An egg-shaped artifact with unknown symbols, drilled holes, and carved faces, found in 1872. No similar artifact exists and its origin and purpose are unknown.
John Phelan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
An artifact unearthed
In 1872, workers digging a fence post hole in Meredith, New Hampshire, uncovered a lump of clay about six feet underground. Inside was a dark, egg-shaped stone. A local businessman who had hired the workers, Seneca A. Ladd, took possession of the artifact. Ladd, a collector of relics and specimens, kept the stone until he died in 1892. In 1927, his daughter, Frances Ladd Coe, donated the stone to the New Hampshire Historical Society, where it remains.
The object is approximately 4 inches (10.2 cm) long, 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) thick, and weighs about 18 ounces (510 grams). Analysis has shown the rock is a type of quartzite or mylonite, a fine-grained rock not native to New Hampshire. Its surface is smooth and has various carvings. One side features abstract symbols, including inverted arrows, a spiral, a moon shape, and several dots. Another side displays an ear of corn with 17 kernels, a sunken circle with a human face, and figures that have been interpreted as a tepee and a deer's leg.
A 19th-century mystery
The stone's most perplexing feature is a hole that runs through its length from top to bottom. The bore appears to have been drilled from both ends with different sized bits: one 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) and the other 3/8 inch (9.5 mm). A 1994 analysis by state archaeologist Richard Boisvert concluded the holes were extremely regular and smooth, consistent with the use of 19th or 20th-century power tools and not with techniques used by pre-colonial Native Americans. Scratches inside the lower bore suggest it was placed on a metal shaft and removed multiple times.
The origin and purpose of the stone are unknown, and no other object like it has been found in the United States. Early speculation suggested it might commemorate a treaty between two tribes. Another idea, proposed in a 1931 letter to the Historical Society, is that the object is a "thunderstone," an artifact believed to have fallen from the sky. The modern analysis of the drill holes has led some to believe the entire object is a 19th-century hoax. The symbols do not clearly match the iconography of the local Abenaki people or other known cultures.
💡Fun Facts
The stone is made from a type of quartzite or mylonite rock that is not native to New Hampshire.
One early theory proposed the artifact was a "thunderstone," an object believed in some cultures to be created by a lightning strike and to fall from the sky.
A 1994 borescope analysis revealed the two holes drilled through the stone are perfectly straight, suggesting the use of modern power tools.
The stone was acquired by Seneca Ladd in 1872 and donated to the New Hampshire Historical Society by his daughter in 1927.
