Lost Civilizations of The Andes

Lost civilizations of the Andes (1)
Lost Civilizations of the Andes
David Pratt
January 2010
Part 1 of 2
Contents
Part 1
1. The Incas
2. Pre-Inca cultures
3. Transoceanic contacts
4. The Nazca lines
Part 2
5. ‘Inca’ stonemasonry
6. ‘Inca’ sites
7. Tiwanaku
1. The Incas
In 1532 Francisco Pizarro and a small band of Spanish mercenaries landed on the
desert coast of Peru and made their way into the Andean highlands. At that time the
Inca empire – known as Tahuantinsuyu, or ‘land of the four quarters’ – stretched 5500
km, from southern Chile to modern-day Colombia, and had a population of over 10
million. The Spaniards enticed the Inca ruler, Atahualpa, to a supposedly peaceful
meeting and took him captive, promising to release him if a huge ransom was paid – a
room full of gold and two of silver. The ransom – worth about $50 million by today’s
standards – was duly paid, but the conquistadors then strangled Atahualpa to death
and marched on Cuzco, the Inca capital.
Manco Cápac, Atahualpa’s half-brother, was appointed puppet ruler, but after a few
years of obedience, he rebelled. In 1536 the Inca army gathered outside the walls of
Cuzco and in the fortress at Sacsayhuaman. A fierce battle with the Spaniards ensued.
1
Thanks to their powerful war-horses, steel weapons and sheer audacity, less than 200
conquistadors managed to defeat 100,000 Inca warriors, putting 1500 of them to the
sword. Within a few years, and with gold-hungry reinforcements pouring in from
Panama, all serious resistance to the Spaniards was destroyed. The Incas’ last jungle
refuge, at Vilcabamba, fell in 1572.
There were several reasons why the early stages of the conquest of the mighty Inca
empire 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 war
in which Atahualpa deposed his brother Huascar. Second, after the arrival of the
Spanish in Central America, infectious diseases such as smallpox swept through South
America, reducing the population by two-thirds. Third, the 8th Inca ruler had prophesied
around 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 therefore
initially seen as ‘viracochas’, a reference to the Incas’ legendary white culture-bringer
and creator god, Viracocha. However, due to their greed and brutality they were soon
reclassified 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 the
descendants 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 collaborated
peacefully with other ethnic groups in the Cuzco region. Around 1430 the Chancas from
the north invaded the area. After defeating them, the Incas began the age of expansion
under Pachacuti. Quechua was made the official language, and sun worship the official
religion.
2
Fig. 1.1 Inca expansion.3
The Inca pantheon was presided over by Viracocha, followed by Inti, the sun god, and
Pachamama, 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 first
ruler of the Kingdom of Cuzco was called Manco Cápac. In one legend, he was the son
of Viracocha, and in another, he was brought up from the depths of Lake Titicaca by
Inti. 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 the
fifth. The Incas likewise believed that their own culture was the fifth age, or fifth ‘sun’. In
the first age, people were nomads, lived in caves and had to fight off wild animals. In
the second, they lived in crude round houses in fixed settlements. In the third age
people multiplied, practised weaving, built houses like those of today, grew crops and
3
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 is
said 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 world
above’. In Andean accounts, the ordeal required to find our way back to the celestial
realms 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 the
quest to ‘reach the other shore’, meaning the attainment of full adeptship, or as the
Egyptian Pyramid Texts call it, ‘the life of millions of years’; further incarnation on earth
is 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 of
humanity. Despite the echoes of the ancient wisdom in Inca beliefs, the Inca leaders
abandoned the instructions of ‘Father Sun’ that they should rule a society based on
justice and reason with ‘pity, mercy and mildness’, and introduced the degenerate
practice 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 as

follows 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 it
open, merely placing a small stick across the door as a sign that the master
was out, and no one could enter or take anything that was inside. ... When
they found we put locks and keys on our doors, they supposed it was for
fear of them that they might not kill us, not because they believed that
anyone would steal the property of another. So, when they found we had
thieves 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 of
God, owing to the bad example we have set them in all things, that the
natives, 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 that
adorns its sacred sites; polygonal stone blocks are fitted so perfectly that not even a
razor blade can be inserted between them, even though no mortar was used. The
best-known temples and other structures are found at Cuzco, Sacsayhuaman,
Ollantaytambo, Pisac, and Machu Picchu. As we will see later, there is no reason to
attribute all examples of this construction method to the Incas.
4
Fig. 1.2 Detail of ‘Inca’ wall in Cuzco.1
Mainstream archaeologists assume that the Incas built most of the agricultural terraces
that 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 have
retaining 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. The
terraces consist of a lower layer of coarse rubble for drainage purposes, and an upper
layer of good topsoil, which sometimes had to be carried long distances up the
mountain from the valley below. Terraces were usually 2.4 to 4.3 m high and 1.8 to 4.6
m 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 Hiram
Bingham wrote: ‘It fairly staggers the imagination to realize how many millions of hours
of labour were required to construct the agricultural terraces.’2
5
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. The
first 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 Moray
was a ritual complex. Others believe it was a huge agricultural laboratory
where different soils, plant varieties and temperature regimes were tried out.
The structure of the basin produces a range of different soil temperatures.3
6
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, the
road network was 5600 km long and included 23,000 km of interlinking roads, thereby
exceeding 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 often
narrower in the mountains. They were levelled and smoothed by paving, and in some
places by ‘macadamizing’ with pulverized stone mixed with lime and bituminous cement.
In places, roads were cut through mountains for kilometres, great ravines were filled up
with solid masonry, and rivers were crossed by means of a kind of suspension bridge
anchored by a twin stone tower at each end. The cables, made of tightly twisted plant
fibre, were as thick as a man’s body. The most famous such bridge spans the Apurimac
River in the Peruvian Andes, with cables nearly 46 m long. Some pre-Inca roads were
as much as 30 m wide and stretched hundreds of kilometres; the reason for their great
width is unknown.4
7
Fig. 1.5 ‘Inca’ roads.5
The Incas used quipus for recording-keeping – knotted bundles of strings in which the
number, type, and spacing of knots, the colour and type of string, and the general
quipu structure carried information. They were used for accounting and census
purposes. It is thought that some quipus were literary quipus: in these, the knots were
combined with coloured rectangular signs or oval signs (‘bean signs’) known as
tocapus, which also appear on textiles and other objects. Tocapus should be
considered a developed ideographic system rather than writing in the strict sense. Many
quipus 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 Valera
reported 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 wise
men from all the provinces and ordered the history of each ruler and the lands
8
conquered to be written down, along with the Inca myths and legends. The texts were
written on sheets, glued onto large boards and set in frames of pure gold. They were
stored in the Coricancha, or Temple of the Sun, in Cuzco, and only the Inca ruler and
certain scholars were able to read them. The Spanish melted down the gold frames and
destroyed nearly all the canvases. Four were sent to the Spanish king but there is no
trace 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 world
today, has been found in a group of mummified llamas sacrificed in the desert of
southern 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 that
the amazing variety of maize and potatoes in ancient Peru must be the result of genetic
experiments.9
References
1. William Sullivan, The Secret of the Incas: Myth, astronomy, and the war against
time, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996, pp. 251, 255-7.
2. Harold T. Wilkins, Mysteries of Ancient South America, Kempton, IL: Adventures
Unlimited Press, 2005 (1947), pp. 143-4.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inca-expansion.png.
4. The Secret of the Incas, pp. 108-9; Viracocha, http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Viracocha.
5. The Secret of the Incas, pp. 26-7.
6. Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the lost civilization,
London: Michael Joseph, 1998, pp. 282, 295.
7. H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press
(TUP), 1972 (1877), 2:564-5.
8. Quoted in Mysteries of Ancient South America, p. 167.
Accomplishments
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inka_mauern_cuzco.jpg.
2. Hiram Bingham, Lost City of the Incas, London: Phoenix, 2003 (1952), pp. 39-40.
3. Science Frontiers, no. 174, 2007, p. 1.
4. W.R. Corliss (comp.), Ancient Infrastructure: Remarkable roads, mines, walls,
mounds, stone circles, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 1999, pp. 323-5; Peter
James & Nick Thorpe, Ancient Inventions, New York: Ballantine Books, 1994, pp.
52-3.
5. www.colorado.edu/geography/class_homepages/geog_3251_sum08
/02_inca_roads.jpg.
6. 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.
7. 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.
9
8. W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Small artifacts – bone, stone,

