A
Aguila
Guest
Found this in todays local paper. Who says older treasure and artifacts are all gone?
Pueblo priest holds answer to lost artifact
For the past 37 years, Monsignor Howard Delaney has had the prized piece of metal
By MARGIE WOOD
For some reason or other, I am unable to cut and paste the pic, so here is the link to the story. There is a good pic of the artifact.
http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1151768993/3
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
A widely traveled scrap of metal, which may have been part of a Spanish expedition in Western Colorado hundreds of years ago, is on its way to a Grand Junction museum this weekend with at least one mystery solved.
The artifact, about 5 inches long and 1 inch wide, was found by a Grand Junction family hunting for arrowheads in 1961. They could see it was embossed with religious symbols and showed it to a Catholic friend, then sent it to the Rev. John Sierra, a priest who was serving in Pueblo.
Sierra sent it for analysis by a curator at the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, and another curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was consulted, according to an article in the Southern Colorado Catholic Register in the 1960s.
They identified one of the religious pictures on the metal as a depiction of the Vision of Constantine. Another picture is a cross and crown motif, and the third depicts a leather jerkin similar to those worn by Spanish conquistadors.
Delaney holds the Spanish artifact decorated with religious and military images. Historians believe it may be traced back to 17th century Spanish exploration of what is now Western Colorado.
Anita Clark, the woman who found the piece near the foot of Grand Mesa, mentioned the discovery when she heard that the Museum of Western Colorado was researching Spanish explorers who passed through the Grand Junction area.
But she had heard that Father Sierra was dead, and history curator Dave Bailey said, "We thought this piece was lost to history."
A Denver newspaper did a story about the missing artifact on June 20, and Monsignor Howard Delaney, a retired priest living in Pueblo, recognized the picture in the newspaper. He's a friend of Father Sierra and both are keen on history. When Sierra was getting ready to go on a mission to Argentina, he gave the bit of metal to Delaney. It has been resting peacefully in Delaney's file cabinet, nestled in tissue paper in a greeting-card box, since 1969.
And no, Delaney said, Sierra isn't dead. He's living at his religious community in Silver Spring, Md., and getting ready to celebrate his 90th birthday in August.
Delaney, at 94, doesn't seem to have forgotten very many things, but he said he never got into researching the origins of the metal artifact.
Curator Bailey and two fellow scholars from Grand Junction, Mike Perry and Rick Dujay, drove to Pueblo to collect the artifact on Friday. They plan to display it at the museum in a somewhat more imposing case than Delaney's cardboard box.
Bailey said there is some speculation that the strip of bronze may have been attached to a processional cross that Spanish explorers may have used when preaching to Indians. It is broken off at the bottom and has a small hole that might be a nail hole or might just be worn away.
Bailey said an expedition led by two Spanish priests, Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez, went through Western Colorado in 1776. (In fact, the expedition left Santa Fe, N.M., in quest of an overland route to the California coast, on July 4, 1776.)
They wrote in their journals of an earlier expedition in the same area, led by Alonzo de Posada in 1686. The Grand Mesa is not far from the original Old Spanish Trail, Bailey noted. Another expedition, led by Juan Maria de Rivera, also may have preceded the Dominguez-Escalante party into Western Colorado.
The scholars who saw the artifact in the 1960s placed it in the 1600s, Bailey said, but "that's pretty early for our area."
He plans to submit the find to more experts on Spanish relics, but whether its origins can be pinned down or not, he said, "Thousands of people will be able to enjoy it."
Pueblo priest holds answer to lost artifact
For the past 37 years, Monsignor Howard Delaney has had the prized piece of metal
By MARGIE WOOD
For some reason or other, I am unable to cut and paste the pic, so here is the link to the story. There is a good pic of the artifact.
http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1151768993/3
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
A widely traveled scrap of metal, which may have been part of a Spanish expedition in Western Colorado hundreds of years ago, is on its way to a Grand Junction museum this weekend with at least one mystery solved.
The artifact, about 5 inches long and 1 inch wide, was found by a Grand Junction family hunting for arrowheads in 1961. They could see it was embossed with religious symbols and showed it to a Catholic friend, then sent it to the Rev. John Sierra, a priest who was serving in Pueblo.
Sierra sent it for analysis by a curator at the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, and another curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was consulted, according to an article in the Southern Colorado Catholic Register in the 1960s.
They identified one of the religious pictures on the metal as a depiction of the Vision of Constantine. Another picture is a cross and crown motif, and the third depicts a leather jerkin similar to those worn by Spanish conquistadors.
Delaney holds the Spanish artifact decorated with religious and military images. Historians believe it may be traced back to 17th century Spanish exploration of what is now Western Colorado.
Anita Clark, the woman who found the piece near the foot of Grand Mesa, mentioned the discovery when she heard that the Museum of Western Colorado was researching Spanish explorers who passed through the Grand Junction area.
But she had heard that Father Sierra was dead, and history curator Dave Bailey said, "We thought this piece was lost to history."
A Denver newspaper did a story about the missing artifact on June 20, and Monsignor Howard Delaney, a retired priest living in Pueblo, recognized the picture in the newspaper. He's a friend of Father Sierra and both are keen on history. When Sierra was getting ready to go on a mission to Argentina, he gave the bit of metal to Delaney. It has been resting peacefully in Delaney's file cabinet, nestled in tissue paper in a greeting-card box, since 1969.
And no, Delaney said, Sierra isn't dead. He's living at his religious community in Silver Spring, Md., and getting ready to celebrate his 90th birthday in August.
Delaney, at 94, doesn't seem to have forgotten very many things, but he said he never got into researching the origins of the metal artifact.
Curator Bailey and two fellow scholars from Grand Junction, Mike Perry and Rick Dujay, drove to Pueblo to collect the artifact on Friday. They plan to display it at the museum in a somewhat more imposing case than Delaney's cardboard box.
Bailey said there is some speculation that the strip of bronze may have been attached to a processional cross that Spanish explorers may have used when preaching to Indians. It is broken off at the bottom and has a small hole that might be a nail hole or might just be worn away.
Bailey said an expedition led by two Spanish priests, Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez, went through Western Colorado in 1776. (In fact, the expedition left Santa Fe, N.M., in quest of an overland route to the California coast, on July 4, 1776.)
They wrote in their journals of an earlier expedition in the same area, led by Alonzo de Posada in 1686. The Grand Mesa is not far from the original Old Spanish Trail, Bailey noted. Another expedition, led by Juan Maria de Rivera, also may have preceded the Dominguez-Escalante party into Western Colorado.
The scholars who saw the artifact in the 1960s placed it in the 1600s, Bailey said, but "that's pretty early for our area."
He plans to submit the find to more experts on Spanish relics, but whether its origins can be pinned down or not, he said, "Thousands of people will be able to enjoy it."
