Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00497)

Dear Jonathan

I enjoyed reading what you posted.

Here is a copy of an article written about 125 years ago by another great
traveller (3 times around the world in the period between 1851 and 1875)
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

I think you might already have this, but in case you have not go through it
and see if it agrees with information you might already have.

Dal


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LAND OF MYSTERY-- A.DOC

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A LAND OF MYSTERY
WHETHER one surveys the imposing ruins of Memphis or Palmyra; stands at the
foot of the great pyramid of Ghizé; wanders along the shores of the Nile;or
ponders amid the desolate fastnesses of the long-lost and mysterious Petra;
however clouded and misty the origin of these prehistoric relics may appear,
one nevertheless finds at least certain fragments of firm ground upon which
to build conjecture. Thick as may be the curtain behind which the history of
these antiquities is hidden, still there are rents here and there through
which one may catch glimpses of light. We are acquainted with the
descendants of the builders. And, however superficially, we also know the
story of the nations whose vestiges are scattered around us. Not so with the
antiquities of the New World of the two Americas. There, all along the coast
of Peru, all over the Isthmus and North America, in the canyons of the
Cordilleras, in the impossible gorges of the Andes, and, especially beyond
the valley of Mexico, lie, ruined and desolate, hundreds of once mighty
cities, lost to the memory of men, and having themselves lost even a name.
Buried in dense forests, entombed in inaccessible valleys, sometimes sixty
feet under-ground, from the day of their discovery until now they have ever
remained a riddle to science, baffling all inquiry, and they have been muter
than the Egyptian Sphinx herself. We know nothing of America prior to the
Conquest--positively nothing. No chronicles, not even comparatively modern
ones survive; there are no traditions, even among the aboriginal tribes, as
to its past events. We are as ignorant of the races that built these
cyclopean structures, as of the strange worship that inspired the
antediluvian sculptors who carved upon hundreds of miles of walls, of
monuments, monoliths and altars, these weird hieroglyphics, these groups of
animals and men, pictures of an unknown life and lost arts--scenes so
fantastic and wild, at times, that they involuntarily suggest the idea of a
feverish dream, whose phantasmagoria at the wave of some mighty magician's
hand suddenly crystallized into granite, to bewilder the coming generations
for ever and ever. So late as the beginning of the present century, the very
existence of such wealth of antiquities was unknown. The petty, suspicious
jealousy of the Spaniards had, from the first, created a sort of Chinese
wall between their American possessions and the too curious traveller: and
the ignorance and fanaticism of the conquerors, and their carelessness as to
all but the satisfaction of their insatiable greediness, had precluded
scientific research. Even the enthusiastic accounts of Cortez and his army
of brigands and priests, and of Pizarro and his robbers and monks, as to the
splendour of the temples, palaces, and cities of Mexico and Peru, were long
discredited. In his History of America, Dr. Robertson goes so far as to
inform his reader that the houses of the ancient Mexicans were "mere huts,
built with turf, or mud, or the branches of trees, like those of the rudest
Indians; '' 1 and, upon the testimony of some Spaniards he even risked the
assertion that "in all the extent of that vast empire," there was not "a
single monument or vestige of any building more ancient than the Conquest"!
It was reserved to the great Alexander Humboldt to vindicate the truth. In
1803 a new flood of light was poured into the world of archæology by this
eminent and learned traveller. In this he luckily proved but the pioneer of
future discoverers. He then described but Mitla, or the Vale of the Dead,
Xoxichalco, and the great pyramidal Temple of Cholula. But, after him came
Stephens, Catherwood, and Squier; and, in Peru, D'Orbigny and Dr. Tschuddi.
Since then, numerous travellers have visited and given us accurate details
of many of the antiquities. But, how many more yet remain not only
unexplored, but even unknown, no one can tell. As regards prehistoric
buildings, both Peru and Mexico are rivals of Egypt. Equaling the latter in
the immensity of her cyclopean structures, Peru surpasses her in their
number; while Cholula exceeds the grand pyramid of Cheops in breadth, if not
in height. Works of public utility, such as walls, fortifications, terraces,
water-courses, aqueducts, bridges, temples, burial-grounds, whole cities,
and exquisitely paved roads, hundreds of miles in length, stretch in an
unbroken line, almost covering the land as with a net. On the coast, they
are built of sun-dried bricks; in the mountains, of porphyritic lime,
granite and silicated sandstones. Of the long generations of peoples who
built them, history knows nothing, and even tradition is silent. As a matter
of course, most of these lithic remains are covered with a dense vegetation.
Whole forests have grown out of the broken hearts of the cities, and, with a
few exceptions, everything is in ruin. But one may judge of what once was by
that which yet remains.