metal artifacts, prints, high-technology, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2003,
p. 49.
9. Carlos Fernández-Baca Tupayachi, El Otro Saqsaywamán: La historia no contada,
Lima: DFBS, 2000, p. 179.
2. Pre-Inca cultures
The theory of the peopling of the Americas that became scientific orthodoxy in the
mid-20th century claimed that the Americas were empty of humans until about 14,000
years ago when Mongoloid migrants from Northeast Asia trekked over the Bering land
bridge; South America was supposedly first populated around 9 or 10 thousand years
ago. Another claim was that, with the exception of a brief visit by the Vikings in the 11th
century, the first person to subsequently discover the Americas was Christopher
Columbus in 1492. More recently, the possibility of migrations up to several tens of
thousands 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 were
settled 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 continents
visited the Americas before Columbus.
According to the theosophical tradition, the last major fragment of ancient Atlantis to
sink 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 leading
up to its final submergence, waves of migrants fled Poseidonis, and other smaller
islands, as it showed increasing signs of geological instability. Some of these migrants
are associated with the appearance of successive Cro-Magnon cultures in Western
Europe and North Africa, beginning about 40,000 years ago. Caucasoid, Cro-Magnoid
skeletons have also been discovered in the Americas. Theosophical literature says that
there 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 gradually
being pushed back as new discoveries come to light. Some of the main pre-Inca
cultures of the past few thousand years are outlined below, with the main focus on
Peru. The possibility that some of the artefacts and structures attributed to them are the
work of even older cultures cannot be ruled out.
The radiocarbon-dating of organic material (e.g. bone, flesh, wood) found at

archaeological sites plays a key role in dating cultures of the past few tens of thousands
of years. The two main potential sources of error are the changing ratio of C14 (the
relatively rare radioactive isotope of carbon) to C12 (the most abundant carbon isotope)
in the atmosphere, and contamination of the sample being dated. The resulting errors
can be as large as hundreds or even thousands of years. But even if the date is
accurate, it only tells us the age of the sample, and may indicate that humans were
present in the area at that time. It does not necessarily tell us the earliest date humans
occupied the area or the original date of construction of any stone structures at the site.
10
Furthermore, there is a certain amount of selectivity in reporting results. One

archaeologist admitted: ‘If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If
it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in the footnote. And if it is completely “out
of date”, we just drop it.’ ‘Out of date’ refers not only to ages that are ‘too old’ but also to
ages that are ‘too young’. Overly recent dates are assumed to indicate later human
activity 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 archaeological
sites 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. These
settlers had broad faces, pointed heads, and stood 1.6 metres tall. Early cave paintings
have been discovered at Toquepala (Tacna, 7600 BC) and houses in Chilca (Lima, 5800
BC). 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 bone
and stone tools used by a preceramic hunter-gatherer culture.
The Chilca Valley lies on the coast of Peru, between the Andes mountains and the
Pacific Ocean, and was an important trade route to the highlands. Hunter-gatherers
inhabited this region from about 6000 to 2500 BC, the two main sites being Tres
Ventanas 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 major
population centres in north-central coastal Peru. It is currently regarded as the oldest
known civilization in the Americas, and flourished between about 3000 and 1800 BC. It
11
was a preceramic culture, but is known for its monumental architecture, including large
platform mounds built from quarried stone and river cobbles, and circular sunken
plazas. 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 an
area equal to nearly four football fields and is 18 m tall. Caral is thought to be the model
for the urban design adopted by Andean civilizations that rose and fell over the next four
millennia. 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 6
truncated pyramids. The largest is called Huaca de los Idolos: it measured 40 m by 30
m, 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 with
plaster and occasionally painted. Associated radiocarbon dates range from 2900 to 1970
BC.8
12
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 for
thousands of years, first in circular and later in rectangular form. Michael Moseley says
that the enduring emphasis on sunken sacrosanct spaces reflects Andean origin myths
about humanity emerging from caves, springs and holes in the ground. As well as being
places for re-enacting human emergence, the courts may have been used to venerate
Pachamama, mother earth, by reverently descending into and out of her womb.
Subterranean plazas sometimes stand next to platform mounds, evoking ‘images of
ritual 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, in
central Peru. It was the largest preceramic site in the Andes, and was occupied from
about 1800 to 1200 BC. The site consists of 13 or 14 mounds spaced over a 60 hectare
area with a nuclear group of seven mounds in an approximate U-shape with a central
plaza. The buildings are made of about 100,000 tons of rock. As at other sites, rubble
and stone were carried in woven reed bags and piled up behind retaining walls. The
ruins 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
13
Fig. 2.4 Reconstruction of a prototypical U-shaped monument complex. There are at

least 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 the
largest constructions ever built in Prehispanic America. Five plazas extend
1.4 km from the central mound, three with central sunken courts, one of
which is about 80 m in diameter. The main mound is 44 m high by 300 m by
250 m, making it the largest single construction in the New World during the
second 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 a
century or two, coinciding with several hundred years of severe drought.
14
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 from
another site. Below: The first of these two sculptures shows a man severed
at the waist.14
15
In 2007 archaeologists discovered a 5500-year-old circular, sunken plaza at the Sechín

