lost civilizations of the andes (1)

Lost Civilizations of the Andes

David Pratt

January 2010

Part 1 of 2

Contents

Part 11. The Incas2. Pre-Inca cultures3. Transoceanic contacts4. The Nazca lines

Part 25. ‘Inca’ stonemasonry6. ‘Inca’ sites7. Tiwanaku

1. The Incas

In 1532 Francisco Pizarro and a small band of Spanish mercenaries landed on thedesert coast of Peru and made their way into the Andean highlands. At that time theInca empire – known as Tahuantinsuyu, or ‘land of the four quarters’ – stretched 5500km, from southern Chile to modern-day Colombia, and had a population of over 10million. The Spaniards enticed the Inca ruler, Atahualpa, to a supposedly peacefulmeeting and took him captive, promising to release him if a huge ransom was paid – aroom full of gold and two of silver. The ransom – worth about $50 million by today’sstandards – was duly paid, but the conquistadors then strangled Atahualpa to deathand marched on Cuzco, the Inca capital.

Manco Cápac, Atahualpa’s half-brother, was appointed puppet ruler, but after a fewyears of obedience, he rebelled. In 1536 the Inca army gathered outside the walls ofCuzco and in the fortress at Sacsayhuaman. A fierce battle with the Spaniards ensued.

Lost civilizations of the Andes (1)

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Thanks to their powerful war-horses, steel weapons and sheer audacity, less than 200conquistadors managed to defeat 100,000 Inca warriors, putting 1500 of them to thesword. Within a few years, and with gold-hungry reinforcements pouring in fromPanama, all serious resistance to the Spaniards was destroyed. The Incas’ last junglerefuge, at Vilcabamba, fell in 1572.

There were several reasons why the early stages of the conquest of the mighty Incaempire were largely accomplished without major battles. First, the Incas were divided:the death of the 11th Inca ruler, Huayna Capac, around 1527 was followed by a civil warin which Atahualpa deposed his brother Huascar. Second, after the arrival of theSpanish in Central America, infectious diseases such as smallpox swept through SouthAmerica, reducing the population by two-thirds. Third, the 8th Inca ruler had prophesiedaround 1432 that within five generations foreigners would come and conquer the Incas.Huayna Capac later said that he would be the last emperor, and instructed his sons and

the rest of his court to obey and serve the invaders.1 The conquistadors were thereforeinitially seen as ‘viracochas’, a reference to the Incas’ legendary white culture-bringerand creator god, Viracocha. However, due to their greed and brutality they were soonreclassified as devils.

The Inca people are said to have arrived in the Cuzco area in the 12th century AD.Atahualpa was the 13th Inca ruler since that time. However, Peruvian priests and thedescendants of the amautas, or sages, told Blas Valera, the son of a conquistador and

a female native, that their kings went back to 1220 BC.2 At first the Incas collaboratedpeacefully with other ethnic groups in the Cuzco region. Around 1430 the Chancas fromthe north invaded the area. After defeating them, the Incas began the age of expansionunder Pachacuti. Quechua was made the official language, and sun worship the officialreligion.


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Fig. 1.1 Inca expansion.3

The Inca pantheon was presided over by Viracocha, followed by Inti, the sun god, andPachamama, the earth goddess. ‘Viracocha’ is usually said to mean ‘foam of the sea’,but more literally it means ‘fat of the sea’, fat being a symbol of life and strength.Another possible interpretation is ‘tilted plane of the (celestial) sea’ – a reference to the

inclination of the ecliptic to the celestial equator.4 According to Inca mythology, the firstruler of the Kingdom of Cuzco was called Manco Cápac. In one legend, he was the sonof Viracocha, and in another, he was brought up from the depths of Lake Titicaca byInti. The Inca sovereign was held to be the ‘child of the sun’.

The Maya of Central America believed that they were living in the fourth world-age,which is widely thought to end in 2012. The Aztecs held that the current age was thefifth. The Incas likewise believed that their own culture was the fifth age, or fifth ‘sun’. Inthe first age, people were nomads, lived in caves and had to fight off wild animals. Inthe second, they lived in crude round houses in fixed settlements. In the third agepeople multiplied, practised weaving, built houses like those of today, grew crops and


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lived in harmony. The fourth age, or age of warriors, began with internal conflicts;warriors left field and family, and human sacrifices were carried out. Each world-age issaid to end with a cataclysm: the first was ended by water, the second by the ‘falling of

the sky’ (a poleshift?), the third by fire, and the fourth by air.5

The Incas believed that ‘in this world we are exiled from our homeland in the worldabove’. In Andean accounts, the ordeal required to find our way back to the celestialrealms was frequently symbolized as the crossing of a narrow bridge made of human

hair spanning a raging river.6 The Buddhists use a similar metaphor, speaking of thequest to ‘reach the other shore’, meaning the attainment of full adeptship, or as theEgyptian Pyramid Texts call it, ‘the life of millions of years’; further incarnation on earthis then unnecessary and the initiate can either enter nirvana and leave the earth behind,or stay on earth out of compassion in order to foster the progress of the rest ofhumanity. Despite the echoes of the ancient wisdom in Inca beliefs, the Inca leadersabandoned the instructions of ‘Father Sun’ that they should rule a society based onjustice and reason with ‘pity, mercy and mildness’, and introduced the degeneratepractice of human sacrifice to placate the gods – which stems from taking the

symbolism of certain initiatory rites literally.7

The conquistador Don Mancio Serra de Leguisamo, in a moment of remorse, wrote asfollows about the impact of the conquest on Inca morality:

They were so free from crimes and excesses, the men as well as the women,that the Indian who had 100,000 pesos of gold and silver in his house, left itopen, merely placing a small stick across the door as a sign that the masterwas out, and no one could enter or take anything that was inside. ... Whenthey found we put locks and keys on our doors, they supposed it was forfear of them that they might not kill us, not because they believed thatanyone would steal the property of another. So, when they found we hadthieves among us and men who sought to make their daughters commit sin,they despised us. But now they have come to such a pass, in offence ofGod, owing to the bad example we have set them in all things, that thenatives, from doing no evil, have changed into people who now do no good

or very little.8

Accomplishments

The Inca civilization is credited with the magnificent monumental architecture thatadorns its sacred sites; polygonal stone blocks are fitted so perfectly that not even arazor blade can be inserted between them, even though no mortar was used. Thebest-known temples and other structures are found at Cuzco, Sacsayhuaman,Ollantaytambo, Pisac, and Machu Picchu. As we will see later, there is no reason toattribute all examples of this construction method to the Incas.


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Fig. 1.2 Detail of ‘Inca’ wall in Cuzco.1

Mainstream archaeologists assume that the Incas built most of the agricultural terracesthat cover the hillsides of the Sacred Valley, through which runs the Urubamba river,regarded as the terrestrial counterpart of the Milky Way. The terraces usually haveretaining walls made of rough fieldstones, but at Inca royal estates such as Chinchero,Pisac, Yucay, and Ollantaytambo, they have higher walls made of cut stones. Theterraces consist of a lower layer of coarse rubble for drainage purposes, and an upperlayer of good topsoil, which sometimes had to be carried long distances up themountain from the valley below. Terraces were usually 2.4 to 4.3 m high and 1.8 to 4.6m wide, though on steep slopes they were as narrow as 1 m. In parts of the Andes,hillsides containing 100 terraces, one above the other, are not uncommon. As HiramBingham wrote: ‘It fairly staggers the imagination to realize how many millions of hours

of labour were required to construct the agricultural terraces.’2


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Fig. 1.3 Terraces at Pisac, Sacred Valley.

Fig. 1.4 Terraces at Moray. The tiered basin is 183 m wide and 79 m deep.The 12 terraces are stabilized by stone walls, some as high as 7.5 m. Thefirst six terraces are thought to have been made by the pre-Inca Wari people,who occupied the region from around 600 to 1100 AD. Some think Moraywas a ritual complex. Others believe it was a huge agricultural laboratorywhere different soils, plant varieties and temperature regimes were tried out.

The structure of the basin produces a range of different soil temperatures.3


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The Incas made use of an extensive road system, but it was not originated by them;they adapted and extended the roads made by pre-Inca engineers. At its height, theroad network was 5600 km long and included 23,000 km of interlinking roads, therebyexceeding the size of the ‘Roman’ road system (much of which predated the Romans).The roads were built on beds of masonry, and were about 7.3 m wide, but oftennarrower in the mountains. They were levelled and smoothed by paving, and in someplaces by ‘macadamizing’ with pulverized stone mixed with lime and bituminous cement.In places, roads were cut through mountains for kilometres, great ravines were filled upwith solid masonry, and rivers were crossed by means of a kind of suspension bridgeanchored by a twin stone tower at each end. The cables, made of tightly twisted plantfibre, were as thick as a man’s body. The most famous such bridge spans the ApurimacRiver in the Peruvian Andes, with cables nearly 46 m long. Some pre-Inca roads wereas much as 30 m wide and stretched hundreds of kilometres; the reason for their great

width is unknown.4


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Fig. 1.5 ‘Inca’ roads.5

The Incas used quipus for recording-keeping – knotted bundles of strings in which thenumber, type, and spacing of knots, the colour and type of string, and the generalquipu structure carried information. They were used for accounting and censuspurposes. It is thought that some quipus were literary quipus: in these, the knots werecombined with coloured rectangular signs or oval signs (‘bean signs’) known astocapus, which also appear on textiles and other objects. Tocapus should beconsidered a developed ideographic system rather than writing in the strict sense. Manyquipus with elaborate symbols were burned by the Spaniards, while others were hidden

or disposed of by the Incas themselves.6

Fig. 1.6 An old print of an Inca holding a quipu.