With a most flippant unconcern, the Spanish historians refer nearly every
ruin to Incan times. No greater mistake can be made. The hieroglyphics which
sometimes cover from top to bottom whole walls and monoliths are, as they
were from the first, a dead letter to modern science. But they were equally
a dead letter to the Incas, though the history of the latter can be traced
to the eleventh century They had no clue to the meaning of these
inscriptions, but attributed all such to their unknown predecessors; thus
barring the presumption of their own descent from the first civilizers of
their country. Briefly, the Incal history runs thus:--
Inca is the Quichua title for chief or emperor, and the name of the ruling
and most aristocratic race or rather caste of the land which was governed by
them for an unknown period, prior to, and until, the Spanish Conquest. Some
place their first appearance in Peru from regions unknown in 1021; others,
also, or conjecture, at five centuries after the Biblical "flood," and
according to the modest notions of Christian theology. Still the latter
theory is undoubtedly nearer truth than the former. The Incas, judged by
their exclusive privileges, power and "infallibility," are the antipodal
counterpart of the Brahminical caste of India. Like the latter, the Incas
claimed direct descent from the Deity, which, as in the case of the
Sûryavansa 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 Ocollo Huaco--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. These
two made their appearance on a beautiful island in Lake Titicaca--of which
we will speak further on--and thence proceeded northward to Cuzco, later on
the capital of the Incas, where they at once began to disseminate
civilization. Collecting together the various races from all parts of Peru,
the divine couple then divided their labor. Manco Capac taught men
agriculture, legislation, architecture and arts; while Mama Ocollo
instructed the women in weaving, spinning, embroidery and house-keeping. 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, and which then
extended from the Equator to over 37 degrees of Latitude, and included not
only the western slope of the Andes, but the whole mountain chain with its
eastern declivities to the Amazon and Orinoco. 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"
an exclusive and aristocratic caste--the Inca race. Considered as the son of
the Sun, every reigning Inca was the high priest, the oracle, chief captain
in war, and absolute sovereign; thus realizing the double office of Pope and
King, and so long anticipating the dream of the Roman Pontiffs. 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 cartilege 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 deities, not to mention our contemporary
dandies of Siam, Burmah, 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 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 Rajesthan, and down to the
but just abolished custom of Sutti. Taking all this into consideration, the
archæologist cannot remain satisfied with the brief remark of certain
historians that "in this tradition we trace only another version of the
story of the civilization common to all primitive nations, and that
imposture of a celestial relationship whereby designing rulers and cunning
priests have sought to secure their ascendency among men." No more is it an
explanation to say that "Manco Capac is the almost exact counterpart of the
Chinese Fohi, the Hindu Buddha, the terrestrial Osiris of Egypt, the
Quetzalcoatl of Mexico, and Votan of Central America"; for all this is but
too evident. 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. The much-needed task is
to find out which one of them preceded the other; to explain how these
people came to plant at the four corners of the earth nearly identical
architecture and arts, unless there was a time when, as assured by Plato and
believed in by more than one modern archæologist, no ships were needed for
such a transit, as the two worlds formed but one continent.
According to the most recent researches, there are five distinct styles of
architecture in the Andes alone, of which the temple of the Sun at Cuzco was
the latest. And this one, perhaps, is the only structure of importance
which, according to modern travellers, can be safely attributed to the
Incas, whose imperial glories are believed to have been the last gleam of a
civilization dating back for untold ages. Dr. E. R. Heath, of Kansas
(U.S.A.), thinks that "long before Manco Capac, the Andes had been the
dwelling-place of races, whose beginning must have been coëval with the
savages of Western Europe. The gigantic architecture points to the cyclopean
family, the founders of the Temple of Babel, and the Egyptian pyramids. The
Grecian scroll found in many places is borrowed (?) from the Egyptians; the
mode of burial and embalming their dead points to Egypt." Further on, this
learned traveller finds that the skulls taken from the burial-grounds,
according to craniologists, represent three distinct races: the Chinchas,
who occupied the western part of Peru from the Andes to the Pacific; the
Aymaras, dwellers of the elevated plains of Peru and Bolivia, on the
southern shore of Lake Titicaca; and the Huancas, who "occupied the plateau
between the chains of the Andes, north of Lake Titicaca to the 9th degree of
South Latitude." To confound the buildings of the epoch of the Incas in
Peru, and of Montezuma and his caciques, in Mexico, with the aboriginal
monuments, is fatal to archaeology. While Cholula, Uxmal, Quiché,
Pachacamac, and Chichen were all perfectly preserved and occupied at the
time of the invasion of the Spanish banditti, there are hundreds of ruined
cities and works which were in the same state of ruin even then; whose
origin was unknown to the conquered Incas and caciques as it is to us; and
which are undoubtedly the remains of unknown and now extinct peoples. The
strange shapes of the heads, and profiles of the human figures upon the
monoliths of Copan are a warrant for the correctness of the hypothesis. The
pronounced difference between the skulls of these races and the
Indo-European skulls was at first attributed to mechanical means, used by
the mothers for giving a peculiar conformation to the head of their children
during infancy, as is often done by other tribes and peoples. But, as the
same author tells us, the finding in "a mummy of a fœtus of seven or eight
months having the same conformation of skull, has placed a doubt as to the
certainty of this fact." And besides hypothesis, we have a scientific and an
unimpeachable proof of a civilization that must have existed in Peru ages
ago. Were we to give the number of thousands of years that have probably
elapsed since then, without first showing good reasons for the assumption,
the reader might feel like holding his breath. So let us try.
The Peruvian guano (huano), that precious fertilizer, composed of the
excrement of sea-fowls, intermixed with their decaying bodies, eggs, remains
of seal, and so on, which has accumulated upon the isles of the Pacific and
the coast of South America, and its formation are now well-known. It was
Humboldt who first discovered and drew the world's attention to it in 1804.
And, while describing the deposits as covering the granite rocks of the
Chincas and other islands to the depth of 50 or 60 feet, he states that the
accumulation of the preceding 300 years, since the Conquest, had formed only
a few lines in thickness. How many thousands of years, then, it required to
form this deposit 60 feet deep, is a matter of simple calculation. In this
connection we may now quote something of a discovery spoken of in the
Peruvian Antiquities. 2 "Buried 62 feet under the ground, on the Chinca
islands, stone-idols and water-pots were found, while 35 and 33 feet below
the surface were wooden idols. Beneath the guano on the Guanapi islands,
just south of Truxillo, and Macabi just north, mummies, birds, and birds'
eggs, gold and silver ornaments were taken. On the Macabi the labourers
found some large valuable golden vases, which they broke up and divided
among themselves, even though offered weight for weight in gold coin, and
thus relics of greater interest to the scientist have been ever lost.
He--who can determine the centuries necessary to deposit thirty and sixty
feet of guano on these islands, remembering that since the Conquest, three
hundred years ago, no appreciable increase in depth has been noted--can give
you an idea of the antiquity of these relics."