Bajo complex in Casma, making it one of the oldest recognized structures in the
Americas. 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 For
a long time it was considered to be the first Peruvian civilization. The Chavín people
cultivated crops using an irrigation system, tamed llamas, developed the techniques of
gold, silver and copper metallurgy, and produced beautiful gold artefacts. They also
made exquisite textiles, ceramics, and musical instruments. Chavín art forms make
extensive 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 is
difficult to understand because it was intended to be read only by high priests. Some
sculptured heads have mucus pouring from the nose, something that happens when
certain hallucinogenic drugs are used.
16
Fig. 2.7 Chavin territory.17
17
Fig. 2.8 The Raimondi stela, Chavin de Huantar. It bears a remarkably

sophisticated carving of a staff god, which is also visible if the statue is
18
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 known
as the Castillo at Chavín de Huántar, a temple complex covering 15 hectares. Built of
white granite and black limestone from distant quarries, its walls and galleries were
filled with sculptures of ferocious deities with feline features. It has seven major
subterranean rooms. Michael Moseley writes:
Less than one-tenth the magnitude of the great platform at Sechín Alto, what
the Castillo lacks in size is compensated for by remarkable engineering, fine
masonry, and marvelous stone art. The engineering is fascinating because a
quarter of the Castillo interior is hollow and occupied by a labyrinth of narrow
galleries roofed by great slabs of stone. Built at different levels, some
galleries are connected by stairways and by an elaborate maze of small
drains and vents that pass beneath the exterior plazas. ... [B]y flushing water
through the drains and venting the sound into the chambers and then out
again the temple could, quite literally be made to roar! ...
The stonework at Chavín de Huantar was unquestionably the product of a
master craftsman, and the Castillo reflects professional engineering as well
as substantial corporate labour.19
Fig. 2.9 The Castillo, Chavín de Huántar.20
19
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 particularly
noted for their sophisticated ceramics and pottery, skilful metalwork, monumental
constructions, and impressive irrigation systems. They were a warlike people, and many
ceramics show brutal scenes of human sacrifice and blood drinking. The Moche were
also traders and had contact with the Ica-Nazca culture to the south. The Moche
culture’s demise was probably precipitated in the 6th century by a super El Niño that
resulted 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 of
the Sun) and the Huaca de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon). The Huaca del Sol
consisted of over 130 million adobe bricks and was the largest pre-Columbian adobe
structure built in the Americas. It was partly destroyed when the Spaniards mined its
graves 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.
20
Fig. 2.11 Huaca del Sol.
The Lord of Sipán tomb is a Moche site that was found intact and untouched by thieves
in the Lambayeque valley, 35 km east of Chiclayo, in 1987. The complex consists of
three huge mudbrick pyramids with flat tops. The ruler of Sipán was buried there in 200
AD. His tomb has yielded an extraordinary cache of artefacts, including finely crafted
gold and silver ornaments, large, gilded copper figurines, and wonderfully decorated
ceramic 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 the
Moche existed centuries before, and lasted from about 1000 AD to the late 1400s. The
Chimú state underwent considerable expansion in the late 13th and early 14th
centuries, but was conquered by the Incas around 1475. The Chimú were skilful potters
and 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 Chimú
worshipped 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, and
is thought to have been built by the Chimú around 1050-1300 AD to bring water from
the Chicama river into the Moche valley. It is part of a complex network of aqueducts
and canals to transport water from mountain streams to irrigated fields. Running
through difficult terrain, it represents an enormous amount of labour, and displays a
high level of hydraulic engineering expertise. Parts of the canal were cut through rock
and soil but many kilometres ran between embankments of rocky soil. In some places it
towered 21.4 m above the surrounding terrain. Maintaining the proper slope in
mountainous country was no mean task. To achieve maximum hydraulic efficiency, the
21
cross section of the canal changes around curves, and where necessary the texture of
the canal walls was varied to decrease water speed. It is believed that the canal was
never 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 than
currently 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 high
were built beginning about 500 BC. The Chimú’s Great Wall of Peru, discovered during
an 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 of
broken rocks and adobe cement, and now averages about 2.1 m in height; its original
height 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 built
their own Great Wall further south, in Bolivia. Made of broken stones, it is probably
about 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 and
175 BC. It had an extensive knowledge of irrigation and water management, and
showed superb skills in textile weaving. Two necropolises dated to about 300 BC have
yielded 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 writing
come 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 a

hillside at Pisco Bay on the Peruvian coast. It measures about 240 m long by 120 m
wide, with trenches a metre deep, and can be seen from as far as 24 km out to sea. It is
aligned almost exactly north-south. It is variously regarded as a navigational aid or as a
ritual object, representing a cactus or tree of life, where high priests worshipped the
setting 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, the
constellation known as the Crux (Southern Cross) would have been suspended in the
sky directly above the cliff diagram at the March equinox.29
22
Fig. 2.12 The Candelabra.
The Nazca (or Nasca) culture inhabited the coastal valleys of southern Peru from the
1st to 8th centuries AD. They constructed mudbrick pyramids up to 30 m high, and
made beautiful polychrome pottery. They are widely believed to have made most of the
Nazca ‘lines’ – vast geometric and animal figures etched into the desert floor (see
section 4). The main ceremonial centre was Cahuachi, a site covering 1.5 sq km and
containing over 40 mounds (modified natural hills) topped with adobe structures.
23
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 and
trenches – 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 of
the excavated tunnels are less than one metre square, but some are about two metres
high. The walls of the tunnels are lined with river cobbles without the use of mortar, and
at the uppermost end the water filters between the stones into the gallery. The roof of
the galleries is made of dressed granite slabs or wooden logs. The tunnels lie about 3
to 6 m underground, and it is not known for how many kilometres they run. Two of them
pass beneath the bed of the Nazca river. The tunnels are connected with the surface by
funnel-shaped holes (ojos), which also served as wells. The local population believed
that the water in the puquios flowed from a great lake beneath Cerro Blanco – a
2500-m-high mountain not far from Nazca, topped by an enormous sand dune. There
are 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 monumental