The common assertion that the Incas did not have a genuine form of writing is incorrect.The writing system was known as quilcas, and predates the use of quipus. Blas Valerareported that the learned scribes wrote on the leaves of plantain trees and on stones.Several other chroniclers were told that in ancient times the Inca ruler gathered the wisemen from all the provinces and ordered the history of each ruler and the lands


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conquered to be written down, along with the Inca myths and legends. The texts werewritten on sheets, glued onto large boards and set in frames of pure gold. They werestored in the Coricancha, or Temple of the Sun, in Cuzco, and only the Inca ruler andcertain scholars were able to read them. The Spanish melted down the gold frames anddestroyed nearly all the canvases. Four were sent to the Spanish king but there is notrace of them today. Inca Pachacutec VII later forbade the use of writing when an oracle

said that this was necessary to end an epidemic.7

An ancient llama wool, possibly pre-Inca, far superior to most yarns known in the worldtoday, has been found in a group of mummified llamas sacrificed in the desert ofsouthern Peru 1000 years ago. The fibre was even finer than cashmere, and seems to

have been the result of selectively breeding llamas.8 Some writers have suggested thatthe amazing variety of maize and potatoes in ancient Peru must be the result of genetic

experiments.9

References

William Sullivan, The Secret of the Incas: Myth, astronomy, and the war against

time, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996, pp. 251, 255-7.1.

Harold T. Wilkins, Mysteries of Ancient South America, Kempton, IL: AdventuresUnlimited Press, 2005 (1947), pp. 143-4.

2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inca-expansion.png.3.The Secret of the Incas, pp. 108-9; Viracocha, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viracocha.

4.

The Secret of the Incas, pp. 26-7.5.Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the lost civilization,London: Michael Joseph, 1998, pp. 282, 295.

6.

H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press(TUP), 1972 (1877), 2:564-5.

7.

Quoted in Mysteries of Ancient South America, p. 167.8.

Accomplishments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inka_mauern_cuzco.jpg.1.Hiram Bingham, Lost City of the Incas, London: Phoenix, 2003 (1952), pp. 39-40.2.Science Frontiers, no. 174, 2007, p. 1.3.W.R. Corliss (comp.), Ancient Infrastructure: Remarkable roads, mines, walls,

mounds, stone circles, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 1999, pp. 323-5; PeterJames & Nick Thorpe, Ancient Inventions, New York: Ballantine Books, 1994, pp.52-3.

4.

www.colorado.edu/geography/class_homepages/geog_3251_sum08/02_inca_roads.jpg.

5.

Igor Witkowski, Axis of the World: The search for the oldest American civilization,Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2008, pp. 174-9, 184; W.R. Corliss(comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Graphic artifacts I – coins, calendars, geoforms,

maps, quipus, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2005, pp. 160-3.

6.

Mysteries of Ancient South America, pp. 141-4; Axis of the World, pp. 173-4,180-1; Graeme R. Kearsley, Mayan Genesis: South Asian myths, migrations and

iconography in Mesoamerica, London: Yelsraek Publishing, 2001, p. 537.

7.


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W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Small artifacts – bone, stone,

metal artifacts, prints, high-technology, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2003,p. 49.

8.

Carlos Fernández-Baca Tupayachi, El Otro Saqsaywamán: La historia no contada,Lima: DFBS, 2000, p. 179.

9.

2. Pre-Inca cultures

The theory of the peopling of the Americas that became scientific orthodoxy in themid-20th century claimed that the Americas were empty of humans until about 14,000years ago when Mongoloid migrants from Northeast Asia trekked over the Bering landbridge; South America was supposedly first populated around 9 or 10 thousand yearsago. Another claim was that, with the exception of a brief visit by the Vikings in the 11thcentury, the first person to subsequently discover the Americas was ChristopherColumbus in 1492. More recently, the possibility of migrations up to several tens ofthousands of years earlier than 14,000 BP has been accepted by many scientists.However, as shown in The Ancient Americas, there is evidence that the Americas weresettled by migrants from different parts of the world over the course of millions of years,and that even in the past 4000 years explorers and traders from various continentsvisited the Americas before Columbus.

According to the theosophical tradition, the last major fragment of ancient Atlantis tosink was Poseidonis (Plato’s Atlantis), a large island located in the mid-Atlantic opposite

the Straits of Gibraltar, which was submerged about 11,500 ago.1 In the period leadingup to its final submergence, waves of migrants fled Poseidonis, and other smallerislands, as it showed increasing signs of geological instability. Some of these migrantsare associated with the appearance of successive Cro-Magnon cultures in WesternEurope and North Africa, beginning about 40,000 years ago. Caucasoid, Cro-Magnoidskeletons have also been discovered in the Americas. Theosophical literature says thatthere was a strong Atlantean influence on the Amerindians, including the later Maya

and Incas.2

The officially accepted date of the earliest civilization in South America is graduallybeing pushed back as new discoveries come to light. Some of the main pre-Incacultures of the past few thousand years are outlined below, with the main focus onPeru. The possibility that some of the artefacts and structures attributed to them are thework of even older cultures cannot be ruled out.

The radiocarbon-dating of organic material (e.g. bone, flesh, wood) found atarchaeological sites plays a key role in dating cultures of the past few tens of thousandsof years. The two main potential sources of error are the changing ratio of C14 (therelatively rare radioactive isotope of carbon) to C12 (the most abundant carbon isotope)in the atmosphere, and contamination of the sample being dated. The resulting errorscan be as large as hundreds or even thousands of years. But even if the date isaccurate, it only tells us the age of the sample, and may indicate that humans werepresent in the area at that time. It does not necessarily tell us the earliest date humansoccupied the area or the original date of construction of any stone structures at the site.


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Furthermore, there is a certain amount of selectivity in reporting results. Onearchaeologist admitted: ‘If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. Ifit does not entirely contradict them, we put it in the footnote. And if it is completely “outof date”, we just drop it.’ ‘Out of date’ refers not only to ages that are ‘too old’ but also toages that are ‘too young’. Overly recent dates are assumed to indicate later humanactivity at a site. But this could also apply to the oldest dates so far determined for a

site.3 Consequently, dogmatic pronouncements about the chronology of archaeologicalsites based on carbon-dating should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

The most ancient Peruvian skeletal remains so far found date back to 7000 BC. Thesesettlers had broad faces, pointed heads, and stood 1.6 metres tall. Early cave paintingshave been discovered at Toquepala (Tacna, 7600 BC) and houses in Chilca (Lima, 5800BC). Artefactual finds have led a growing number of scientists to believe that Peru was

first settled 20 or more thousand years ago.4

Fig. 2.1 Map of Peru.

The Ayacucho Basin in central Peru consists of archaeological sites dating from 25,000

BP to 1470 AD, occupied by a series of some 23 cultures.5 The oldest artefacts are boneand stone tools used by a preceramic hunter-gatherer culture.

The Chilca Valley lies on the coast of Peru, between the Andes mountains and thePacific Ocean, and was an important trade route to the highlands. Hunter-gatherersinhabited this region from about 6000 to 2500 BC, the two main sites being TresVentanas and Kiqche. Primitive forms of vegetables such as potatoes, yams and ullucos

were cultivated, and camelids (e.g. llamas) were domesticated.6

The Norte Chico (or Caral-Supe) civilization is associated with some 30 majorpopulation centres in north-central coastal Peru. It is currently regarded as the oldestknown civilization in the Americas, and flourished between about 3000 and 1800 BC. It


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was a preceramic culture, but is known for its monumental architecture, including largeplatform mounds built from quarried stone and river cobbles, and circular sunkenplazas. One of the main sites is Caral, a large urban settlement in the Supe Valley,some 120 km north of Lima, covering over 60 hectares. The main pyramid covers anarea equal to nearly four football fields and is 18 m tall. Caral is thought to be the modelfor the urban design adopted by Andean civilizations that rose and fell over the next fourmillennia. There are 19 other pyramid complexes scattered across the Supe Valley,which might have had a total population of 20,000. An excavated knotted textile piece

found at Caral is thought to be a primitive quipu.7

Fig. 2.2 Pyramids at Caral.

The Aspero site in the Supe Valley covered 13.2 hectares and its 17 mounds included 6truncated pyramids. The largest is called Huaca de los Idolos: it measured 40 m by 30m, and had rooms and courts on its summit. The outer platform walls are made of large,angular basaltic rocks set in adobe mortar with a smooth outer surface coated withplaster and occasionally painted. Associated radiocarbon dates range from 2900 to 1970

BC.8


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Fig. 2.3 Reconstruction of the Huaca de los Idolos at Aspero.