If we confine ourselves to a strictly arithmetical calculation, then
allowing 12 lines to an inch, and 12 inches to a foot, and allowing one line
to every century, we are forced to believe that the people who made these
precious gold vases lived 864,000 years ago! Leave an ample margin for
errors, and give two lines to a century--say an inch to every 100 years--and
we will yet have 72,000 years back a civilization which--if we judge by its
public works, the durability of its constructions, and the grandeur of its
buildings,--equalled, and in some things certainly surpassed, our own.
Having well defined ideas as to the periodicity of cycles, for the world as
well as for nations, empires, and tribes, we are convinced that our present
modern civilization is but the latest dawn of that which already has been
seen an innumerable number of times upon this planet. It may not be exact
science, but it is both inductive and deductive logic, based upon theories
far less hypothetical and more palpable than many another theory, held as
strictly scientific. To express it in the words of Professor T. E. Nipher,
of St. Louis, "we are not the friends of theory, but of truth," and until
truth is found, we welcome every new theory, however unpopular at first, for
fear of rejecting in our ignorance the stone which may in time become the
very corner-stone of the truth. "The errors of scientific men are well nigh
countless, not because they are men of science, but because they are men,"
says the same scientist; and further quotes the noble words of
Faraday--"occasionally, and frequently the exercise of the judgment ought to
end in absolute reservation. It may be very distasteful and a great fatigue
to suspend a conclusion, but as we are not infallible, so we ought to be
cautious." (Experimental Researches, 24th Series.)
It is doubtful whether, with the exception of a few of the most prominent
ruins, there ever was attempted a detailed account of the so-called American
antiquities. Yet, in order to bring out the more prominently a point of
comparison, such a work would be absolutely necessary. If the history of
religion and of mythology and--far more important--the origin, developing
and final grouping of the human species are ever to be unravelled, we have
to trust to archaeological research, rather than to the hypothetical
deductions of philology. We must begin by massing together the concrete
imagery of the early thought, more eloquent in its stationary form than the
verbal expression of the same, the latter being but too liable, in its
manifold interpretations, to be distorted in a thousand ways. This would
afford us an easier and more trustworthy clue. Archaeological Societies
ought to have a whole cyclopædia of the world's remains, with a collationof
the most important of the speculations as to each locality. For, however
fantastic and wild some of these hypotheses may seem at first glance, yet
each has a chance of proving useful at some time. It is often more
beneficial to know what a thing is not than to know what it is, as Max
Müller truly tells us.
It is not within the limits of an article in our paper that any such object
could be achieved. Availing ourselves, though, of the reports of the
Government surveyors, trustworthy travellers, men of science, and, even our
own limited experience, we will try in the future issues to give to our
Hindu readers, who possibly may never have heard of these antiquities, a
general idea of them. Our latest informations are drawn from every reliable
source; the survey of the Peruvian antiquities being mostly due to Dr.
Heath's able paper, above mentioned.
II
Evidently we, THEOSOPHISTS, are not the only iconoclasts in this world of
mutual deception and hypocrisy. We are not the only ones who believe in
cycles and, opposing the Biblical chronology, lean towards those opinions
which secretly are shared by so many, but publicly avowed by so few. We,
Europeans, are just emerging from the very bottom of a new cycle, and
progressing upwards, while the Asiatics--Hindus especially--are the
lingering remnants of the nations which filled the world in the previous and
now departed cycles. Whether the Aryans sprang from the archaic Americans,
or the latter from the prehistorical Aryans, is a question which no living
man can decide. But that there must have been an intimate connection at some
time between the old Aryans, the prehistoric inhabitants of
America--whatever might have been their name--and the ancient Egyptians, is
a matter more easily proved than contradicted. And probably, if there ever
was such a connection, it must have taken place at a time when the Atlantic
did not yet divide the two hemispheres as it does now.
In his Peruvian Antiquities (see the Theosophist for March) Dr. Heath, of
Kansas City--rara avis among scientific men, a fearless searcher, who
accepts truth wherever he finds it, and is not afraid to speak it out in the
very face of dogmatic opposition--sums up his impressions of the Peruvian
relics in the following words:--"Three times the Andes sank hundreds of feet
beneath the ocean level, and again were slowly brought to their present
height. A man's life would be too short to count even the centuries consumed
in this operation. The coast of Peru has risen eighty feet since it felt the
tread of Pizarro. Supposing the Andes to have risen uniformly and without
interruption, 70,000 years must have elapsed before they reached their
present altitude."
"Who knows, then, but that Jules Verne's fanciful idea 3 regarding the lost
continent Atlanta may be near the truth? Who can say that, where now is the
Atlantic Ocean, formerly did not exist a continent, with its dense
population, advanced in the arts and sciences, who, as they found their land
sinking beneath the waters, retired part east and part west, populating thus
the two hemispheres? This would explain the similarity of their
archæological structures and races, and their differences, modified by and
adapted to the character of their respective climates and countries. Thus
would the llama and camel differ, although of the same species; thus the
algoraba and espino trees; thus the Iroquois Indians of North America and
the most ancient Arabs call the constellation of the 'Great Bear' by the
same name; thus various nations, cut off from all intercourse or knowledge
of each other, divide the zodiac into twelve constellations, apply to them
the same names, and the Northern Hindus apply the name Andes to their
Himalayan mountains, as did the South Americans to their principal chain. 4
Must we fall in the old rut, and suppose no other means of populating the
Western Hemisphere except 'by way of Behring's Strait'? Must we still locate
a geographical Eden in the East, and suppose a land, equally adapted to man
and as old geologically, must wait the aimless wanderings of the 'lost tribe
of Israel' to become populated?"