buildings, 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 no
more than 1500 years old. Named after the creator god Pachacamac, the nearly
600-hectare site drew pilgrims who came to worship and bury their dead. Later it was
occupied 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 is
attributed 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 of
the territory of the earlier Moche and Chimú cultures. The civilization was contemporary
with 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 several
centuries later. However, Andean tradition also gives the name ‘Wari’ to a race of
prehistoric 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 western
Bolivia. It flourished as the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power for
approximately 500 years. The official view is that it began as a small agriculturally-based
village around 1500 BC, and became the capital of a powerful empire between 300 and
1000 AD, after which it was hit by a protracted drought. The culture practised a
sophisticated form of agriculture and is credited with a number of monumental
structures. The last traces of the Tiwanaku civilization were incorporated into the Inca
empire 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 in
the northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru. The people were taller and had
a much fairer skin than other Native Americans. People began settling in this area by
200 AD, and the Chachapoyas culture is thought to have developed a few hundred
years later. In the 15th century, the Inca empire expanded to incorporate the
Chachapoyas region.
Kuelap is situated on a 3000-m-high ridge overlooking the Utcubamba valley. The site is
officially 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 from
gigantic limestone slabs arranged in geometric patterns, some sections being faced with
rectangular (ashlar) granite slabs over 40 layers high. Within the walls are hundreds of
round 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 after
the ruins). The site covers 722 hectares, and the mainstream belief is that construction
was started in the 11th century by Bantu-speaking ancestors of the Shona people, and
continued 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 in
Peru’s Junin province, 80 km northeast of Lima. Hundreds of enormous rocks on the
plateau 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 races
and 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 or
seals, a crocodile, and lizards. Many believe that these forms are nothing but naturally
eroded rocks, while others contend that humans had a hand in carving them. Though
known to the local population, Marcahuasi achieved prominence after being discovered
by 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
1. See Theosophy and the seven continents and Sunken continents versus
continental drift, http://davidpratt.info.
2. See The Ancient Americas, section 8.
3. Sean Hancock, An interpretation and critique of the radiocarbon database for
Tiahuanaco, 2001, www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockS2-p1.htm.
4. Peru: general information, www.stanford.edu/group/peruanos/informa/general.htm.
5. Ayacucho, www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/sites
/ayacucho.html.
6. Chilca Valley, www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/south_america
/chilca.html.
7. Norte Chico civilization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norte_Chico_civilization; Caral,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral.
8. 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.
9. Michael E. Moseley, The Incas and their Ancestors: The archaeology of Peru,
35
London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, p. 119.

10. Early monumental architecture on the Peruvian coast; El Paraiso,
www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/south_america/elparaiso.html.
11. www.jqjacobs.net/andes/coast.html.
12. Early monumental architecture on the Peruvian coast.
13. http://wiki.sumaqperu.com/es/images/3/30/Sechin_huaraz_1.
14. www.nazcamystery.com/casma_sechin.htm.
15. Sechin Bajo, the oldest archeological site of the New World,
www.granpaititi.com/AN/cite_sec.php.
16. 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.
17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav%C3%ADn_culture.
18. www.latinamericanstudies.org/chavin/raimondi.gif.
19. The Incas and their Ancestors, pp. 163, 168.
20. www.arqueologiadelperu.com.ar/chavin2.htm.
21. Moche, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche.
22. Carlos Fernández-Baca Tupayachi, El Otro Saqsaywamán: La historia no contada,
Lima: DFBS, 2000, pp. 178-9.
23. Chimu, www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/cultures
/chimu.html.
24. 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.
25. W.R. Corliss (comp.), Ancient Structures: Remarkable pyramids, forts, towers,
stone chambers, cities, complexes, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2001, pp.
109-10.
26. Ancient Infrastructure, pp. 367-9; David Hatcher Childress, Lost Cities and Ancient
Mysteries of South America, Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited, 1986, pp. 340-1.
27. 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.
Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2008, p. 181.
29. 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, 5th
ed., 2003, p. 204; Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the
lost civilization, London: Michael Joseph, 1998, pp. 257-8.
30. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahuachi.
31. http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?attachment_id=237.
32. Donald A. Proulx, Nasca puquios and aqueducts, http://people.umass.edu/proulx
/online_pubs/Zurich_Puquios_revised_small.pdf; Erich Von Däniken, Arrival of the
Gods: Revealing the alien landing sites of Nazca, Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element,
36
2000, pp. 66, 77-87.

33. The Peruvian lost city of Pachacamac, www.nazcamystery.com/pachacamac.htm.
34. Wari culture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wari_culture.
time, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996, p. 219.
36. The Rough Guide to Peru, p. 408; Kuelap, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuelap;
Kuelap, www.arqueologiadelperu.com.ar/kuelap.htm.
37. Great Zimbabwe National Monument, http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe_National_Monument; David Hatcher Childress, Lost Cities
and Ancient Mysteries of Africa & Arabia, Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited,
1990, pp. 343-9.
38. http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-1691408199-image.jpg.
39. Robert M. Schoch, The mystery of Markawasi, 2005, http://circulartimes.org
/Mystery%20of%20Markawasi.htm; Ancient Infrastructure, pp. 115-16; Lost Cities
and 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.
40. Markahuasi stone forest, www.pbase.com/locozodiac/locozodiac_120.
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 for
countless thousands of years. Orthodox historians and archaeologists, however, prefer
to deny the evidence for transoceanic trade and cultural diffusion. They tend to
vigorously defend their own specialized fields against ‘interference’ from outsiders, and
generally feel no incentive, or lack the knowledge, to recognize common cultural traits.
Where similarities are acknowledged, they are automatically attributed to ‘independent
invention’.
Mainstream archaeologists even have difficulty accepting that there were contacts
between Central and South America! The Olmecs of Mesoamerica, who thrived from
1200 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 of
northern Peru. The Olmecs believed that the jaguar confers superiority on warriors; its
image is very common and often takes the form of a jaguar-man. A jaguar cult and the
jaguar-man also appear in the Chavín culture. Chavín de Huántar was not only a
cultural and ceremonial centre, but also a key commercial centre, where several trade
routes 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 the
Maya of Central America. The Incas had a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy and,
like many other cultures, conveyed information about the precession of the equinoxes in
their mythology. William Sullivan argues that there are too many precise
correspondences 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 La
Galgada. 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 to
extensive textural, iconographic and artefactual evidence showing that cultural transfer
took place from the Middle East and Asia across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the
Americas. Pre-Columbian South America underwent abrupt cultural and technological
advances that were apparently not the result of internal developments. He argues that it
is 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 is
unparalleled, and suggests that the ‘first’ remarkable Peruvian monuments (e.g. El
Paraíso, Sechin Alto) were initiated by mariners familiar with the traditions of West Asia
and later India. Excavations have revealed that rooms at El Paraíso were filled after a
certain 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 in
South America in the first half of the 1st millennium BC has no developmental
sequences leading up to it. Other textile arts such as painted textiles and batik (a
wax-resist dyeing technique) appear in the same unaccountable way. The batik
technique is most famously associated with Indonesia, where it appeared in the same
timeframe as in Peru. Kearsley concludes that this points to ‘contact between India and
South America, via Indonesia, to the coastal region of Peru and the Andean highlands
of South America’. He also suggests that the sudden appearance of ceramics at coastal
sites 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 the
Moche from the 1st millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD. Kearsley writes:
The ‘pegging-out’ of prisoners, illustrated in flaying scenes, are reflected in

