LAS VEGAS SUN, Thursday, October 22, 1970

WALTHAM, Mass. (UPI) — A stone found in a burial mound in Bat Creek, Tenn., may be evidence of a Jewish settlement on the American continent 1,000 years before Columbus.

The stone was found in 1885 by a Smithsonian institution archeological team; but its translation was made only recently by Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon, professor of Mediterranean history at Brandeis University.

He said the stone, found beneath the head of one of nine skeletons buried in the mound, contained five letters in the writing style of Canaan and was translated as “for the land of Judah."

"The archeological circumstances of the discovery rule out any chance of fraud or forgery and the inscription suggests a migration of Jews from the Near East probably to escape the long hand of Rome after the disastrous Jewish defeats in 70 and 135 A.D.," Gordon said.

Although the discovery was published in 1894, along with a sketch of the burial mound and a photograph of the stone, it went unnoticed, probably because the picture of the stone was upside down, Gordon said.

Cyrus Thomas, a member of the Smithsonian team which unearthed the skeletons and the stone, presumed the writing to be Cherokee although it bears no resemblance to the Cherokee syllabary," the Brandeis professor said.

Because of the discovery, Gordon said, "We must now reconsider material which has come to light from our south-eastern states through accidental discovery." These include Roman coins found in Tennessee and adjacent states and Jewish coins dating to the Bar Kokhba rebellion, 132-125 A.D., found by farmers around Lewisville, Hopkinsville and Clay City, Ky.