Go where we may, to explore the antiquities of America--whether of Northern,
Central, or Southern America--we are first of all impressed with the
magnitude of these relics of ages and races unknown, and then with the
extraordinary similarity they present to the mounds and ancient structures
of old India, of Egypt and even of some parts of Europe. Whoever has seen
one of these mounds has seen all. Whoever has stood before the cyclopean
structures of one continent can have a pretty accurate idea of those of the
other. Only be it said--we know still less of the age of the antiquities of
America than even of those in the Valley of the Nile, of which we know next
to nothing. But their symbolism--apart from their outward form--is evidently
the same as in Egypt, India, and elsewhere. As before the great pyramid of
Cheops in Cairo, so before the great mound, 100 feet high, on the plain of
Cahokia,--near St. Louis (Missouri)--which measures 700 feet long by 800
feet broad at the base, and covers upwards of eight acres of ground, having
20,000,000 cubic feet of contents, and the mound on the banks of Brush
Creek, Ohio, so accurately described by Squier and Davis, one knows not
whether to admire more the geometrical precision, prescribed by the
wonderful and mysterious builders in the form of their monuments, or the
hidden symbolism they evidently sought to express. The Ohio mound represents
a serpent, upwards of l ,000 feet long. Gracefully coiled in capricious
curves, it terminates in a triple coil at the tail. "The embankment
constituting the effigy, is upwards of five feet in height, by thirty feet
base at the centre of the body, slightly diminishing towards the tail." 5
The neck is stretched out and its mouth wide opened, holding within its jaws
an oval figure. "Formed by an embankment four feet in height, this oval is
perfectly regular in outline, its transverse and conjugate diameters being
160 and 8 feet respectively," say the surveyors. The whole represents the
universal cosmological idea of the serpent and the egg. This is easy to
surmise. But how came this great symbol of the Hermetic wisdom of old Egypt
to find itself represented in North America? How is it that the sacred
buildings found in Ohio and elsewhere, these squares, circles, octagons, and
other geometrical figures, in which one recognizes so easily the prevailing
idea of the Pythagorean sacred numerals, seem copied from the Book of
Numbers? Apart from the complete silence as to their origin, even among the
Indian tribes, who have otherwise preserved their own traditions in every
case, the antiquity of these ruins is proved by the existence of the largest
and most ancient forests growing on the buried cities. The prudent
archæologists of America have generously assigned them 2,000 years. But by
whom built, and whether their authors migrated, or disappeared beneath
victorious arms, or were swept out of existence by some direful epidemic, or
a universal famine, are questions, "probably beyond the power of human
investigation to answer," they say. The earliest inhabitants of Mexico, of
whom history has any knowledge--more hypothetical than proven--are the
Toltecs. These are supposed to have come from the North and believed to have
entered Anahuac in the 7th century A.D. They are also credited with having
constructed in Central America, where they spread in the eleventh century,
some of the great cities whose ruins still exist. In this case it is they
who must also have carved the hieroglyphics that cover some of the relics.
How is it, then, that the pictorial system of writing of Mexico, which was
used by the conquered people and learned by the conquerors and their
missionaries, does not yet furnish the keys to the hieroglyphics of Palenque
and Copan, not to mention those of Peru? And these civilized Toltecs
themselves, who were they, and whence did they come? And who are the Aztecs
that succeeded them? Even among the hieroglyphical systems of Mexico, there
were some which the foreign interpreters were precluded the possibility of
studying. These were the so-called schemes of judicial astrology "given but
not explained in Lord Kingsborough's published collection," and set down as
purely figurative and symbolical, "intended only for the use of the priests
and diviners and possessed of an esoteric significance." Many of the
hieroglyphics on the monoliths of Palenque and Copan are of the same
character. The "priests and diviners" were all killed off by the Catholic
fanatics,--the secret died with them.
Nearly all the mounds in North America are terraced and ascended by large
graded ways, sometimes square, often hexagonal, octagonal or truncated, but
in all respects similar to the teocallis of Mexico, and to the topes of
India. As the latter are attributed throughout this country to the work of
the five Pandus of the Lunar Race, so the cyclopean monuments and monoliths
on the shores of Lake Titicaca, in the republic of Bolivia, are ascribed to
giants, the five exiled brothers "from beyond the mounts." They worshipped
the moon as their progenitor and lived before the time of the "Sons and
Virgins of the Sun." Here, the similarity of the Aryan with the South
American tradition is again but too obvious, and the Solar and Lunar
races--the Sûrya Vansa and the Chandra Vansa--re-appear in America.
This Lake Titicaca, which occupies the centre of one of the most remarkable
terrestrial basins on the whole globe, is "160 miles long and from 50 to 80
broad, and discharges through the valley of El Desagvadero, to the
south-east into another lake, called Lake Aullagas, which is probably kept
at a lower level by evaporation or filtration, since it has no known outlet.
The surface of the lake is 12,846 feet above the sea, and it is the most
elevated body of waters of similar size in the world." As the level of its
waters has very much decreased in the historical period, it is believed on
good grounds that they once surrounded the elevated spot on which are found
the remarkable ruins of Tiahuanaco.
The latter are without any doubt aboriginal monuments pertaining to an epoch
which preceded the Incal period, as far back as the Dravidian and other
aboriginal peoples preceded the Aryans in India. Although the traditions of
the Incas maintain that the great law-giver and teacher of the Peruvians,
Manco Capac--the Manu of South America diffused his knowledge and influence
from this centre, yet the statement is unsupported by facts. If the original
seat of the Aymara, or "Inca race" was there, as claimed by some, how is it
that neither the Incas, nor the Aymaras, who dwell on the shores of the Lake
to this day, nor yet the ancient Peruvians, had the slightest knowledge
concerning their history? Beyond a vague tradition which tells of "giants"
having built these immense structures in one night, we do not find the
faintest clue. And, we have every reason to doubt whether the Incas are of
the Aymara race at all. The Incas claim their descent from Manco Capac, the
son of the Sun, and the Aymaras claim this legislator as their instructor
and the founder of the era of their civilization. Yet, neither the Incas of
the Spanish period could prove the one, nor the Aymaras the other. The
language of the latter is quite distinct from the Inichua--the tongue of the
Incas; and they were the only race that refused to give up their language
when conquered by the descendants of the Sun, as Dr. Heath tells us.