many Moche ceramic illustrations along with prisoners racked or tied to
frames among other recognisable tortures and executions that were such a
feature of the Pre-Columbian cultures in the Americas. Trophy heads and
the accumulation of these severed heads in Assyria reflect the Aztec
tzompalli, or skull racks that appear to be so similar to those in Ancient
Mexico and beyond in South America that it would indeed appear that this
part 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 ceremonial
sites, 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 of

the developments may reflect Asian influences. The Chavín culture, for example, was
characterized 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 so

sophisticated and so profuse and complex in design that it has been
proposed that it is the product of specialist full-time artisans. This would in
fact follow the examples found in both Ancient Assyria in the same time band
of 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, produced

extremely beautiful gilded objects. Even older fragments of gilded copper foil, dating
back to perhaps 1400 BC, have been found at Mina Perdida, south of Lima, Peru; both
the copper and gold had been beaten into thin sheets and then united by an
unidentified adhesive, probably aided by the application of heat. The oldest artefacts of
cold-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 amalgamate
platinum and mercury to make platinum-plated jewellery. The Incas knew how to make
bronze; some bronze artefacts recovered from Machu Picchu even contained 18%
bismuth in addition to tin. Many South American gold objects were found to be made
from alloys containing considerable copper and were therefore much less precious than
originally imagined. Modern metallurgists have speculated that South American gilders
might have used mercury to bond gold to copper. Gold, too, may have been used as a
sort of solder. A copper arrowhead found in Ecuador was found to have been soldered
with silver or a silver-copper alloy. A prehistoric copper rattle found at Supe on the
Peruvian 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-Columbian

Ecuador. Some tiny particles of gold, when viewed through a magnifying glass, are
found to be beautifully wrought beads. Many are elaborately engraved or chased,
others are built up of several almost invisible pieces welded or soldered together, and
all are pierced. It’s hard to see how such minute objects, many times smaller than the
head of a pin, could have been produced without the help of a lens. Crude lenses can
be made from crystal. The existence of superbly carved crystal skulls shows that
pre-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 the
Americas, 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 of
obsidian or flint. Another technique was to drill a circle of small holes in the skull, taking
care not to puncture the membranes enclosing the brain; the ridges between the holes
were then cut out and the circular piece of bone removed. In Peru a more hazardous
procedure was sometimes used; rectangular pieces of skull were removed by making
four straight incisions with metal saws. The same procedure was also used in the
Middle East. Inca surgeons were successful 80% of the time, whereas trepanation in the
early 20th century succeeded only 20% of the time. Trepanation in South America is
currently thought to have begun about 400 BC. The oldest trepanned skull so far found
comes 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 Several
researchers have highlighted the close similarities between the social structures among
the Incas and those found in ancient India, Indonesia and Melanesia. H.P. Blavatsky
writes as follows about the parallels between the Incas and the Indian Brahmans.
The Incas, judged by their exclusive privileges, power, and ‘infallibility,’ are
the antipodal counterpart of the Brahmanical caste of India. Like the latter,
the Incas claimed direct descent from Deity, which, as in the case of the
Suryavansha dynasty of India, was the Sun. According to the sole but
general tradition, there was a time when the whole of the population of the
now New World was broken up into independent, warring, and barbarian
tribes. At last, the ‘Highest’ deity – the Sun – took pity upon them, and, in
order to rescue the people from ignorance, sent down upon earth, to teach
them, his two children Manco Capac and his sister and wife, Mama Oella
Huaca – the counterparts, again, of the Egyptian Osiris, and his sister and
wife, Isis, as well as of the several Hindu gods and demi-gods and their
wives. ... It is from this celestial pair that the Incas claimed their descent; and
yet, they were utterly ignorant of the people who built the stupendous and
now ruined cities which cover the whole area of their empire ... As the direct
descendants of the Sun, they were exclusively the high priests of the state
religion, and at the same time emperors and the highest statesmen in the
land; in virtue of which, they, again like the Brahmans, arrogated to
themselves a divine superiority over the ordinary mortals, thus founding like
the ‘twice-born’ [Brahmans] an exclusive and aristocratic caste – the Inca
41
race. Considered as the son of the Sun, every reigning Inca was the high
priest, the oracle, chief captain in war, and absolute sovereign ... To his
command the blindest obedience was exacted; his person was sacred; and
he was the object of divine honours. The highest officers of the land could
not appear shod in his presence; this mark of respect pointing again to an
Oriental origin; while the custom of boring the ears of the youths of royal
blood and inserting in them golden rings ‘which were increased in size as
they advanced in rank, until the distention of the cartilage became a positive
deformity,’ suggests a strange resemblance between the sculptured portraits
of many of them that we find in the more modern ruins, and the images of
Buddha and of some Hindu deities, not to mention our contemporary
dandies 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 either
receive an education or study religion except the young men of the privileged
Inca caste. And, when the reigning Inca died, or as it was termed, ‘was
called home to the mansion of his father,’ a very large number of his
attendants and his wives were made to die with him, during the ceremony of
his obsequies, just as we find in the old annals of Rajasthan, and down to
the but just abolished custom of Suttee. ... What we want to learn is, how
came 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 unnaturally