The oldest sunken courts date from the 4th millennium BC and their use continued forthousands of years, first in circular and later in rectangular form. Michael Moseley saysthat the enduring emphasis on sunken sacrosanct spaces reflects Andean origin mythsabout humanity emerging from caves, springs and holes in the ground. As well as beingplaces for re-enacting human emergence, the courts may have been used to veneratePachamama, mother earth, by reverently descending into and out of her womb.Subterranean plazas sometimes stand next to platform mounds, evoking ‘images ofritual processions descending into mother earth and then to father apu [mountain

spirit]’.9

El Paraíso is situated in the Chillon River Valley, 2 km from the Pacific Ocean, incentral Peru. It was the largest preceramic site in the Andes, and was occupied fromabout 1800 to 1200 BC. The site consists of 13 or 14 mounds spaced over a 60 hectarearea with a nuclear group of seven mounds in an approximate U-shape with a centralplaza. The buildings are made of about 100,000 tons of rock. As at other sites, rubbleand stone were carried in woven reed bags and piled up behind retaining walls. Theruins were home to a population of about 1500 to 3000 people, who fished, gathered

roots and wild fruit, hunted wild animals, grew cotton for textiles, and wove baskets.10


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Fig. 2.4 Reconstruction of a prototypical U-shaped monument complex. There are atleast 25

other documented sites in South America that share the distinctive El Paraíso layout.11

The Casma Valley on the northwest coast of Peru has numerous archaeological sites.The main one is Sechín Alto, which was occupied between about 1800 and 900 BC.James Jacobs writes:

With a U-shaped monument plan covering about 200 ha, it is one of thelargest constructions ever built in Prehispanic America. Five plazas extend1.4 km from the central mound, three with central sunken courts, one ofwhich is about 80 m in diameter. The main mound is 44 m high by 300 m by250 m, making it the largest single construction in the New World during thesecond millennium B.C. The mound was faced with granite blocks, some

weighing over 2 tons.12

Beginning about 900 BC virtually all the coastal centres were abandoned within acentury or two, coinciding with several hundred years of severe drought.


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Fig. 2.5 Reconstruction of the Sechín Alto monument complex.

Fig. 2.6 Above: The 4.15-m-high granite palisade wall at Sechín Alto, made

up of 400 sculptures.13 They appear to have been randomly assembled fromanother site. Below: The first of these two sculptures shows a man severed

at the waist.14


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In 2007 archaeologists discovered a 5500-year-old circular, sunken plaza at the SechínBajo complex in Casma, making it one of the oldest recognized structures in theAmericas. It was hidden beneath a later structure. The plaza has lower levels that could

be even older.15

The Chavín culture flourished from 900 to 200 BC, and occupied the northern Andean

highlands of Peru, about halfway between the tropical forests and coastal plains.16 Fora long time it was considered to be the first Peruvian civilization. The Chavín peoplecultivated crops using an irrigation system, tamed llamas, developed the techniques ofgold, silver and copper metallurgy, and produced beautiful gold artefacts. They alsomade exquisite textiles, ceramics, and musical instruments. Chavín art forms makeextensive use of a technique known as ‘contour rivalry’. The 7-foot-high Raimondi stela,made of polished granite, is one of the finest examples of this technique. The art isdifficult to understand because it was intended to be read only by high priests. Somesculptured heads have mucus pouring from the nose, something that happens whencertain hallucinogenic drugs are used.


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Fig. 2.7 Chavin territory.17


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Fig. 2.8 The Raimondi stela, Chavin de Huantar. It bears a remarkablysophisticated carving of a staff god, which is also visible if the statue is


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inverted. This stela could not have been made with stone tools or copper

chisels!18

The Chavín culture’s main architectural achievement was the remarkable temple knownas the Castillo at Chavín de Huántar, a temple complex covering 15 hectares. Built ofwhite granite and black limestone from distant quarries, its walls and galleries werefilled with sculptures of ferocious deities with feline features. It has seven majorsubterranean rooms. Michael Moseley writes:

Less than one-tenth the magnitude of the great platform at Sechín Alto, whatthe Castillo lacks in size is compensated for by remarkable engineering, finemasonry, and marvelous stone art. The engineering is fascinating because aquarter of the Castillo interior is hollow and occupied by a labyrinth of narrowgalleries roofed by great slabs of stone. Built at different levels, somegalleries are connected by stairways and by an elaborate maze of smalldrains and vents that pass beneath the exterior plazas. ... [B]y flushing waterthrough the drains and venting the sound into the chambers and then outagain the temple could, quite literally be made to roar! ... The stonework at Chavín de Huantar was unquestionably the product of amaster craftsman, and the Castillo reflects professional engineering as well

as substantial corporate labour.19

Fig. 2.9 The Castillo, Chavín de Huántar.20


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Fig. 2.10 Entrance to the Castillo.

The Moche civilization (also known as the Mochica or Early Chimú culture) flourished

on the coast of northern Peru from about 100 to 800 AD.21 The Moche are particularlynoted for their sophisticated ceramics and pottery, skilful metalwork, monumentalconstructions, and impressive irrigation systems. They were a warlike people, and manyceramics show brutal scenes of human sacrifice and blood drinking. The Moche werealso traders and had contact with the Ica-Nazca culture to the south. The Mocheculture’s demise was probably precipitated in the 6th century by a super El Niño thatresulted in 30 years of intense rain and flooding followed by 30 years of drought.

At their capital, the Moche built two flat-topped pyramids, the Huaca del Sol (Pyramid ofthe Sun) and the Huaca de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon). The Huaca del Solconsisted of over 130 million adobe bricks and was the largest pre-Columbian adobestructure built in the Americas. It was partly destroyed when the Spaniards mined itsgraves for gold. Today its platform measures 340 by 160 m and stands over 40 m high.The nearby Huaca de la Luna is a better-preserved but smaller temple.


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Fig. 2.11 Huaca del Sol.

The Lord of Sipán tomb is a Moche site that was found intact and untouched by thievesin the Lambayeque valley, 35 km east of Chiclayo, in 1987. The complex consists ofthree huge mudbrick pyramids with flat tops. The ruler of Sipán was buried there in 200AD. His tomb has yielded an extraordinary cache of artefacts, including finely craftedgold and silver ornaments, large, gilded copper figurines, and wonderfully decoratedceramic pottery. The gold-plated silver and copper jewellery could only have been made

with the help of electrolysis.22

The Chimú culture developed in the same coastal valleys of northern Peru where theMoche existed centuries before, and lasted from about 1000 AD to the late 1400s. TheChimú state underwent considerable expansion in the late 13th and early 14thcenturies, but was conquered by the Incas around 1475. The Chimú were skilful pottersand metalworkers, and built elaborate irrigation systems. Their capital city, Chan Chan,

covered over 20 square kilometres and had a population of around 70,000.23 The Chimúworshipped the moon, regarding the sun as a destroyer, and mummified their dead.

The La Cumbre canal (or intervalley canal) is several metres wide and 113 km long, andis thought to have been built by the Chimú around 1050-1300 AD to bring water fromthe Chicama river into the Moche valley. It is part of a complex network of aqueductsand canals to transport water from mountain streams to irrigated fields. Runningthrough difficult terrain, it represents an enormous amount of labour, and displays ahigh level of hydraulic engineering expertise. Parts of the canal were cut through rockand soil but many kilometres ran between embankments of rocky soil. In some places ittowered 21.4 m above the surrounding terrain. Maintaining the proper slope inmountainous country was no mean task. To achieve maximum hydraulic efficiency, the


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cross section of the canal changes around curves, and where necessary the texture ofthe canal walls was varied to decrease water speed. It is believed that the canal wasnever used in its entirety because tectonic forces repeatedly raised or lowered sections

of it, and today several sections runs uphill.24 However, the canal could be far older thancurrently believed.

The Chimú built huge, sophisticated defensive structures from millions of adobe bricks.La Fortaleza, a fortress at Paramonga, 200 km north of Lima, was begun by the Chimú

and later modified by the Incas.25 To protect the Chimú empire, walls 1.5 to 2 m highwere built beginning about 500 BC. The Chimú’s Great Wall of Peru, discovered duringan aerial survey in 1931, was much more ambitious, and extends as far as 80 km inland.Several circular and rectangular forts were built along the wall. The wall is made ofbroken rocks and adobe cement, and now averages about 2.1 m in height; its originalheight averaged 3.7 to 4.6 m. In places it is still 6 to 9 m high where it crosses gullies.Other great walls attributed to the Chimú have also been discovered. The Incas builttheir own Great Wall further south, in Bolivia. Made of broken stones, it is probablyabout 240 km long, and seems to be the longest in South America, though is only a few

feet high. It is built at altitudes of 2440-3660 m in extremely rugged terrain.26

The Paracas culture inhabited the south-central coast of Peru between about 600 and175 BC. It had an extensive knowledge of irrigation and water management, andshowed superb skills in textile weaving. Two necropolises dated to about 300 BC haveyielded several hundred mummies, some of which have hair that is wavy, light brown,even reddish – more typical of a European than an indigenous American. They were

also substantially larger than the average Andean.27 Some of the oldest traces of writingcome from the Paracas necropolis culture, and take the form of bean signs on funerary

textiles. Similar signs were discovered on the later Nazca culture’s textiles.28

The Paracas ‘Trident’ or ‘Candelabra’ is a huge cactus-shaped figure carved into ahillside at Pisco Bay on the Peruvian coast. It measures about 240 m long by 120 mwide, with trenches a metre deep, and can be seen from as far as 24 km out to sea. It isaligned almost exactly north-south. It is variously regarded as a navigational aid or as aritual object, representing a cactus or tree of life, where high priests worshipped thesetting sun. Paracas-culture pottery dated to about 200 BC has been found there.Graham Hancock notes that 2000 years ago, viewed from a kilometre out to sea, theconstellation known as the Crux (Southern Cross) would have been suspended in the

sky directly above the cliff diagram at the March equinox.29


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Fig. 2.12 The Candelabra.

The Nazca (or Nasca) culture inhabited the coastal valleys of southern Peru from the1st to 8th centuries AD. They constructed mudbrick pyramids up to 30 m high, andmade beautiful polychrome pottery. They are widely believed to have made most of theNazca ‘lines’ – vast geometric and animal figures etched into the desert floor (seesection 4). The main ceremonial centre was Cahuachi, a site covering 1.5 sq km andcontaining over 40 mounds (modified natural hills) topped with adobe structures.