The ruins afford every evidence of the highest antiquity. Some are built on
a pyramidal plan, as most of the American mounds are, and cover several
acres; while the monolithic doorways, pillars and stone-idols, so
elaborately carved, are "sculptured in a style wholly different from any
other remains of art yet found in America." D'Orbigny speaks of the ruins in
the most enthusiastic manner. "These monuments," he says, "consist of a
mound raised nearly 100 feet, surrounded with pillars--of temples from 600
to 1,200 feet in length, opening precisely towards the east, and adorned
with colossal angular columns--of porticoes of a single stone, covered with
reliefs of skilful execution, displaying symbolical representations of the
Sun, and the condor, his messenger--of basaltic statues loaded with
bas-reliefs, in which the design of the carved head is half Egyptian--and
lastly, of the interior of a palace formed of enormous blocks of rock,
completely hewn, whose dimensions are often 21 feet in length, 12 in
breadth, and 6 in thickness. In the temples and palaces, the portals are not
inclined, as among those of the Incas, but perpendicular; and their vast
dimensions, and the imposing masses, of which they are composed, surpass in
beauty and grandeur all that were afterwards built by the sovereigns of
Cuzco." Like the rest of his fellow-explorers, M. D'Orbigny believes these
ruins to have been the work of a race far anterior to the Incas.
Two distinct styles of architecture are found in these relics of Lake
Titicaca. Those of the island of Coati, for instance, bear every feature in
common with the ruins of Tiahuanaco; so do the vast blocks of stone
elaborately sculptured, some of which, according to the report of the
surveyors, in 1846, measure: "3 feet in length by 18 feet in width, and 6
feet in thickness"; while on some of the is lands of the Lake Titicaca there
are monuments of great extent, "but of true Peruvian type, believed to be
the remains of temples destroyed by the Spaniards." The famous sanctuary,
with the human figure in it, belongs to the former. Its doorway 10 feet
high, 13 feet broad, with an opening 6 feet 4 inches, by 3 feet 2 inches, is
cut from a single stone. "Its east front has a cornice, in the centre of
which is a human figure of strange form, crowned with rays, interspersed
with serpents with crested heads. On each side of this figure are three rows
of square compartments, filled with human and other figures, of apparently
symbolic design. . . . " Were this temple in India, it would undoubtedly be
attributed to Shiva; but it is at the antipodes, where neither the foot of a
Shaiva nor one of the Naga tribe has ever penetrated to the knowledge of
man, though the Mexican Indians have their Nagal, or chief sorcerer and
serpent worshipper. The ruins standing on an eminence, which, from the
watermarks around it, seem to have been formerly an island in Lake Titicaca,
and "the level of the Lake now being 135 feet lower, and its shores, 12
miles distant, this fact, in conjunction with others, warrants the belief
that these remains antedate any others known in America." 6 Hence, all these
relics are unanimously ascribed to the same "unknown and mysterious people
who preceded the Peruvians, as the Tulhuatecas or Toltecs did the Aztecs. It
seems to have been the seat of the highest and most ancient civilization of
South America and of a people who have left the most gigantic monuments of
their power and skill" . . . And these monuments are all either
Dracontias--temples sacred to the Snake, or temples dedicated to the Sun.
Of this same character are the ruined pyramids of Teotihuacan and the
monoliths of Palenque and Copan. The former are some eight leagues from the
City of Mexico on the plain of Otumla, and considered among the most ancient
in the land. The two principal ones are dedicated to the Sun and Moon,
respectively. They are built of cut stone, square, with four stories and a
level area at the top. The larger, that of the Sun, is 221 feet high, 680
feet square at the base, and covers an area of 11 acres, nearly equal to
that of the great pyramid of Cheops. And yet, the pyramid of Cholula, higher
than that of Teotihuacan by ten feet according to Humboldt, and having 1,400
feet square at the base, covers an area of 45 acres!
It is interesting to hear what the earliest writers--the historians who saw
them during the first conquest--say even of some of the most modern of these
buildings, of the great temple of Mexico, among others. It consisted of an
immense square area "surrounded by a wall of stone and lime, eight feet
thick, with battlements, ornamented with many stone figures in the form of
serpents," says one. Cortez shows that 500 houses might be easily placed
within its enclosure. It was paved with polished stones, so smooth, that
"the horses of the Spaniards could not move over them without slipping,"
writes Bernal Diaz. In connection with this, we must remember that it was
not the Spaniards who conquered the Mexicans, but their horses. As there
never was a horse seen before by this people in America, until the Europeans
landed it in the coast, the natives, though excessively brave, "were so
awe-struck at the sight of horses and the roar of the artillery," that they
took the Spaniards to be of divine origin and sent them human beings as
sacrifices. This superstitious panic is sufficient to account for the fact
that a handful of men could so easily conquer incalculable thousands of
warriors.
According to Gomera, the four walls of the enclosure of the temple
correspond with the cardinal points. In the centre of this gigantic area
arose the great temple, an immense pyramidal structure of eight stages,
faced with stone, 300 feet square at the base and 120 feet in height,
truncated, with a level summit, upon which were situated two towers, the
shrines of the divinities to whom it was consecrated--Tezcatlipoca and
Huitzlipochtli. It was here that the sacrifices were performed, and the
eternal fire maintained. Clavigero tells us, that besides this great
pyramid, there were forty other similar structures consecrated to various
divinities. The one called Tezcacalli, "the House of the Shining Mirrors,
sacred to Tezcatlipoca, the God of Light, the Soul of the World, the
Vivifier, the Spiritual Sun." The dwellings of priests, who, according to
Zarate, amounted to 8,000, were near by, as well as the seminaries and the
schools. Ponds and fountains, groves and gardens, in which flowers and sweet
smelling herbs were cultivated for use in certain sacred rites and the
decoration of altars, were in abundance; and, so large was the inner yard,
that "8,000 or 10,000 persons had sufficient room to dance in it upon their
solemn festivities"--says Solis. Torquemada estimates the number of such
temples in the Mexican empire at 40,000 but Clavigero, speaking of the
majestic Teocalli (literally, houses of God) of. Mexico, estimates the
number higher.
