Enormous drawings that were undoubtedly meant as signals for a being floating in the air are found on mountain sides in many parts of Peru. What other purpose could they have served?
One of the most peculiar drawings is carved on the high red wall of the cliffs in the Bay of Pisco. If you arrive by sea, you can make out a figure nearly 820 ft high from a distance of over 12 miles. If you play at 'It looks like ...', your immediate reaction is that this sculptor's work looks like a gigantic trident or a colossal three-branched candlestick. And a long rope was found on the central column of this stone sign. Did it serve as a pendulum in the past?
To be honest, we must admit that we are groping in the dark when we try to explain it. It cannot be meaningfully included in existing dogmas, which does not mean to say that there may not be some trick by which scholars could conjure this phenomenon too into the great mosaic of accepted archaeological thinking.
But what can have induced the pre-Inca peoples to build the fantastic lines, the landing strips, at Nazca? What madness could have driven them to create the 820-ft-high stone signs on the red cliffs south of Lima?
These tasks would have taken decades without modern machines and appliances. Their whole activity would have been senseless if the end-product of their efforts had not been meant as signs to beings approaching them from great heights. The stimulating question still has to be answered: why did they do all this if they could have had no idea that flying beings actually existed?
The identification of finds can no longer remain a matter for archaeology alone. A council of scientists from different fields of research would certainly bring us closer to the solution of the puzzle. Exchange of opinions and dialogue would definitely produce illuminating insights. The danger of research coming to no definite conclusion lies in the fact that scientists do not take the posing of such questions seriously and ridicule them. Space travellers in the grey mists of time? An inadmissible question to academic scientists. Anyone who asks questions like that ought to see a psychiatrist.
But the questions are there, and questions, thank heavens, have the impertinent quality of hovering in the air until they are answered. And there are many inadmissible questions like that. For example, what would people say if there was a calendar which gave the equinoxes, the astronomical seasons, the positions of the moon for every hour and also the movements of the moon, even taking the rotation of the earth into account?
That is no mere hypothetical question. This calendar exists. It was found in the dry mud at Tiahuanaco. It is a disconcerting find. It yields irrefutable facts and proves— can our self-assurance admit such a proof? —that the beings who produced, devised and used the calendar had a higher culture than ours.
Another fantastic discovery made there was the Great Idol. This single block of red sandstone is over 24 ft long and weighs 20 tons. It was found in the Old Temple. Again we have a contradiction between the superb quality and precision of the hundreds of symbols all over the idol and the primitive technique used for the building housing it. Indeed it is called the Old Temple because of the primitive technique.
H. S. Bellamy and P. Allan have given a closely reasoned interpretation of the symbols in their book The Great Idol of Tiahuanaco. They conclude that the symbols record an enormous body of astronomical knowledge and are based, as a matter of fact, on a round earth.
They conclude that the record fits perfectly Hoerbiger's Theory of Satellites published in 1927 five years before the idol was discovered. This theory postulates that a satellite was captured by the earth. As it was pulled towards the earth it slowed down the speed of the earth's revolutions. It finally disintegrated and was replaced by the moon.
The symbols on the idol exactly record the astronomical phenomena which would accompany this theory at a time when the satellite was making 425 revolutions round the earth in a year of 288 days. They were forced to conclude that the idol records the state of the heavens 27,000 years ago. They write 'Generally, the idol inscriptions give the impression ... that it has been devised also as a record for future generations.'
Here indeed is an object of great antiquity which demands a better explanation than 'an ancient god'. If this interpretation of the symbols can be substantiated we must ask was the astronomical knowledge really amassed by people who still had a great deal to learn about building or did it come from extra-terrestrial sources? In either case the existence of such a sophisticated body of knowledge, demonstrated on both the idol and the calendar is staggering.
The city of Tiahuanaco teems with secrets. The city lies at a height of over 13,000 ft, besides which it is miles from anywhere. Starting from Cuzco (Peru), you reach the city and the excavation sites after several days' travel by rail and boat. The plateau looks like the landscape of an unknown planet. Manual labour is a torture for anyone who is not a native. The atmospheric pressure is about half as low as it is at sea-level and the oxygen content of the air is correspondingly small. And yet an enormous city stood on this plateau.
There are no authentic traditions about Tiahuanaco. Perhaps we should be glad that in this case acceptable answers cannot be reached by leaning on the crutch of hereditary orthodox learning. Over the ruins, which are incredibly old (how old we do not yet know), lies the mist of the past, ignorance and mystery.
Blocks of sandstone weighing 100 tons are topped with other 60-ton blocks for walls. Smooth surfaces with extremely accurate chamfers join enormous squared stones which are held together with copper clamps. In addition all the stone work is exceptionally neatly executed. Holes 8 ft long, whose purpose has not been explained so far, are found in blocks weighing 10 tons. Nor do the 16 1/2-ft-long, worn-down flagstones cut out of one piece contribute to the solution of the mystery that Tiahuanaco conceals. Stone water conduits, 6 ft long and 1 1/2 ft wide, are found scattered about on the ground like toys, obviously by a catastrophe of tremendous dimensions. These finds stagger us by their accurate workmanship. Had our forefathers at Tiahuanaco nothing better to do than spend years—without tools— fashioning water conduits of such precision that our modern concrete conduits seem the work of mere bunglers in comparison?
In a courtyard which has now been restored there is a jumble of stone heads which, on closer observation, appears to be made up of the most varied races, for some of the faces have narrow, and some swollen lips, some long and some hooked noses, some delicate and some thick ears, some soft and some angular features. Yes, and some of the heads wear strange helmets. Arc all these unfamiliar figures trying to convey a message that we cannot or will not understand, inhibited as we are by stubbornness and prejudice?
One of the great archaeological wonders of South America is the monolithic Gate of the Sun at Tiahuanaco— a gigantic sculpture, nearly 10 ft high and 16 1/2 ft wide, carved out of a single block. The estimated weight of this piece of masonry is over 10 tons. Forty-eight square figures in three rows flank a being who represents a flying god.
What does legend say about the mysterious city of Tiahuanaco?
It tells of a golden space-ship, that came from the stars; in it came a woman, whose name was Oryana, to fulfil the task of becoming the Great Mother of the earth. Oryana had only four fingers, which were webbed. Great Mother Oryana gave birth to seventy earth children, then she returned to the stars.
