Visit Marcos de Niza Trail, Phoenix, Arizona

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Marco de Niza was an explorer that made his way through Arizona into what today is known as New Mexico. Rumor has it that he traveled through South Mountain, while onto his way to discover this land. In the 1920s Matthew E. Bellew announced the discovery of a petroglyph on his land near Phoenix that appeared to have been left by Marcos de Niza. The inscription, written in Spanish, translates to “Fray Marcos de Niza crowned all of New Mexico at his expense in the year of 1539.” Most contemporary historians quickly called it a fraud, pointing out that the reference to "New Mexico" was an anachronism in 1539 and also noting that the expedition was not carried out "at his expense". One exception to the sceptics was historian and missionary Bonaventure Oblasser who cited the petroglyph to support his assertion that the expedition passed near Phoenix (most historians today believe that Marcos traveled through eastern Arizona along the San Pedro River). In 2009 an opportunity arose to apply new analytic techniques to test the age of the inscription. These tests confirmed the original suspicions of fraud, dating the petroglyph to sometime between the 1850s and the 1920s. In order to protect this historical marking, a barred cage surrounds it.

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