So wonderful are the features of resemblance between the ancient shrines of
the Old and the New World that Humboldt remains unequal to express his
surprise. "What striking analogies exist between the monuments of the old
continents and those of the Toltecs who . . . built these colossal
structures, truncated pyramids, divided by layers, like the temple of Belus
at Babylon! Where did they take the model of these edifices?"--he exclaims.
The eminent naturalist might have also enquired where the Mexicans got all
their Christian virtues from, being but poor pagans. The code of the Aztecs,
says Prescott, "evinces a profound respect for the great principles of
morality, and as clear a perception of these principles as is to be found in
the most cultivated nations." Some of these are very curious inasmuch as
they show a similarity to some of the Gospel ethics. "He who looks too
curiously on a woman, commits adultery with his eyes," says one of them.
"Keep peace with all; bear injuries with humility; God, who sees, will
avenge you," declares another. Recognizing but one Supreme Power in Nature,
they addressed it as the deity "by whom we live, Omnipresent, that knoweth
all thoughts and giveth all gifts, without whom man is as nothing;
invisible, incorporeal, one of perfect perfection and purity, under whose
wings we find repose and a sure defence." And, in naming their children,
says Lord Kingsborough, "they used a ceremony strongly resembling the
Christian rite of baptism, the lips and bosom of the infant being sprinkled
with water, and the Lord implored to wash away the sin that was given to it
before the foundation of the world, so that the child might be born anew."
"Their laws were perfect; justice, contentment and peace reigned in the
kingdom of these benighted heathens," when the brigands and the Jesuits of
Cortez landed at Tabasco. A century of murders, robbery, and forced
conversion, were sufficient to transform this quiet, inoffensive and wise
people into what they are now. They have fully benefited by dogmatic
Christianity. And he, who ever went to Mexico, knows what that means. The
country is full of blood-thirsty Christian fanatics, thieves, rogues,
drunkards, debauchees, murderers, and the greatest liars the world has ever
produced! Peace and glory to your ashes, O Cortez and Torquemada! In this
case at least, will you never be permitted to boast of the enlightenment
your Christianity has poured out on the poor, and once virtuous heathens!
III
The ruins of Central America are no less imposing. Massively built, with
walls of a great thickness, they are usually marked by broad stairways,
leading to the principal entrance. When composed of several stories, each
successive story is usually smaller than that below it, giving the structure
the appearance of a pyramid of several stages. The front walls, either made
of stone or stuccoed, are covered with elaborately carved, symbolic figures;
and the interior divided into corridors and dark chambers, with arched
ceilings, the roofs supported by overlapping courses of stones,
"constituting a pointed arch, corresponding in type with the earliest
monuments of the old world." Within several chambers at Palenque, tablets,
covered with sculptures and hieroglyphics of fine design and artistic
execution, were discovered by Stephens. In Honduras, at Copan, a whole
city--temples, houses and grand monoliths intricately carved--was unearthed
in an old forest by Catherwood and Stephens. The sculpture and general style
of Copan are unique, and no such style or even anything approaching it has
been found anywhere else, except at Quirigua, and in the islands of Lake
Nicaragua. No one can decipher the weird hieroglyphical inscriptions on the
altars and monoliths. With the exception of a few works of uncut stone, "to
Copan, we may safely assign an antiquity higher than to any of the other
monuments of Central America with which we are acquainted," says the New
American Cyclopædia. At the period of the Spanish conquest, Copan was
already a forgotten ruin, concerning which existed only the vaguest
traditions.
No less extraordinary are the remains of the different epochs in Peru. The
ruins of the temple of the Sun at Cuzco are yet imposing, notwithstanding
that the deprecating hand of the Vandal Spaniard passed heavily over it. If
we may believe the narratives of the conquerors themselves, they found it,
on their arrival, a kind of a fairy-tale castle. With its enormous circular
stone wall completely encompassing the principal temple, chapels and
buildings, it is situated in the very heart of the city, and even its
remains justly provoke the admiration of the traveller. "Aqueducts opened
within the sacred enclosure; and within it were gardens, and walks among
shrubs and flowers of gold and silver, made in imitation of the productions
of nature. It was attended by 4,000 priests." "The ground," says La Vega,
"for 200 paces around the temple, was considered holy, and no one was
allowed to pass within this boundary but with naked feet." Besides this
great temple, there were 300 other inferior temples at Cuzco. Next to the
latter in beauty, was the celebrated temple of Pachacamac. Still another
great temple of the Sun is mentioned by Humboldt; and, "at the base of the
hill of Cannar was formerly a famous shrine of the Sun, consisting of the
universal symbol of that luminary, formed by nature upon the face of a great
rock." Roman tells us "that the temples of Peru were built upon high grounds
or the top of the hills, and were surrounded by three and four circular
embankments of earth, one within the other." Other remains seen by myself
especially mounds--are surrounded by two, three, and four circles of stones.
Near the town of Cayambe, on the very spot which Ulloa saw and described an
ancient Peruvian temple "perfectly circular in form, and open at the top,"
there are several such cromlechs. Quoting from an article in the Madras
Times of 1876, Mr. J. H. Rivett-Carnac gives, in his Archaeological Notes,
the following information upon some curious mounds in the neighborhood of
Bangalore:--7 "Near the village there are at least one hundred cromlechs
plainly to be seen. These cromlechs are surrounded by circles of stones,
some of them with concentric circles three and four deep. One very
remarkable in appearance has four circles of large stones around it, and is
called by the natives 'Pandavara Gudi' or the temples of the Pandas. . . .