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Fig. 2.13 Adobe pyramid at Cahuachi.30

Fig. 2.14 Cahuachi reconstruction.31


24

The Nazca people are believed to have built the impressive system of tunnels, wells andtrenches – known collectively as puquios – to obtain water from subterranean water

sources.32 But the truth is that no one can say for certain who originated them. Most ofthe excavated tunnels are less than one metre square, but some are about two metreshigh. The walls of the tunnels are lined with river cobbles without the use of mortar, andat the uppermost end the water filters between the stones into the gallery. The roof ofthe galleries is made of dressed granite slabs or wooden logs. The tunnels lie about 3to 6 m underground, and it is not known for how many kilometres they run. Two of thempass beneath the bed of the Nazca river. The tunnels are connected with the surface byfunnel-shaped holes (ojos), which also served as wells. The local population believedthat the water in the puquios flowed from a great lake beneath Cerro Blanco – a2500-m-high mountain not far from Nazca, topped by an enormous sand dune. Thereare 36 puquios still functioning in the Nazca drainage today.

Fig. 2.15


25

Fig. 2.16

Pachacamac, 40 km southeast of Lima, comprises a vast complex of monumentalbuildings, including 18 mud-brick stepped pyramids with ramps and plazas. The area

was settled by the Lima culture around 200 BC, and the main ruins are allegedly nomore than 1500 years old. Named after the creator god Pachacamac, the nearly600-hectare site drew pilgrims who came to worship and bury their dead. Later it wasoccupied by the Wari culture, and became one of the most sacred places of the Inca

empire.33


26

Fig. 2.17 Pachacamac Temple of the Sun and an ‘English’ sign. The temple isattributed to the Incas but there is believed to be an older temple beneath it.

The Wari (or Huari) culture flourished in the Andes in the south-central coastal area of

modern-day Peru, from about 500 to 900 AD.34 Its empire expanded to include much ofthe territory of the earlier Moche and Chimú cultures. The civilization was contemporarywith that of the Tiwanaku culture to the south. The Wari are believed to have developed


27

terraced field technology and a major road network, which the Incas inherited severalcenturies later. However, Andean tradition also gives the name ‘Wari’ to a race ofprehistoric master-builders, described as white, bearded giants who, after being created

at Lake Titicaca, set forth to civilize the Andes.35

Fig. 2.18 Territory of the Wari and Tiwanaku cultures.

Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) lies near the southeastern shore of Lake Titicaca in westernBolivia. It flourished as the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power forapproximately 500 years. The official view is that it began as a small agriculturally-basedvillage around 1500 BC, and became the capital of a powerful empire between 300 and1000 AD, after which it was hit by a protracted drought. The culture practised asophisticated form of agriculture and is credited with a number of monumentalstructures. The last traces of the Tiwanaku civilization were incorporated into the Incaempire around 1450. Nonmainstream views of Tiwanaku are considered in section 7.


28

The Chachapoyas, also called the Warriors of the Clouds, lived in the cloud forests inthe northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru. The people were taller and hada much fairer skin than other Native Americans. People began settling in this area by200 AD, and the Chachapoyas culture is thought to have developed a few hundredyears later. In the 15th century, the Inca empire expanded to incorporate theChachapoyas region.

Kuelap is situated on a 3000-m-high ridge overlooking the Utcubamba valley. The site isofficially attributed to the Chachapoyas culture, which occupied it from about 600 AD.Measuring about 600 m long by 110 m wide, the ruined citadel – usually called a‘fortress’ – is surrounded by enormous walls towering up to 20 m high, constructed fromgigantic limestone slabs arranged in geometric patterns, some sections being faced withrectangular (ashlar) granite slabs over 40 layers high. Within the walls are hundreds ofround stone houses decorated with a distinctive zigzag or diamond pattern, small

carved animal heads, condor designs, and intricate serpent figures.36


29

Fig. 2.19 Outer walls of Kuelap.


30

Fig. 2.20 Restored round house.


31

Fig. 2.21 Zigzag pattern.

The walls at Kuelap bear a curious resemblance to walls found at the Great Zimbabwe(lit. ‘stone buildings’) in the province of Masvingo, Zimbabwe (the country is named afterthe ruins). The site covers 722 hectares, and the mainstream belief is that constructionwas started in the 11th century by Bantu-speaking ancestors of the Shona people, andcontinued for over 300 years. Alternative theories are that the original structures were

built by Phoenicians or Celts/Sabaeans thousands of years ago.37


32

Fig. 2.22 Granite, 11-m-high outer walls of the Great Enclosure at the Great Zimbabwe.

Note the same zigzag pattern as at Kuelap.38

The Marcahuasi (or Markawasi) plateau, 4000 metres above sea level, is located inPeru’s Junin province, 80 km northeast of Lima. Hundreds of enormous rocks on theplateau take on an eerie resemblance to animals and human faces when viewed from

certain angles and under certain lighting conditions.39 Men and women of various racesand nationalities can be identified, along with a wide array of animals such as horses,camels, elephants, lions, frogs, seals, turtles, sphinxes, a hippopotamus, sea lions orseals, a crocodile, and lizards. Many believe that these forms are nothing but naturallyeroded rocks, while others contend that humans had a hand in carving them. Thoughknown to the local population, Marcahuasi achieved prominence after being discoveredby Peruvian archaeologist Daniel Ruzo in 1952. He claimed that the ‘Masma culture’had lived there some 10,000 years ago, before ‘Noah’s flood’!


33


34

Fig. 2.23 Two human faces in the Marcahuasi stone forest.40

References

See Theosophy and the seven continents and Sunken continents versuscontinental drift, http://davidpratt.info.

1.

See The Ancient Americas, section 8.2.Sean Hancock, An interpretation and critique of the radiocarbon database forTiahuanaco, 2001, www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockS2-p1.htm.

3.

Peru: general information, www.stanford.edu/group/peruanos/informa/general.htm.4.Ayacucho, www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/sites/ayacucho.html.

5.

Chilca Valley, www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/south_america/chilca.html.

6.

Norte Chico civilization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norte_Chico_civilization; Caral,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral.

7.

James Q. Jacobs, Early monumental architecture on the Peruvian coast: evidence

of socio-political organization and the variation in its interpretation, 2000,www.jqjacobs.net/andes/coast.html.

8.

Michael E. Moseley, The Incas and their Ancestors: The archaeology of Peru,9.


35

London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, p. 119.Early monumental architecture on the Peruvian coast; El Paraiso,www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/south_america/elparaiso.html.

10.

www.jqjacobs.net/andes/coast.html.11.Early monumental architecture on the Peruvian coast.12.http://wiki.sumaqperu.com/es/images/3/30/Sechin_huaraz_1.13.www.nazcamystery.com/casma_sechin.htm.14.Sechin Bajo, the oldest archeological site of the New World,www.granpaititi.com/AN/cite_sec.php.

15.

Chavín culture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavín_culture; James Q. Jacobs,Understanding Chavín and the origins of Andean civilization, 2000,www.jqjacobs.net/andes/chavin.html; Chavin de Huantar,www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/south_america/chavin_de_huantar.html; Chavin de Huantar, www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/chavin-de-huantar.html.

16.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav%C3%ADn_culture.17.www.latinamericanstudies.org/chavin/raimondi.gif.18.The Incas and their Ancestors, pp. 163, 168.19.www.arqueologiadelperu.com.ar/chavin2.htm.20.Moche, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche.21.Carlos Fernández-Baca Tupayachi, El Otro Saqsaywamán: La historia no contada,Lima: DFBS, 2000, pp. 178-9.

22.

Chimu, www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/cultures/chimu.html.

23.

W.R. Corliss (comp.), Ancient Infrastructure: Remarkable roads, mines, walls,

mounds, stone circles, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 1999, pp. 11-13;Rafael Larco Hoyle, Los Mochicas, Lima: Metrocolor, 2001, pp. 299-303,http://losmochicas.perucultural.org.pe/pdf/tl_298_301.pdf.

24.

W.R. Corliss (comp.), Ancient Structures: Remarkable pyramids, forts, towers,

stone chambers, cities, complexes, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2001, pp.109-10.

25.

Ancient Infrastructure, pp. 367-9; David Hatcher Childress, Lost Cities and AncientMysteries of South America, Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited, 1986, pp. 340-1.

26.

Robert M. Schoch, with Robert Aquinas McNally, Voyages of the Pyramid Builders:

The true origins of the pyramids from lost Egypt to ancient America, New York:Tarcher/Putnam, 2003, p. 114; W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies:

Small artifacts – bone, stone, metal artifacts, prints, high-technology, Glen Arm,MD: Sourcebook Project, 2003, p. 40.

27.

Igor Witkowski, Axis of the World: The search for the oldest American civilization,Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2008, p. 181.

28.

W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Graphic artifacts I – coins,

calendars, geoforms, maps, quipus, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2005, pp.44-5; Dilwyn Jenkins, The Rough Guide to Peru, New York: Rough Guides, 5thed., 2003, p. 204; Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the

lost civilization, London: Michael Joseph, 1998, pp. 257-8.

29.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahuachi.30.http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?attachment_id=237.31.Donald A. Proulx, Nasca puquios and aqueducts, http://people.umass.edu/proulx/online_pubs/Zurich_Puquios_revised_small.pdf; Erich Von Däniken, Arrival of theGods: Revealing the alien landing sites of Nazca, Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element,

32.