large ears symbolize the omniscience of wisdom, and were meant as a reminder of the
power 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 of
social rank and power in many different cultures may have arisen after the original
purely symbolic meaning had faded.
The ruling caste of the Inca peoples, the Ayar Incas, parallels the Aryan-Brahman caste
of ancient India. ‘Ayar’ appears to be a variant of ‘Aryan’, which is derived from ‘arya’, a
Sanskrit word meaning ‘worthy, holy, noble’. The name of the Hindu fire god, Agni, is
related to ‘ignis’, the original ancient root for fire, and is similar to Inti, the Ayar Inca term
for the sun. ‘Agnikayana’ refers to the ancient Vedic fire altar rituals, designed to ensure
that 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 Cuzco
legend, the Inca ruler would ritually tie the sun to the post on the day of the winter
solstice 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 true
pathways for ceremonial purposes (including human sacrifices in times of drought);
some were boundary lines defining where specific kinship groups lived; and others were
sight lines with astronomical and calendric functions. Situated along them are about 328
huacas (wakas) or shrines, including springs, fountains, bridges, houses, hills, caves,
and legendary tombs and battlefields. The hub or ‘navel’ of the ceque system was a
stone 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 topknot
of the Buddha, representing the crown chakra and its irradiance, was called the
ushnisha. Cuzco’s ceques were divided into four unequal pie-shaped slices – a practice
also found in Melanesia. Other features found in both Melanesia and Peru include
trepanation, 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 of
infants’ heads – originated or spread. It was also practised by the Olmecs, the Maya,
the Aztecs, the Flathead Indians, the ancient Egyptians, the Easter Islanders, the
Cro-Magnon Aurignacian culture, the Basques, the Indians of the Antilles, and the
ancient Chinese. The practice was used to denote elite status, to emphasize ethnic
differences, 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 across
the Pacific to the East Indies on a round trip – the sort of voyage the Ming Chinese were
making in the 15th century. At the time of the conquest in 1532, the Spaniards reported
that Inca Atahualpa wore silk tunics, which may point to a Chinese connection. The
Spaniards found vast orchards of lemons and pomegranates growing in Peru – fruits
that are native to Asia. The sweet potato, which is native to South America, is called
kumar in the Quechua language of Peru and Ecuador, and kumara in the Maori
language of Mangareva, Paumotu, Easter Island, and Rarotonga. It seems that either
South 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 identical
to the boats with high curving prows and sterns made of bundles of papyrus reeds used
on the Nile from predynastic times. Boats of that design are still used in the Euphrates
delta of Iraq, on Lake Chad in the southern Sahara, and in the coastal waters around
the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. They were used in Mexico, including the eastern
shore 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 cultures
were mentioned in section 2. There are in fact numerous legends and eye-witness
reports of white Indians in South America. They have been sighted in the past all over
central and western South America, especially in remote areas; in the west they tended
to 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 of
the 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 (Mongoloid
Amerindians have essentially no facial hair) with European-like features are quite
common 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 South
American 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 and

culture-bearer of the Incas – and in some cases his men – was often described as white
skinned and bearded, and sometimes as wearing long white robes and sandals, and
carrying 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, and
Quetzalcoatl. Some researchers contend that such figures are rooted in real persons,
and that their description may point to visitors from the Mediterranean.30 Harold Wilkins
thought these culture-heroes, like many of the white Indian races, were of Atlantean
origin.31
References
1. The Ancient Americas, section 5, http://davidpratt.info.

2. 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.
time, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996, pp. 144, 277.
45
4. Graeme R. Kearsley, Inca Origins: Asian influences in early South America in

myth, migration and history, London: Yelsraek Publishing, 2003, pp. 176, 810.
5. Ibid., pp. 321, 808-9.
6. Ibid., pp. 171, 173, 176-7.
7. Ibid., pp. 191, 224-5.
8. Ibid., p. 810.
9. Ibid., p. 161; La Galgada, www.arqueologiadelperu.com.ar/lagalgada.htm.
10. Inca Origins, p. 231.
11. 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 from
the 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.
12. W.R. Corliss (comp.), Archeological Anomalies: Small artifacts – bone, stone,
metal artifacts, prints, high-technology, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2003,
pp. 247-54.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=128.
17. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House
(TPH), 1950-91, 2:306-8.
18. H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, TUP, 1977 (1888), 2:339.
19. Inca Origins, pp. 105, 350-1, 517, 605-7.
20. www.exoticindiaart.com/product/EY48; Inca Origins, p. 178.
33-9; Inca Origins, pp. 342-5.
22. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Potosi_D%C3%A9cembre_2007_-_La_M
oneda_2.jpg.
23. The Ancient Americas, section 4.
24. Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, pp. 115-16, 178-9.
25. Harold T. Wilkins, Secret Cities of Old South America, Kempton, IL: Adventures
Unlimited 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.
26. Secret Cities of Old South America, pp. 88, 150.
Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2008, p. 165.
29. Mysteries of Ancient South America, pp. 110-11.
30. Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, pp. 117-23.
31. Secret Cities of Old South America, pp. 93-8.
46
4. The Nazca lines
The Nazca plain, some 400 km south of Lima, is covered with dozens of drawings of
creatures and plants, several thousand straight lines, and hundreds of geometrical
figures such as trapezoids and zigzags.1 The Nazca lines can only be fully appreciated
from the air; they were rediscovered by a pilot in 1927. On the Pampa de San José the
geoglyphs cover a total area of over 500 sq km; tourist flights concentrate on a small
number of creature drawings in this area. But geoglyphs also adorn surrounding valleys
and mountaintops. There is an incredible profusion of lines and glyphs, of varying sizes
and quality, some superimposed on older ones, as if they were made by different
groups 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 with
what might be a sex organ, some researchers believe it represents a
Ricinulei 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 normally