This is supposed to be the first instance, where the natives popularly
imagine a structure of this kind to have been the temple of a by-gone, if
not of a mythical, race. Many of these structures have a triple circle, some
a double, and a few single circles of stone round them." In the 35th degree
of latitude, the Arizona Indians in North America have their rude altars to
this day, surrounded by precisely such circles, and their sacred spring,
discovered by Major Alfred R. Calhoun, F.G.S., of the United States Army
Survey Commission, is surrounded with the same symbolical wall of stones, as
is found in Stonehenge and elsewhere. 
By far the most interesting and full account we have read for a long time
upon the Peruvian antiquities is that from the pen of Mr. Heath of Kansas,
already mentioned. Condensing the general picture of these remains into the
limited space of a few pages in a periodical, 8 he yet manages to present a
masterly and vivid picture of the wealth of these remains. More than one
speculator has grown rich in a few days through his desecrations of the
"huacas." The remains of countless generations of unknown races, who had
slept there undisturbed--who knows for how many ages--are now left by the
sacrilegious treasure-hunter to crumble into dust under the tropical sun.
Mr. Heath's conclusions, more startling, perchance, than his discoveries,
are worthy of being recorded. We will repeat in brief his descriptions:--
"In the Jeguatepegue valley in Peru in 70° 24' S. Latitude, four miles north
of the port of Pacasmayo is the Jeguatepegue river. Near it, beside the
southern shore, is an elevated platform 'one-fourth of a mile square and
forty feet high, all of adobes or sun-burnt bricks. A wall of fifty feet in
width connects it with another'; 150 feet high, 200 feet across the top, and
500 at the base, nearly square. This latter was built in sections of rooms,
ten feet square at the base, six feet at the top and about eight feet high.
All of this same class of mounds--temples to worship the sun, or fortresses,
as they may be--have on the northerly side an incline for an entrance.
Treasure-seekers have cut into this one about half-way, and it is said
150,000 dollars' worth of gold and silver ornaments were found." Here many
thousands of men were buried and beside the skeletons were found in
abundance ornaments of gold, silver, copper, coral beads, &c. "On the north
side of the river, are the extensive ruins of a walled city, two miles wide
by six long. . . . Follow the river to the mountains. All along you pass
ruin after ruin and huaca after huaca" (burial places). At Tolon there is
another ruined city. Five miles further, up the river, "there is an isolated
boulder of granite, four and six feet in its diameters, covered with
hieroglyphics; fourteen miles further, a point of mountain at the junction
of two ravines is covered to a height of more than fifty feet with the same
class of hieroglyphics--birds, fishes, snakes, cats, monkeys, men, sun,
moon, and many odd and now unintelligible forms. The rock, on which these
are cut, is a silicated sandstone, and many of the lines are an eighth of an
inch deep. In one large stone there are three holes, twenty to thirty inches
deep, six inches in diameter at the orifice and two at the apex. . . . At
Anchi, on the Rimac river, upon the face of a perpendicular wall 200 feet
above the river-bed, there are two hieroglyphics, representing an imperfect
B and a perfect D. In a crevice below them, near the river, were found
buried 25,000 dollars' worth of gold and silver; when the Incas learned of
the murder of their chief, what did they do with the gold they were bringing
for his ransom? Rumour says they buried it. . . . May not these markings at
Yonan tell something, since they are on the road and near to the Incal
city?"
The above was published in November, 1878, when in October, 1877, in my work
"Isis Unveiled" (Vol. I, p. 595), I gave a legend, which, for circumstances
too long to explain, I hold to be perfectly trustworthy, relating to these
same buried treasures for the Inca's ransom, a journal more satirical than
polite classed it with the tales of Baron Munchausen. The secret was
revealed to me by a Peruvian. At Arica, going from Lima, there stands an
enormous rock, which tradition points to as the tomb of the Incas. As the
last rays of the setting sun strike the face of the rock, one can see
curious hieroglyphics inscribed upon it. These characters form one of the
land-marks that show how to get at the immense treasures buried in
subterranean corridors. The details are given in "Isis," and I will not
repeat them. Strong corroborative evidence is now found in more than one
recent scientific work; and the statement may be less pooh-poohed now than
it was then. Some miles beyond Yonan, on a ridge of a mountain 700 feet
above the river, are the walls of another city. Six and twelve miles further
are extensive walls and terraces; seventy-eight miles from the coast, "you
zigzag up the mountain side 7,000 feet then descend 2,000" to arrive at
Coxamolca, the city where, unto this day, stands the house in which
Atahualpa, the unfortunate Inca, was held prisoner by the treacherous
Pizzaro. It is the house which the Inca "promised to fill with gold as high
as he could reach, in exchange for his liberty" in 1532; he did fill it with
17,500,000 dollars' worth of gold, and so kept his promise. But Pizzaro, the
ancient swineherd of Spain and the worthy acolyte of the priest Hernando de
Lugues, murdered him, notwithstanding his pledge of honor. Three miles from
this town, "there is a wall of unknown make. Cemented, the cement is harder
than stone itself. . . . At Chepen, there is a mountain with a wall twenty
feet high, the summit being almost entirely artificial. Fifty miles south of
Pacaomayo, between the seaport of Huanchaco and Truxillo, are the ruins of
Chan-Chan, the capital city of the Chimoa kingdom. . . . The road from the
port to the city crosses these ruins, entering by a causeway about four feet
from the ground, and leading from one great mass of ruins to another;
beneath this is a tunnel." Be they forts, castles, palaces or burial mounds
called "huacas," all bear the name "huaca." Hours of wandering on horseback
among these ruins give only a confused idea of them, nor can any explorers
there point out what were palaces and what were not. . . . The highest
enclosures must have cost an immense amount of labour.