36

2000, pp. 66, 77-87.The Peruvian lost city of Pachacamac, www.nazcamystery.com/pachacamac.htm.33.Wari culture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wari_culture.34.William Sullivan, The Secret of the Incas: Myth, astronomy, and the war against

time, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996, p. 219.35.

The Rough Guide to Peru, p. 408; Kuelap, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuelap;Kuelap, www.arqueologiadelperu.com.ar/kuelap.htm.

36.

Great Zimbabwe National Monument, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe_National_Monument; David Hatcher Childress, Lost Citiesand Ancient Mysteries of Africa & Arabia, Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited,1990, pp. 343-9.

37.

http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-1691408199-image.jpg.38.Robert M. Schoch, The mystery of Markawasi, 2005, http://circulartimes.org/Mystery%20of%20Markawasi.htm; Ancient Infrastructure, pp. 115-16; Lost Citiesand Ancient Mysteries of South America, pp. 338-9; Marcahuasi: the most

important of all sacred mountains?, 2009, www.peru-vacation-packages.com/2009/06/marcahuasi-most-important-of-all-sacred.html.

39.

Markahuasi stone forest, www.pbase.com/locozodiac/locozodiac_120.40.

3. Transoceanic contacts

As shown in The Ancient Americas, there is strong evidence that voyages to North,Central and South America have been taking place from many parts of the world forcountless thousands of years. Orthodox historians and archaeologists, however, preferto deny the evidence for transoceanic trade and cultural diffusion. They tend tovigorously defend their own specialized fields against ‘interference’ from outsiders, andgenerally feel no incentive, or lack the knowledge, to recognize common cultural traits.Where similarities are acknowledged, they are automatically attributed to ‘independentinvention’.

Mainstream archaeologists even have difficulty accepting that there were contactsbetween Central and South America! The Olmecs of Mesoamerica, who thrived from1200 to 400 BC, seem to have been influenced by many different cultures, including

Nubia and China.1 They also appear to have had contact with the Chavín culture ofnorthern Peru. The Olmecs believed that the jaguar confers superiority on warriors; itsimage is very common and often takes the form of a jaguar-man. A jaguar cult and thejaguar-man also appear in the Chavín culture. Chavín de Huántar was not only acultural and ceremonial centre, but also a key commercial centre, where several traderoutes met. The Olmecs may have introduced maize to Peru during the early Chavín

period, in exchange for coca leaves.2

There is considerable evidence that coastal civilizations of northern Peru traded with theMaya of Central America. The Incas had a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy and,like many other cultures, conveyed information about the precession of the equinoxes intheir mythology. William Sullivan argues that there are too many precisecorrespondences between Mayan and Andean astronomical ideas to be explained away

by coincidence.3 By 1800 BC trade was taking place with Ecuador as Spondylus shells


37

from that country have been found in graves at ancient Peruvian sites such as LaGalgada. Before the conquest, Pizarro’s expeditionary force recorded that they met

large, loaded, trading seagoing rafts off Ecuador, far from the sight of land.4

Noting that long-distance sea traders from the Middle East, China, Japan, and India,were operating from at least the 5th millennium BC, Graeme Kearsley points toextensive textural, iconographic and artefactual evidence showing that cultural transfertook place from the Middle East and Asia across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to theAmericas. Pre-Columbian South America underwent abrupt cultural and technologicaladvances that were apparently not the result of internal developments. He argues that itis no accident that all of the most important advances took place on the Pacific Coast of

South America.5

He argues that for hunter-gatherers to turn into monument builders in one step isunparalleled, and suggests that the ‘first’ remarkable Peruvian monuments (e.g. ElParaíso, Sechin Alto) were initiated by mariners familiar with the traditions of West Asiaand later India. Excavations have revealed that rooms at El Paraíso were filled after acertain period and that new structures were then built on the elevated platform – a

practice also found in the Middle East.6

The sudden introduction of the heddle loom and associated weaving techniques inSouth America in the first half of the 1st millennium BC has no developmentalsequences leading up to it. Other textile arts such as painted textiles and batik (awax-resist dyeing technique) appear in the same unaccountable way. The batiktechnique is most famously associated with Indonesia, where it appeared in the sametimeframe as in Peru. Kearsley concludes that this points to ‘contact between India andSouth America, via Indonesia, to the coastal region of Peru and the Andean highlandsof South America’. He also suggests that the sudden appearance of ceramics at coastalsites such as Sechin Alto around 1800 BC and the sudden rise of widespread canal

building and irrigation schemes were connected with outside influences.7

The cruelties and torture inflicted on prisoners by the Assyrians are emulated by theMoche from the 1st millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD. Kearsley writes:

The ‘pegging-out’ of prisoners, illustrated in flaying scenes, are reflected inmany Moche ceramic illustrations along with prisoners racked or tied toframes among other recognisable tortures and executions that were such afeature of the Pre-Columbian cultures in the Americas. Trophy heads andthe accumulation of these severed heads in Assyria reflect the Aztectzompalli, or skull racks that appear to be so similar to those in AncientMexico and beyond in South America that it would indeed appear that thispart of the Peruvian Coast was heavily influenced from the Ancient Near East

if not directly from Assyria itself.8


38

Fig. 3.1 From the 3rd millennium BC onwards, early Andean ceremonialsites, with their curved walls, are similar in design to towns in the ancient

Middle East. Left: Layout of Warka, Sumeria (Iraq). Right: La Galgada, Peru.9

Pre-Columbian South American metallurgy was remarkably sophisticated, and some ofthe developments may reflect Asian influences. The Chavín culture, for example, wascharacterized by sudden metallurgical advances such as gold technology, soldering,sweat welding, silver-gold alloys, and embossing (repoussé).

The high quality of Chavin ornamentation and craftsmanship is sosophisticated and so profuse and complex in design that it has beenproposed that it is the product of specialist full-time artisans. This would infact follow the examples found in both Ancient Assyria in the same time bandof the first half of the first millennium B.C. and of India later in that

millennium.10

Pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Chavín and Moche cultures, producedextremely beautiful gilded objects. Even older fragments of gilded copper foil, datingback to perhaps 1400 BC, have been found at Mina Perdida, south of Lima, Peru; boththe copper and gold had been beaten into thin sheets and then united by anunidentified adhesive, probably aided by the application of heat. The oldest artefacts ofcold-hammered native gold so far found are beads discovered at Jiskairumoko in the

Lake Titicaca basin, dated to around 2000 BC.11


39

Fig. 3.2 Copper foil fragment with adhering piece of gold foil found at Mina Perdida.

Pre-Columbian metal workers were familiar with platinum, and were able to amalgamateplatinum and mercury to make platinum-plated jewellery. The Incas knew how to makebronze; some bronze artefacts recovered from Machu Picchu even contained 18%bismuth in addition to tin. Many South American gold objects were found to be madefrom alloys containing considerable copper and were therefore much less precious thanoriginally imagined. Modern metallurgists have speculated that South American gildersmight have used mercury to bond gold to copper. Gold, too, may have been used as asort of solder. A copper arrowhead found in Ecuador was found to have been solderedwith silver or a silver-copper alloy. A prehistoric copper rattle found at Supe on thePeruvian coast consisted of two bell-shaped halves expertly welded together in a

virtually seamless joint.12

Gold ornaments of microscopic dimensions have been found in pre-ColumbianEcuador. Some tiny particles of gold, when viewed through a magnifying glass, arefound to be beautifully wrought beads. Many are elaborately engraved or chased,others are built up of several almost invisible pieces welded or soldered together, andall are pierced. It’s hard to see how such minute objects, many times smaller than thehead of a pin, could have been produced without the help of a lens. Crude lenses canbe made from crystal. The existence of superbly carved crystal skulls shows thatpre-Columbian cultures in South America and Mesoamerica knew how to carve rock

crystal – but we do not know what techniques they used to do this so expertly.13

Trepanation is a highly skilled surgical operation that involves making holes in the skull– for medical or ritual reasons. Prehistoric trepanned skulls have been found in theAmericas, Europe, North Africa, the Canary Islands, Australia and the western Pacific.Its widespread practice may be the result of diffusion rather than independent invention.The most primitive procedure involved scraping away the bone with sharp flakes ofobsidian or flint. Another technique was to drill a circle of small holes in the skull, takingcare not to puncture the membranes enclosing the brain; the ridges between the holeswere then cut out and the circular piece of bone removed. In Peru a more hazardousprocedure was sometimes used; rectangular pieces of skull were removed by makingfour straight incisions with metal saws. The same procedure was also used in theMiddle East. Inca surgeons were successful 80% of the time, whereas trepanation in theearly 20th century succeeded only 20% of the time. Trepanation in South America iscurrently thought to have begun about 400 BC. The oldest trepanned skull so far foundcomes from Spain and has been dated to 10,000 BP – totally at odds with the traditional


40

image of brutish cavemen.14

Fig. 3.3 A trepanned skull from Inca Peru.15

Kearsley argues that the caste system imposed from the earliest times in Peru was

imported from the ancient Near and Middle East, Iran, and India in particular.16 Severalresearchers have highlighted the close similarities between the social structures amongthe Incas and those found in ancient India, Indonesia and Melanesia. H.P. Blavatskywrites as follows about the parallels between the Incas and the Indian Brahmans.

