wicked yankee blog post) Fell believes that this “Hanno” person was Hanno the Navigator, who came to explore the northern coast of Africa at some point in the 5th century. He founded a bunch of cities around the coast of Africa.(britannica)