only visible with the aid of a microscope.
Fig. 4.2 Above: Photo and diagram of the roughly-made 9-fingered monkey
48
(80 m body and 30 m tail), with its prehensile tail curling in the wrong
direction. 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.
49
Most of the lines were made by removing the surface layer of darker, iron-oxide coated
pebbles (up to a depth of 30 cm), exposing the lighter, yellowish earth beneath. (Since
the 1950s motorbikes and cars have left their ugly tyre marks all over the ground in the
form of yellowish-white lines.) In some cases, stones were piled up along the edges of
the lines. In others, stones were removed from the edges so that the figures stood out in
high relief. The lines persist due to the extremely dry, windless, and constant climate of
the Nazca region. Other giant geoglyphs can be found on cliffs and slopes elsewhere in
the coastal region of Peru, and also in Chile, Bolivia, the United States, Egypt, and
Malta, but those at Nazca are the most impressive. It is the only place where multiple
lines 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 to
the area, there are representations of flowers and plants. Nearly all the biomorphic
figures are located on about 5% of the northwest corner of the pampa and are tiny by
comparison with the straight lines. They all consist of a single, continuous line that
never crosses itself, except for three killer whales (consisting of one line on both the
outside and inside) and two solid infilled llamas (representing dark cloud patterns in the
Milky Way). In addition, there are a number of strange figures, such as a being with two
enormous hands, one of which has only four fingers. There are also drawings of
man-made objects. The few human figures, up to 40 m high, are situated on hillsides
and tend to be crudely made.
50
Fig. 4.5 Condor (134 m long).
Fig. 4.6 The alcatraz / phoenix / flamingo, with its zigzag neck and long beak, is over
610 m long.
51
Fig. 4.7 Figure interpreted as needle-and-thread or a fishing rod, about half a mile long.
52
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
53
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 stylized
feather headdress and feline mask. Rays, projections, halos etc. around a
head are sometimes interpreted as a sign that the figure is an extraterrestrial.
A more spiritual interpretation is of course possible.
54
Fig. 4.11 This giant picture, 65 m long, situated in the south of the Nazca
plateau, 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 all
directions, and often crisscrossing one another. Many lines pass over crevices and hill
summits, 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 lines
converge. There are also wider tracks or ‘runways’, from 30 to 110 m wide and up to 1.4
km 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 that
run over other runways.
Fig. 4.12 Nazca lines (not to be confused with wavy erosion patterns) seen from the
SPOT satellite.6
55
Fig. 4.13 Satellite picture of an area containing lines.7
56
Fig. 4.14 Two 50-m-wide runways and 21 narrower lines converge.8 (Courtesy of Erich
von Däniken)
57
Fig. 4.15 A 62-metre-wide trail ascends a small hill then spreads out from
the 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 about
300 trapezoidal areas and triangular spaces. Trapezoidal figures measure about 40 by
400 metres on average, with the largest measuring 92 by 869 m.
58
Fig. 4.16 Trapezoid.
59
Fig. 4.17 Trapezoids and trails on the Pampa de Jumana.10 (Courtesy of Erich von
Däniken)
60
Fig. 4.18 A trapezoid superimposed on a figure.11
Fig. 4.19 Lines and trapezoid.
61
Fig. 4.20 The ‘mandala’ consists of three interconnected glyphs, carved with
great precision, spread out over 1 km on a remote mountain plateau. A large
square 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 with
countless smaller holes on its circumference, and in its middle are two
superimposed 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 sufficient
to make the lines and figures on the Nazca plain. Remains of stakes have been found in
the 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 first
drew a sketch in an area about 2 m square; some sketches are still visible near some of
the larger figures. They then faced the task of transposing the small-scale drawing onto
a 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 were
made 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’ and
trapezoids, 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 to
be 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 the
pampa 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 six
successfully 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 the
perpendicular distances from the line to different points on the figure. They then created
a centre line on the ground and plotted key points on the figure by scaling up the
measurements 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 on

zigzags, extends over several mountain summits, which first had to be
levelled.5 (Courtesy of Erich von Däniken)
63
Date
The Nazca lines are usually said to have been made by the Nazca culture between
about 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 some
geometric designs are superimposed on the animal drawings, it is sometimes claimed
that all the geometric designs were made after the animal drawings, but there is no
compelling 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 are
generally rather tenuous and far from exact. Even if we assume that the similarities were
intentional, it would not automatically prove that the Nazcans made those particular
glyphs, let alone all of them. It could also indicate that they had merely viewed them (if
not from the air then from nearby hilltops), or worked out their shape from the lines on
the ground, or that they had preserved traditions of figures that had been made at an
earlier time.
64
Fig. 4.22 Top: Killer whale depicted on a Nazca ceramic.1 Bottom: A killer whale glyph
and 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 a
slope. It bears a reasonable resemblance to a Paracas iconographic figure
65
(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 of
stones has been carbon-dated to about 525 AD. This does not prove that most of the
lines were constructed in the same period. Once desert stones have been moved,
lichen, moulds and cyanobacteria develop below them, and this organic material can be
carbon-dated. Tests on nine stones collected from the edge of a Nazca line or runway
yielded ages of between 190 BC and 600 AD. However, it is impossible to be sure that
these stones had really been removed by the original line makers and had never been
touched since.
In short, it cannot be ruled out some of the geoglyphs at Nazca are far older than
currently believed, and have been restored and added to by successive cultures over
thousands of years.
Purpose
It is widely thought that many of the Nazca lines and figures were used for ritual and
ceremonial purposes, and were designed to be seen by gods in the sky. One theory is
that they were connected with the worship of mountain deities associated with water
and fertility. Sufficient rainfall in the mountains was, after all, critical to the Nazcan
economy and agriculture. According to this theory, the lines were primarily used as
sacred paths leading to places where these deities could be worshipped, and the
figures represent animals and objects meant to invoke their assistance. The ray centres
where 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, could
have been walked since they consist of a single line that never crosses. Certain sections
of the geoglyph network are still used by local people for religious purposes. And in
Bolivia there are similar radiating systems of pathways that are still used for ceremonial
walking.
A recent study of several large trapezoidal structures at Nazca detected numerous

magnetic anomalies within them, thought to be caused by changes in soil density at
various depths. The researchers believe that the soil was compacted by people walking
back 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 Nazca
plain, possibly as an offering. Seashells – which were important offerings for rain – are
often found in the mounds near the lines and at the ends of lines. There are no major
temples anywhere near the lines and figures, but there are piles of stones that may be
shrines. 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 many
spiders and lizards is believed to be a sign of rain, and the tarantula is a symbol of
fertility in southern Peru. The spider, dog and monkey are depicted at Nazca with their
sexual parts extended. Foxes and dogs are associated with mountain deities. Killer
whales and fish are associated with water and sea food. Some figures have been
interpreted as plants, such as flowers, algae and trees. As for the hands with nine
fingers, in Inca times it was widely believed that deformed people were children of
lightning 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 magical
charms for shamans, and some lines could have had astronomical functions.
Fig. 4.25 Hummingbird (93 m long).
67
Fig. 4.26 Dog.
Maria Reiche was a prominent proponent of the theory that at least some of the Nazca
lines were intended to point to the places on the horizon where the sun and other
celestial bodies rose or set, and that some figures represented constellations. She
proposed, 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 Orion
as it set along the western horizon about 2000 years ago. Studies by Gerald Hawkins in
1973 and Anthony Aveni in 1982 identified only a few specific alignments to the
positions 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
68
Fig. 4.28 A jumbled mess.
The most striking feature of the Nazca lines is their seemingly chaotic profusion. John
Neal has put forward a novel suggestion:
The whole desert of Nazca may be a testing ground and college of

