Grand Junction
A piece of a centuries-old bronze cross found on a rocky side of the Grand Mesa 45 years ago could put a new spin on Spanish exploration in Colorado.
The bit of ceremonial cross – no bigger than a candy bar – disappeared long ago into the archives of some East Coast museum. But in a Da Vinci Code-stoked world that is newly pondering religious symbolism, the missing metal has taken on compelling new mystery. It has sparked a hunt for the rest of the cross and an investigation into what early Spanish explorers were doing on the 10,000- foot-high Grand Mesa.
“I think it would be great if we could find another piece to give us some answers,” said Dave Bailey, chief curator for the Museum of Western Colorado in Grand Junction and member of the Western Investigations Team.
The team will use ultra-sensitive metal detectors to comb a football field-sized area on the west of the mesa over three days this week and will take anything they find to labs at Mesa State College for analysis.
The piece of the 17th-century cross is cast with images of King Constantine, a Knights Templar-style crown encircling a cross, and pikes and trumpets under a conquistador’s shield.
According to scholars who examined the cross decades ago, those were commonplace Catholic symbols of that era. But the cross fragment also has unusual depictions of a flattop mesa and a hand holding a grail-like cup.
More than explorers
The images themselves raise questions. But the presence of the cross on the mesa side hints to Bailey that early Spanish explorers were not just looking for routes west when they traveled through Colorado before the Dominquez-Escalante expedition in 1776.
Bailey said his research into the cross’s images has led him to historical documents and maps that indicate the explorers may have been looking for the location of the treasures of ancient civilizations, sometimes called the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola or Aztlán.
“I think there was a whirlwind of activity here we know nothing about yet,” Bailey said. “My speculation is that they were looking for the lost Aztec empire.”
Bailey has historical records that show that as early as 1521, Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortéz was referring in letters to his king from what is now Mexico that there were “rich lands to the north.”
Bailey found other references the Aztecs made about an earthly paradise to the north and several Spanish maps that trace a river from California to latitudes that would place this “paradise” to areas that extend from Durango to the Grand Mesa.
Bailey said he thinks he knows what might have drawn them to the mesa.
Last year, the Western Investigations Team dug up a stone floor on the mesa that looks like stone laid in ancient Aztec ruins, but which geologists ultimately decided was created by natural forces. Bailey speculates that floor could have been exposed when the early explorers came through and they could have mistakenly thought they had found a sign of ancient civilization.
“Most important artifact”
Anita Clark didn’t know about any of that, she said, when she and her late husband, Keith, were walking near their ranch in 1961 and came upon the cross piece.
“We did know immediately it was very unusual,” she said.
They recognized some of the religious symbolism and took the cross to neighbors who were Catholic. The neighbors sent it on to a Catholic priest and historian in Colorado Springs who died of a heart attack when he was preparing to visit the site where the piece was found.
The cross piece was sent on to a curator at the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, who dated it and explained some of the images. The image of the hand holding the grail was only discovered later from pictures of the cross piece enlarged on a computer.
“It’s amazing how much symbolism is on that little piece of cross,” Bailey said of the piece he called “probably one of the most important Colorado artifacts there is.”
That’s why Bailey is querying East Coast museums to try to find where the piece ended up and have it returned to Colorado. After this week’s search, he said, he hopes to have more pieces to put with it to help solve the puzzle.
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
Spanish history in Colorado
Spain traces its claim to what is now the Southwestern United States to the 1540 Coronado expedition, which explored much of New Mexico and Arizona. While he probably didn’t reach present-day Colorado, Spain cited the trip as precedence for a claim to the Rio Grande and Colorado River basins.
Spanish explorers are believed to have reached the area prior to Don Diego de Vargas’ 1694 trip since the written record from that expedition into what is now southern Colorado refers to already named landmarks that he passed, according to The Historical Atlas of Colorado.
Spanish adventurers who traveled north from Mexico in search of riches were the first white men to see the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the Rio Grande Valley and other sections of the Rocky Mountain Territory.
Silvestre Velez de Escalante, a Catholic priest searching along with superior Francisco Domínguez for a shortcut from Santa Fe to the Pacific coast, came through what is now western Colorado on his unsuccessful trip in 1776.
Source: State of Colorado