The Incas, judged by their exclusive privileges, power, and ‘infallibility,’ arethe antipodal counterpart of the Brahmanical caste of India. Like the latter,the Incas claimed direct descent from Deity, which, as in the case of theSuryavansha dynasty of India, was the Sun. According to the sole butgeneral tradition, there was a time when the whole of the population of thenow New World was broken up into independent, warring, and barbariantribes. At last, the ‘Highest’ deity – the Sun – took pity upon them, and, inorder to rescue the people from ignorance, sent down upon earth, to teachthem, his two children Manco Capac and his sister and wife, Mama OellaHuaca – the counterparts, again, of the Egyptian Osiris, and his sister andwife, Isis, as well as of the several Hindu gods and demi-gods and theirwives. ... It is from this celestial pair that the Incas claimed their descent; andyet, they were utterly ignorant of the people who built the stupendous andnow ruined cities which cover the whole area of their empire ... As the directdescendants of the Sun, they were exclusively the high priests of the statereligion, and at the same time emperors and the highest statesmen in theland; in virtue of which, they, again like the Brahmans, arrogated tothemselves a divine superiority over the ordinary mortals, thus founding likethe ‘twice-born’ [Brahmans] an exclusive and aristocratic caste – the Inca


41

race. Considered as the son of the Sun, every reigning Inca was the highpriest, the oracle, chief captain in war, and absolute sovereign ... To hiscommand the blindest obedience was exacted; his person was sacred; andhe was the object of divine honours. The highest officers of the land couldnot appear shod in his presence; this mark of respect pointing again to anOriental origin; while the custom of boring the ears of the youths of royalblood and inserting in them golden rings ‘which were increased in size asthey advanced in rank, until the distention of the cartilage became a positivedeformity,’ suggests a strange resemblance between the sculptured portraitsof many of them that we find in the more modern ruins, and the images ofBuddha and of some Hindu deities, not to mention our contemporarydandies of Siam, Burma, and Southern India. In that, once more like in India,in the palmy days of the Brahmin power, no one had the right to eitherreceive an education or study religion except the young men of the privilegedInca caste. And, when the reigning Inca died, or as it was termed, ‘wascalled home to the mansion of his father,’ a very large number of hisattendants and his wives were made to die with him, during the ceremony ofhis obsequies, just as we find in the old annals of Rajasthan, and down tothe but just abolished custom of Suttee. ... What we want to learn is, howcame these nations, so antipodal to each other as India, Egypt, and America,to offer such extraordinary points of resemblance, not only in their general

religious, political, and social views, but sometimes in the minutest details.17

Commenting on long-eared statues of the Buddha, Blavatsky writes: ‘The unnaturallylarge ears symbolize the omniscience of wisdom, and were meant as a reminder of thepower of Him who knows and hears all, and whose benevolent love and attention for all

creatures nothing can escape.’18 The actual physical elongation of the ears as a mark ofsocial rank and power in many different cultures may have arisen after the originalpurely symbolic meaning had faded.

The ruling caste of the Inca peoples, the Ayar Incas, parallels the Aryan-Brahman casteof ancient India. ‘Ayar’ appears to be a variant of ‘Aryan’, which is derived from ‘arya’, aSanskrit word meaning ‘worthy, holy, noble’. The name of the Hindu fire god, Agni, isrelated to ‘ignis’, the original ancient root for fire, and is similar to Inti, the Ayar Inca termfor the sun. ‘Agnikayana’ refers to the ancient Vedic fire altar rituals, designed to ensurethat the sun remained in the sky. Among the Incas, a possibly related word ‘intihuatana’means ‘hitching place of the sun’, and refers to a shaped stone, a ‘rock phallic pillar’,

found at sacred places such as Machu Picchu, Pisac and Qenko.19 According to Cuzcolegend, the Inca ruler would ritually tie the sun to the post on the day of the wintersolstice to bring it back in the opposite direction.


42

Fig. 3.4 The Hindu god Shiva was often depicted with a lunar crescent on his topknot(left).

Lunar crescents are also seen on Inca hats (right).20

From the centre of Inca Cuzco, 41 lines, or ceques, radiated outward: some were truepathways for ceremonial purposes (including human sacrifices in times of drought);some were boundary lines defining where specific kinship groups lived; and others weresight lines with astronomical and calendric functions. Situated along them are about 328huacas (wakas) or shrines, including springs, fountains, bridges, houses, hills, caves,and legendary tombs and battlefields. The hub or ‘navel’ of the ceque system was astone structure, possibly a gold-covered platform and/or pillar (long since destroyed),called the ushnu, located in the main city square. It is interesting to note that the topknotof the Buddha, representing the crown chakra and its irradiance, was called theushnisha. Cuzco’s ceques were divided into four unequal pie-shaped slices – a practicealso found in Melanesia. Other features found in both Melanesia and Peru includetrepanation, cranial deformation, panpipes and bark trumpets, star clubs and other

weapons, along with many parallels in myths and legends.21

It is not known how the practice of cranial deformation – the artificial deformation ofinfants’ heads – originated or spread. It was also practised by the Olmecs, the Maya,the Aztecs, the Flathead Indians, the ancient Egyptians, the Easter Islanders, theCro-Magnon Aurignacian culture, the Basques, the Indians of the Antilles, and theancient Chinese. The practice was used to denote elite status, to emphasize ethnicdifferences, or for religious, magical, or aesthetic purposes.


43

Fig. 3.5 Inca skull with cranial deformation.22

The Inca ruler Tupac Yupanqui (1471-1493) claimed to have sailed with a fleet acrossthe Pacific to the East Indies on a round trip – the sort of voyage the Ming Chinese weremaking in the 15th century. At the time of the conquest in 1532, the Spaniards reportedthat Inca Atahualpa wore silk tunics, which may point to a Chinese connection. TheSpaniards found vast orchards of lemons and pomegranates growing in Peru – fruitsthat are native to Asia. The sweet potato, which is native to South America, is calledkumar in the Quechua language of Peru and Ecuador, and kumara in the Maorilanguage of Mangareva, Paumotu, Easter Island, and Rarotonga. It seems that eitherSouth Americans brought it to Polynesia or Polynesians made a two-way trip to South

America.23

The totora-reed boats used on Lake Titicaca by the Aymara Indians are virtually identicalto the boats with high curving prows and sterns made of bundles of papyrus reeds usedon the Nile from predynastic times. Boats of that design are still used in the Euphratesdelta of Iraq, on Lake Chad in the southern Sahara, and in the coastal waters aroundthe Mediterranean island of Sardinia. They were used in Mexico, including the easternshore of the Sea of Cortez, until the mid-20th century. Tusk-shaped totora-reed boats

were likewise used by the Easter Islanders.24

The lighter-skinned people associated with the Chachapoyas and Paracas cultureswere mentioned in section 2. There are in fact numerous legends and eye-witnessreports of white Indians in South America. They have been sighted in the past all overcentral and western South America, especially in remote areas; in the west they tendedto be shy and elusive, while in the northeast they responded to intruders with

blow-pipes and bows.25 Chronicler Cieza de León records that long before the rise ofthe Incas, the Colloans attacked and exterminated a white, bearded race on an island in

Lake Titicaca.26 Portrayals of white and bearded figures of various kinds (MongoloidAmerindians have essentially no facial hair) with European-like features are quitecommon in Peru and Mexico. The Spanish conquistadors were amazed that members of

the Inca ruling elite often had whiter skin than the Spaniards.27


44

Fig. 3.6 Peruvian Inca mummy (14th-15th century) with natural blonde hair,characteristic of the fair, red and light-brown hair found among many SouthAmerican cultures in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Northern Chile. The fine

hair, skin colour and height are typically Caucasian.28

Viracocha (sometimes called Con-Tiki Viracocha), the feathered serpent-god andculture-bearer of the Incas – and in some cases his men – was often described as whiteskinned and bearded, and sometimes as wearing long white robes and sandals, andcarrying a staff. He is said to have come either from the east, or to have appeared ‘from

nowhere’ on an island in Lake Titicaca.29 He was regarded as a kind, peace-loving god,who came to the Andes to restore civilization after the flood. In Mesoamerica, culture-bringers resembling and corresponding to Viracocha include Kukulkan, Votan, andQuetzalcoatl. Some researchers contend that such figures are rooted in real persons,

and that their description may point to visitors from the Mediterranean.30 Harold Wilkinsthought these culture-heroes, like many of the white Indian races, were of Atlantean

origin.31

References

The Ancient Americas, section 5, http://davidpratt.info.1.Robert M. Schoch, with Robert Aquinas McNally, Voyages of the Pyramid Builders:

The true origins of the pyramids from lost Egypt to ancient America, New York:Tarcher/Putnam, 2003, pp. 158-9; Andrew Collins, Gateway to Atlantis: The search

for the source of a lost civilisation, London: Headline, 2000, pp. 158-62.

2.

William Sullivan, The Secret of the Incas: Myth, astronomy, and the war against

time, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996, pp. 144, 277.3.


45

Graeme R. Kearsley, Inca Origins: Asian influences in early South America in

myth, migration and history, London: Yelsraek Publishing, 2003, pp. 176, 810.4.

Ibid., pp. 321, 808-9.5.Ibid., pp. 171, 173, 176-7.6.Ibid., pp. 191, 224-5.7.Ibid., p. 810.8.Ibid., p. 161; La Galgada, www.arqueologiadelperu.com.ar/lagalgada.htm.9.Inca Origins, p. 231.10.Mark Rose, ‘Early Andean metalworking’, Archaeology, v. 52, no. 1, 1999,www.archaeology.org/9901/newsbriefs/andean.html; M. Aldenderfer, N.M. Craig,R.J. Speakman, & R. Popelka-Filcoff, ‘Four-thousand-year-old gold artifacts fromthe Lake Titicaca basin, southern Peru’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, v. 105, no. 13,2008, pp. 5002-5, www.pnas.org/content/105/13/5002.full.