surveying. The conditions are ideal, and the apprentice surveyor would first
have to interpret what was already there to its exact dimensions, then
produce an accurate scale representation, perhaps on the square fathom
plot beside the figure, and as a final test of his abilities, produce his own
figure upon the desert floor, aligned to a calendrical date which he would
have to calculate. ... One can imagine the compounded difficulties that
would be encountered by a young surveyor, perhaps thrown in at the deep
end by having to survey a degree of longitude in the mountains and jungles
of Peru and Ecuador ...
Possibly, students would not have to make a special journey to Nazca in
order to take a course in surveying, it may have been on an educational
route. A doctorate in the ancient world may have entailed a complete
circumnavigation of the globe by land and by sea, whereby the student
would learn and apply the techniques of navigation, astronomy and
surveying at all conceivable latitudes. ... Something along these lines may
explain the sheer number of lines where the land has only ever supported a
relatively low level of population; the bulk of the people would be there
temporarily, as students, strictly for reasons of geography.6
69
References

23-32; Erich Von Däniken, Arrival of the Gods: Revealing the alien landing sites of
Nazca, Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, 2000, www.daniken.com.
2. www.nazcamystery.com/nazca_symbol_ape.htm.
3. Ibid.
4. http://img81.imageshack.us/i/tara6jy3.jpg.
5. Heraldo Fuenets, Walking the line, www.viewzone.com/nazcatheories.html.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines.
7. Ibid.
8. Arrival of the Gods, p. 11, www.legendarytimes.com.
9. Ibid., p. 14.
10. Ibid., p. 10.
11. A. Dukszto & J.M. Helfer, The Essential Guide: Secrets and Mysteries, the Nasca
Lines, Lima: Ediciones del Hipocampoc S.A.C., 2001, p. 6.
12. Walking the line; Arrival of the Gods, pp. 128-33.
Construction
1. 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.
2. Arrival of the Gods, pp. 102-3.
3. Ibid.
4. Joe Nickell, ‘The Nazca Lines revisited: creation of a full-sized duplicate’, The
Skeptical Inquirer, 1983, www.onagocag.com/nazca.html.
5. Ibid., p. 43, www.legendarytimes.com.
Date
1. Michael E. Moseley, The Incas and their Ancestors: The archaeology of Peru,
London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, p. 201.
2. The Essential Guide: Secrets and Mysteries, the Nasca Lines, p. 14.
3. Ibid., p. 21.
Purpose
1. Linda Geddes, Peruvians walked their prayers into the earth, 2009,
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126924.200-peruvians-walked-their-prayers-
into-the-earth.html.
2. 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.
3. Johan Reinhard, The Nazca Lines: A new perspective on their origin and meaning,
Lima: Editorial Los Pinos, 2nd ed., 1986, pp. 42-54.
4. Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the lost civilization,
London: Michael Joseph, 1998, pp. 262-7.
5. Corliss, Archeological Anomalies: Small artifacts, p. 27.
70
6. John Neal, All Done With Mirrors: An exploration of measure, proportion, ratio and
number, The Secret Academy, 2000, p. 199.
Lost Civilizations of the Andes: Part 2
Lost Civilizations of the Andes: Contents
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Lost Civilizations of the Andes

Fig. 1.1 Inca expansion.3

The conquistador Don Mancio Serra de Leguisamo, in a moment of remorse, wrote as

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

Fig. 1.3 Terraces at Pisac, Sacred Valley.

Fig. 1.5 ‘Inca’ roads.5

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

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

The radiocarbon-dating of organic material (e.g. bone, flesh, wood) found at

Furthermore, there is a certain amount of selectivity in reporting results. One

Fig. 2.1 Map of Peru.

Fig. 2.2 Pyramids at Caral.

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

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

Fig. 2.5 Reconstruction of the Sechín Alto monument complex.

In 2007 archaeologists discovered a 5500-year-old circular, sunken plaza at the Sechín

Fig. 2.7 Chavin territory.17

Fig. 2.8 The Raimondi stela, Chavin de Huantar. It bears a remarkably

Fig. 2.9 The Castillo, Chavín de Huántar.20

Fig. 2.10 Entrance to the Castillo.

Fig. 2.11 Huaca del Sol.

The Paracas ‘Trident’ or ‘Candelabra’ is a huge cactus-shaped figure carved into a

Fig. 2.12 The Candelabra.

Fig. 2.13 Adobe pyramid at Cahuachi.30

Fig. 2.14 Cahuachi reconstruction.31

Pachacamac, 40 km southeast of Lima, comprises a vast complex of monumental

Fig. 2.18 Territory of the Wari and Tiwanaku cultures.

Fig. 2.19 Outer walls of Kuelap.

Fig. 2.20 Restored round house.

Fig. 2.21 Zigzag pattern.

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

London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, p. 119.

2000, pp. 66, 77-87.

The ‘pegging-out’ of prisoners, illustrated in flaying scenes, are reflected in

Pre-Columbian South American metallurgy was remarkably sophisticated, and some of

The high quality of Chavin ornamentation and craftsmanship is so

Pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Chavín and Moche cultures, produced

Gold ornaments of microscopic dimensions have been found in pre-Columbian

image of brutish cavemen.14

Fig. 3.3 A trepanned skull from Inca Peru.15

Commenting on long-eared statues of the Buddha, Blavatsky writes: ‘The unnaturally

Fig. 3.5 Inca skull with cranial deformation.22

Viracocha (sometimes called Con-Tiki Viracocha), the feathered serpent-god and

1. The Ancient Americas, section 5, http://davidpratt.info.

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

4. The Nazca lines

measure 5 to 10 mm in length, and the male reproductive organ is normally

Fig. 4.3 Straight lines.

Fig. 4.4 A cleared path.

Fig. 4.5 Condor (134 m long).

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

Fig. 4.16 Trapezoid.

Fig. 4.18 A trapezoid superimposed on a figure.11

Fig. 4.19 Lines and trapezoid.

Fig. 4.21 This roughly 60-m-wide, 700-m-long runway, superimposed on

Fig. 4.23 Nazca bowl with drawings of spiders.2

A recent study of several large trapezoidal structures at Nazca detected numerous

Fig. 4.25 Hummingbird (93 m long).

Fig. 4.26 Dog.

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

Fig. 4.28 A jumbled mess.

The whole desert of Nazca may be a testing ground and college of