At the heart of San Diego State University’s campus is Love Library, which thousands of students and staff walk past each day. Despite the changing world around it, the library has stood for almost 55 years.
However, there is a mystery surrounding its walls and an enigmatic feature on its exterior.
Hundreds of protruding stones with unknown symbols encircle the library, which are rarely noticed by students and faculty. They reside along the elevated base and between the windows as far up as the eye can see. They are not identical, but many utilize the same shapes and characteristics.
Further investigation also reveals that the symbols were not present when the library was originally built. It is currently unknown when they were added to the building and according to SDSU’s top experts, there is no definitive information about these symbols or exactly how and when they came to be.
“I don’t know what those symbols mean and I have tried and tried,” said Seth Mallios, professor of anthropology at SDSU. Mallios is also the author of the book “Hail Montezuma!: The Hidden Treasures of San Diego State.”
After extensive research, the website accompaniment for “Hail Montezuma!: The Hidden Treasures of San Diego State” seems to be the only place the symbols are easily discoverable on the internet. The website showcases a photograph of the symbols and a statement from Mallios: “Little consensus surrounds these symbols and their meaning.”
The symbols don’t appear to be Aztec, Mayan or Egyptian based on his research and script-based searches indicate they are not Kumeyaay either.
Not all the symbols are the same, but they all share the same shapes: circles, circles with a square inside, circles with tails, lines and squares. They are also all “split” in two with a line, mirroring themselves on both sides. Despite these commonalities, the symbols express a wide variety. It is currently unknown how many different types there are, but there is repetition as they go around the building and they appear to be hand-carved.
After consulting staff in the department of Special Collections and University Archives and digging through unprocessed library archives, the symbols remain elusive. However, now in more ways than one.
Many photographs from the University Archives and SDSU’s Del Sudoeste yearbook show the library without the symbols, spanning from the library’s opening in 1971 up to 1994.
Some of the photos within the range include those from the first year of the library, the commencement ceremony in 1980 and the construction of Centennial (now Manchester) Hall in 1994. The course catalog from the academic year 1994-95’s cover photo is also of the library, without the symbols.
It is easiest to note the missing symbols when comparing the elevated bases of the library in old photographs to those of today.
Mallios began working for SDSU in 2001 and said he noticed the symbols shortly after starting. Assuming these photos are dated correctly, the symbols may have been added to the library between 1994 and 2001, but the exact year is still unknown.
“One question will be, were they all added at once?” posed Mallios.
Ricardo, the evening building manager for the library, was unfamiliar with the symbols.
“I can’t quite catch what the theme is, because I don’t see it replicating anywhere else in the building, not inside, nowhere else,” Ricardo said.
Robert Schulz has been the associate vice president of real estate, planning and development for SDSU for nearly 19 years and was the chief of architecture and engineering for the California State University Chancellor’s office from 2000-2002. Schulz stated that the symbols are a mystery to him and that “if Seth [Mallios] does not know, then probably nobody does.”
Laia Williams, a second-year at SDSU, said the symbols “should mean something if they’re important enough to carve around the building.”
“I think it’s odd that there’s no records of them, because it’s a public building,” Williams said.“I feel like there’d be records of every design choice made.”
The origins and meaning of the symbols are seemingly unknown to SDSU, as not even the experts can definitively answer the many questions regarding their presence on Love Library.