11.

W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Small artifacts – bone, stone,

metal artifacts, prints, high-technology, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2003,pp. 247-54.

12.

Ibid., pp. 258-60; David Hatcher Childress, Technology of the Gods: The incredible

sciences of the ancients, Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited, 2000, pp. 27-30.13.

Ibid., pp. 31-4; Peter James & Nick Thorpe, Ancient Inventions, New York:Ballantine Books, 1994, pp. 24-33; Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, p. 116;Richard Rudgley, Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age, London: Century, 1988, pp.126-37.

14.

http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=128.15.Inca Origins, p. 190.16.H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House(TPH), 1950-91, 2:306-8.

17.

H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, TUP, 1977 (1888), 2:339.18.Inca Origins, pp. 105, 350-1, 517, 605-7.19.www.exoticindiaart.com/product/EY48; Inca Origins, p. 178.20.W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Graphic artifacts I – coins,

calendars, geoforms, maps, quipus, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2005, pp.33-9; Inca Origins, pp. 342-5.

21.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Potosi_D%C3%A9cembre_2007_-_La_Moneda_2.jpg.

22.

The Ancient Americas, section 4.23.Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, pp. 115-16, 178-9.24.Harold T. Wilkins, Secret Cities of Old South America, Kempton, IL: AdventuresUnlimited Press, 1998 (1952), pp. 87-94, 104-5, 112, 150, 166, 228, 232, 237-46,253-5; Harold T. Wilkins, Mysteries of Ancient South America, Kempton, IL:Adventures Unlimited Press, 2005 (1947), pp. 47-53, 58-60, 64-7, 94-5, 116-17,120-1; Col. P.H. Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, London: Century, 1988 (1953), pp.67, 83, 115, 245-6, 270.

25.

Secret Cities of Old South America, pp. 88, 150.26.Igor Witkowski, Axis of the World: The search for the oldest American civilization,Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2008, p. 165.

27.

Inca Origins, p. 401.28.Mysteries of Ancient South America, pp. 110-11.29.Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, pp. 117-23.30.Secret Cities of Old South America, pp. 93-8.31.


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4. The Nazca lines

The Nazca plain, some 400 km south of Lima, is covered with dozens of drawings ofcreatures and plants, several thousand straight lines, and hundreds of geometrical

figures such as trapezoids and zigzags.1 The Nazca lines can only be fully appreciatedfrom the air; they were rediscovered by a pilot in 1927. On the Pampa de San José thegeoglyphs cover a total area of over 500 sq km; tourist flights concentrate on a smallnumber of creature drawings in this area. But geoglyphs also adorn surrounding valleysand mountaintops. There is an incredible profusion of lines and glyphs, of varying sizesand quality, some superimposed on older ones, as if they were made by differentgroups of people over a long period of time, without any overall plan.

Fig. 4.1 The spider (46 m long). Because of the extended leg that ends withwhat might be a sex organ, some researchers believe it represents aRicinulei spider, found only in remote parts of the Amazon jungle; they


47

measure 5 to 10 mm in length, and the male reproductive organ is normallyonly visible with the aid of a microscope.

Fig. 4.2 Above: Photo and diagram of the roughly-made 9-fingered monkey


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(80 m body and 30 m tail), with its prehensile tail curling in the wrongdirection. Part of a geometric design is superimposed on the monkey. Below:

One of the monkey’s hands as seen from the ground.2

Fig. 4.3 Straight lines.


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Most of the lines were made by removing the surface layer of darker, iron-oxide coatedpebbles (up to a depth of 30 cm), exposing the lighter, yellowish earth beneath. (Sincethe 1950s motorbikes and cars have left their ugly tyre marks all over the ground in theform of yellowish-white lines.) In some cases, stones were piled up along the edges ofthe lines. In others, stones were removed from the edges so that the figures stood out inhigh relief. The lines persist due to the extremely dry, windless, and constant climate ofthe Nazca region. Other giant geoglyphs can be found on cliffs and slopes elsewhere inthe coastal region of Peru, and also in Chile, Bolivia, the United States, Egypt, andMalta, but those at Nazca are the most impressive. It is the only place where multiplelines many kilometres long are found.

Fig. 4.4 A cleared path.

In addition to the stylized drawings of birds and animals, many of which are not native tothe area, there are representations of flowers and plants. Nearly all the biomorphicfigures are located on about 5% of the northwest corner of the pampa and are tiny bycomparison with the straight lines. They all consist of a single, continuous line thatnever crosses itself, except for three killer whales (consisting of one line on both theoutside and inside) and two solid infilled llamas (representing dark cloud patterns in theMilky Way). In addition, there are a number of strange figures, such as a being with twoenormous hands, one of which has only four fingers. There are also drawings ofman-made objects. The few human figures, up to 40 m high, are situated on hillsidesand tend to be crudely made.


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Fig. 4.5 Condor (134 m long).

Fig. 4.6 The alcatraz / phoenix / flamingo, with its zigzag neck and long beak, is over610 m long.


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Fig. 4.7 Figure interpreted as needle-and-thread or a fishing rod, about half a mile long.


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Fig. 4.8 Hands with nine fingers. The fingers are about 9 m long.

Fig. 4.9 The crudely made ‘astronaut’ or ‘owl man’ (32 m long).3


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Fig. 4.10 The ‘giant of Cerro Unitas’ or ‘robot’, 121 m high, on a hillside in

the Atacama desert, Chile.4 It is sometimes said to be a leader with a stylizedfeather headdress and feline mask. Rays, projections, halos etc. around ahead are sometimes interpreted as a sign that the figure is an extraterrestrial.A more spiritual interpretation is of course possible.


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Fig. 4.11 This giant picture, 65 m long, situated in the south of the Nazcaplateau, was discovered in 2006. It appears to be an animal with horns,

somewhat resembling a lobster. Vehicles have destroyed part of the glyph.5

There are over 2000 narrow, dead-straight lines, up to 23 km long, running in alldirections, and often crisscrossing one another. Many lines pass over crevices and hillsummits, and some run across the animal figures. There are about 62 ‘ray centres’ –natural hills, artificial earth mounds, or rock cairns – where some of the straight linesconverge. There are also wider tracks or ‘runways’, from 30 to 110 m wide and up to 1.4km long. The runways are often superimposed on zigzags and other geometrical forms,though in some cases a zigzag pattern runs over a runway. There are also runways thatrun over other runways.

Fig. 4.12 Nazca lines (not to be confused with wavy erosion patterns) seen from the

SPOT satellite.6


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Fig. 4.13 Satellite picture of an area containing lines.7


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Fig. 4.14 Two 50-m-wide runways and 21 narrower lines converge.8 (Courtesy of Erichvon Däniken)


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Fig. 4.15 A 62-metre-wide trail ascends a small hill then spreads out fromthe summit in several narrower lines. The middle of these five narrower lines

carries on for 10 km through the plain.9 (Courtesy of Erich von Däniken)

Geometric figures include trapezoids, triangles, spirals, and zigzags. There are about300 trapezoidal areas and triangular spaces. Trapezoidal figures measure about 40 by400 metres on average, with the largest measuring 92 by 869 m.


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Fig. 4.16 Trapezoid.


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Fig. 4.17 Trapezoids and trails on the Pampa de Jumana.10 (Courtesy of Erich vonDäniken)


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Fig. 4.18 A trapezoid superimposed on a figure.11

Fig. 4.19 Lines and trapezoid.


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Fig. 4.20 The ‘mandala’ consists of three interconnected glyphs, carved withgreat precision, spread out over 1 km on a remote mountain plateau. A largesquare measures 180 feet across and contains a circle of the same diameter,with over 60 points on its circumference. Within it is a second circle withcountless smaller holes on its circumference, and in its middle are twosuperimposed rectangles, each divided into eight squares. A geological cleft

runs through the middle of pattern.12

Construction

It is generally believed that siting stakes and measuring rods and cords were sufficientto make the lines and figures on the Nazca plain. Remains of stakes have been found inthe desert surface, and along some lines at roughly one-mile intervals. Maria Reiche(the famous Nazca researcher who died in 1998) thought that the Nazca artists firstdrew a sketch in an area about 2 m square; some sketches are still visible near some ofthe larger figures. They then faced the task of transposing the small-scale drawing ontoa giant area. One suggestion is that hot-air balloons constructed from animal skins or

textiles were employed as sighting platforms, but there is no hard evidence for this.1

Surveying techniques involving accurate measurement of angles could have been used,but this is rejected by orthodox archaeologists because they presume the lines weremade by the Nazca culture, which is not known to have had such a capability.

Making the larger, more accurate figures, the broad, kilometres-long ‘runways’ andtrapezoids, and the straight lines that traverse hilltops and crevices would have posed


62

the greatest challenge. It is estimated that about 10,000 cubic metres of stones had tobe carried away by the makers of the glyphs. The amount was probably far greater,

since several mountain summits in the region had to be levelled as well.2

In 1977 an archaeologist and 30 young Indians, using three wooden stakes and strings,managed in less than three days to scratch a narrow, 150-m-long straight line in thepampa surface. In 1981 volunteers from Earthwatch made a line with a spiral at the end.They tried to make the first curve of the spiral by simply laying out strings by eye. The

result was a small, imperfect circle roughly 3 m in diameter.3 In 1982, a team of sixsuccessfully recreated the 440-foot-long condor (fig. 4.5) in a field in Kentucky, USA.They drew a centre line on a small drawing of the figure, and measured theperpendicular distances from the line to different points on the figure. They then createda centre line on the ground and plotted key points on the figure by scaling up themeasurements on the drawing. They took nine hours to plot and stake 165 points and

connect them with over a mile of twine, using white lime to draw the lines.4

Fig. 4.21 This roughly 60-m-wide, 700-m-long runway, superimposed onzigzags, extends over several mountain summits, which first had to be

levelled.5 (Courtesy of Erich von Däniken)


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Date

The Nazca lines are usually said to have been made by the Nazca culture betweenabout 200 and 700 AD. Some researchers believe the earliest may date from 500 BC.According to local tradition, the lines were made by the ‘viracochas’. Because somegeometric designs are superimposed on the animal drawings, it is sometimes claimedthat all the geometric designs were made after the animal drawings, but there is nocompelling evidence to support this.

There are Nazca ceramics showing similar designs to those on the desert surface,including spiders, lizards, hummingbirds and whales. However, the similarities aregenerally rather tenuous and far from exact. Even if we assume that the similarities wereintentional, it would not automatically prove that the Nazcans made those particularglyphs, let alone all of them. It could also indicate that they had merely viewed them (ifnot from the air then from nearby hilltops), or worked out their shape from the lines onthe ground, or that they had preserved traditions of figures that had been made at anearlier time.


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Fig. 4.22 Top: Killer whale depicted on a Nazca ceramic.1 Bottom: A killer whale glyphand a fish/whale glyph.

Fig. 4.23 Nazca bowl with drawings of spiders.2

Fig. 4.24 The ‘man with a hat’ (left), 20 m high, is located at the bottom of aslope. It bears a reasonable resemblance to a Paracas iconographic figure


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(right).3 Does this crude glyph on a hillside illustrate the limited glyph-making skills of the Nazca or preceding Paracas culture?

Pottery remains left at the lines prove only that the Nazcan people had visited them,over a period of hundreds of years. One wooden stake found in the middle of a pile ofstones has been carbon-dated to about 525 AD. This does not prove that most of thelines were constructed in the same period. Once desert stones have been moved,lichen, moulds and cyanobacteria develop below them, and this organic material can becarbon-dated. Tests on nine stones collected from the edge of a Nazca line or runwayyielded ages of between 190 BC and 600 AD. However, it is impossible to be sure thatthese stones had really been removed by the original line makers and had never beentouched since.

In short, it cannot be ruled out some of the geoglyphs at Nazca are far older thancurrently believed, and have been restored and added to by successive cultures overthousands of years.

Purpose

It is widely thought that many of the Nazca lines and figures were used for ritual andceremonial purposes, and were designed to be seen by gods in the sky. One theory isthat they were connected with the worship of mountain deities associated with waterand fertility. Sufficient rainfall in the mountains was, after all, critical to the Nazcaneconomy and agriculture. According to this theory, the lines were primarily used assacred paths leading to places where these deities could be worshipped, and thefigures represent animals and objects meant to invoke their assistance. The ray centreswhere several line converge are rather small and are not suitable for large gatherings,but that does not apply to the larger triangles and rectangles. The figures, too, couldhave been walked since they consist of a single line that never crosses. Certain sectionsof the geoglyph network are still used by local people for religious purposes. And inBolivia there are similar radiating systems of pathways that are still used for ceremonialwalking.

A recent study of several large trapezoidal structures at Nazca detected numerousmagnetic anomalies within them, thought to be caused by changes in soil density atvarious depths. The researchers believe that the soil was compacted by people walkingback and forth during prayer rituals, and that the anomalies represent older lines, not

visible from the air.1

Pottery that appears to have been deliberately smashed has been found on the Nazcaplain, possibly as an offering. Seashells – which were important offerings for rain – areoften found in the mounds near the lines and at the ends of lines. There are no majortemples anywhere near the lines and figures, but there are piles of stones that may beshrines. Studies have shown that geoglyphs such as triangles and trapezoids are

sometimes associated with both surface and subterranean water flow.2

Johan Reinhard argues that most figures can be interpreted in terms of a fertility cult.For instance hummingbirds are associated with fertility and are regarded as


66

messengers of mountain gods on the north coast of Peru. The appearance of manyspiders and lizards is believed to be a sign of rain, and the tarantula is a symbol offertility in southern Peru. The spider, dog and monkey are depicted at Nazca with theirsexual parts extended. Foxes and dogs are associated with mountain deities. Killerwhales and fish are associated with water and sea food. Some figures have beeninterpreted as plants, such as flowers, algae and trees. As for the hands with ninefingers, in Inca times it was widely believed that deformed people were children oflightning and thunder. Reinhard stresses that the geoglyphs could have served multiple

ends.3 Other suggestions are that some figures could have been clan totems or magicalcharms for shamans, and some lines could have had astronomical functions.

Fig. 4.25 Hummingbird (93 m long).


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Fig. 4.26 Dog.

Maria Reiche was a prominent proponent of the theory that at least some of the Nazcalines were intended to point to the places on the horizon where the sun and othercelestial bodies rose or set, and that some figures represented constellations. Sheproposed, for example, that the spider represents Orion, and the monkey Ursa Mayor.Astronomer Phyllis Pitluga believes that the spider was designed as an image of Orionas it set along the western horizon about 2000 years ago. Studies by Gerald Hawkins in1973 and Anthony Aveni in 1982 identified only a few specific alignments to thepositions of the sun, moon and certain stars. For instance, the beak of the hummingbird

is intersected by a line that targets the point of sunrise at the December solstice.4

Fig. 4.27 The double pointed arrow in the diagram of the

bird indicates a possible astronomical alignment.5


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Fig. 4.28 A jumbled mess.

The most striking feature of the Nazca lines is their seemingly chaotic profusion. JohnNeal has put forward a novel suggestion:

The whole desert of Nazca may be a testing ground and college ofsurveying. The conditions are ideal, and the apprentice surveyor would firsthave to interpret what was already there to its exact dimensions, thenproduce an accurate scale representation, perhaps on the square fathomplot beside the figure, and as a final test of his abilities, produce his ownfigure upon the desert floor, aligned to a calendrical date which he wouldhave to calculate. ... One can imagine the compounded difficulties thatwould be encountered by a young surveyor, perhaps thrown in at the deepend by having to survey a degree of longitude in the mountains and junglesof Peru and Ecuador ... Possibly, students would not have to make a special journey to Nazca inorder to take a course in surveying, it may have been on an educationalroute. A doctorate in the ancient world may have entailed a completecircumnavigation of the globe by land and by sea, whereby the studentwould learn and apply the techniques of navigation, astronomy andsurveying at all conceivable latitudes. ... Something along these lines mayexplain the sheer number of lines where the land has only ever supported arelatively low level of population; the bulk of the people would be there

temporarily, as students, strictly for reasons of geography.6


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References

W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Graphic artifacts I – coins,

calendars, geoforms, maps, quipus, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2005, pp.23-32; Erich Von Däniken, Arrival of the Gods: Revealing the alien landing sites of

Nazca, Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, 2000, www.daniken.com.

1.

www.nazcamystery.com/nazca_symbol_ape.htm.2.Ibid.3.http://img81.imageshack.us/i/tara6jy3.jpg.4.Heraldo Fuenets, Walking the line, www.viewzone.com/nazcatheories.html.5.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines.6.Ibid.7.Arrival of the Gods, p. 11, www.legendarytimes.com.8.Ibid., p. 14.9.Ibid., p. 10.10.A. Dukszto & J.M. Helfer, The Essential Guide: Secrets and Mysteries, the Nasca

Lines, Lima: Ediciones del Hipocampoc S.A.C., 2001, p. 6.11.

Walking the line; Arrival of the Gods, pp. 128-33.12.

Construction

Katherine Reece, Grounding the Nasca balloon,www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=96; W.R.Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Small artifacts – bone, stone, metal

artifacts, prints, high-technology, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2003, p. 287.

1.

Arrival of the Gods, pp. 102-3.2.Ibid.3.Joe Nickell, ‘The Nazca Lines revisited: creation of a full-sized duplicate’, TheSkeptical Inquirer, 1983, www.onagocag.com/nazca.html.

4.

Ibid., p. 43, www.legendarytimes.com.5.

Date

Michael E. Moseley, The Incas and their Ancestors: The archaeology of Peru,London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, p. 201.

1.

The Essential Guide: Secrets and Mysteries, the Nasca Lines, p. 14.2.Ibid., p. 21.3.

Purpose

Linda Geddes, Peruvians walked their prayers into the earth, 2009,www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126924.200-peruvians-walked-their-prayers-into-the-earth.html.

1.

Rachel Baar, The mystery of the Nazca Lines, www.dreamscape.com/morgana/nazca.htm; Don Proulx, The Nasca Lines Project (1996-2000),www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~proulx/Nasca_Lines_Project.html.

2.

Johan Reinhard, The Nazca Lines: A new perspective on their origin and meaning,Lima: Editorial Los Pinos, 2nd ed., 1986, pp. 42-54.

3.

Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the lost civilization,London: Michael Joseph, 1998, pp. 262-7.

4.

Corliss, Archeological Anomalies: Small artifacts, p. 27.5.


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John Neal, All Done With Mirrors: An exploration of measure, proportion, ratio and

number, The Secret Academy, 2000, p. 199.6.

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