To give an idea of the wealth found in the country by the Spaniards, we copy
the following, taken from the records of the municipality in the city of
Truxillo by Mr. Heath. It is a copy of the accounts that are found in the
book of Fifths of the Treasury in the years 1577 and 1578, of the treasures
found in the "Huaca of Toledo" by one man alone.
First.--In Truxillo. Peru, on the 22nd of July 1577, Don Garcia Gutierrez de
Toledo presented himself at the royal treasury, to give into the royal chest
a-fifth. He brought a bar of gold 19 carats ley and weighing 2,400 Spanish
dollars, of which the fifth being 708 dollars, together with 11/2 per cent
to the chief assayer, were deposited in the royal box.
Secondly.--On the 12th of December, he presented himself with five bars of
gold, 15 and 19 carats ley, weighing 8,918 dollars.
Thirdly.--On the 7th of January 1578, he came with his fifth of large bars
and plates of gold, one hundred and fifteen in number, 15 to 20 carats ley,
weighing 153,280 dollars.
Fourthly.--On the 8th of March, he brought sixteen bars of gold, 14 to 21
carats ley, weighing 21,118 dollars.
Fifthly.--On the fifth of April, he brought different ornaments of gold,
being little belts of gold and patterns of corn-heads and other things, of
14 carats ley, weighing 6,272 dollars.
Sixthly.--On the 20th of April, he brought three small bars of gold, 20
carats ley, weighing 4,170 dollars.
Seventhly.--On the 12th of July, he came with forty-seven bars, 14 to 21
carats, weighing 777,312 dollars.
Eighthly.--On the same day he came back with another portion of gold and
ornaments of corn-heads and pieces of effigies of animals, weighing 4,704
dollars.
"The sum of these eight bringings amounted to 278,174 gold dollars or
Spanish ounces. Multiplied by sixteen gives 4,450,784 silver dollars.
Deducting the royal fifth--985,953.75 dollars--left 3,464, 830.25 dollars as
Toledo's portion! Even after this great haul, effigies of different animals
of gold were found from time to time. Mantles, also adorned with square
pieces of gold, as well as robes made with feathers of divers colours were
dug up. There is a tradition that in the huaca of Toledo there were two
treasures, known as the great and little fish. The smaller only has been
found. Between Huacho and Supe, the latter being 120 miles north of Callao,
near a point called Atahuangri, there are two enormous mounds, resembling
the Campana and San Miguel, of the Huatic Valley, soon to be described.
About five miles from Patavilca tsouth, and near Supe) is a place called
'Paramonga' or the fortress The ruins of a fortress of great extent are here
visible, the walls are of tempered clay, about six feet thick. The principal
building stood on an eminence, but the walls were continued to the foot of
it, like regular circumvallations; the ascent winding round the hill like a
labyrinth, having many angles which probably served as outworks to defend
the place. In this neighbourhood, much treasure has been excavated, all of
which must have been concealed by the pre-historic Indian, as we have no
evidence of the Incas ever having occupied this part of Peru after they had
subdued it."
Not far from Ancon, on a circuit of six to eight miles, "on every side you
see skulls, legs, arms and whole skeletons lying about in the sand. . . . At
Parmayo, fourteen miles further down north," and on the sea-shore, is
another great burying-ground. Thousands of skeletons lie about, thrown out
by the treasure-seekers. It has more than half a mile of cutting through it.
. . . It extends up the face of the hill from the sea-shore to the height of
about 800 feet. . . . Whence come these hundreds and thousands of peoples,
who are buried at Ancon? Time and time again the archæologist finds himself
face to face with such questions, to which he can only shrug his shoulders
and say with the natives--"Quien Sabe?"--who knows?
Dr. Hutchinson writes, under date of Oct. 30, 1872, in the South Pacific
"Times":--"I am come to the conclusion that Chancay is a great city of the
dead, or has been an immense ossuary of Peru; for go where you will, on a
mountain top or level plain, or by the seaside, you meet at every turn
skulls and bones of all descriptions."
In the Huatica Valley, which is an extensive ruin, there are seventeen
mounds, called "huacas," although, remarks the writer, "they present more
the form of fortresses, or castles than burying-ground." A triple wall
surrounded the city. These walls are often three yards in thickness and from
fifteen to twenty feet high. To the east of these is the enormous mound
called Huaca of Pando . . . and the great ruins of fortresses, which natives
entitle Huaca of the Bell. La compana, the Huacas of Pando, consisting of a
series of large and small mounds, and extending over a stretch of ground
incalculable without being measured, form a colossal accumulation. The mound
"Bell" is 110 feet high. Towards Callao, there is a square plateau (278
yards long and 96 across) having on the top eight gradations of declivity,
each from one to two yards lower than its neighbour, and making a total in
length and breadth of about 278 yards, according to the calculation of J. B.
Steere, of Michigan, Professor of Natural History.
The square plateau first mentioned at the base consists of two divisions . .
. each measuring a perfect square 47 to 48 yards; the two joining, form the
square of 96 yards. Besides this, is another square of 47 to 48 yards. On
the top returning again, we find the same symmetry of measurement in the
multiples of twelve, nearly all the ruins in this valley being the same,
which is a fact for the curious. Was it by accident or design? . . . The
mound is a truncated pyramidal form, and is calculated to contain a mass of
14,641,820 cubic feet of material. . . . The "Fortress" is a huge structure,
80 feet high and 150 yards in measurement. Great large square rooms show
their outlines on the top but are filled with earth. Who brought this earth
here, and with what object was the filling-up accomplished? The work of
obliterating all space in these rooms with loose earth must have been almost
as great as the construction of the building itself. . . . Two miles south,
we find another similar structure, more spacious and with a greater number
of apartments. . . . It is nearly 170 yards in length, and 168 in breadth,
and 98 feet high. The whole of these ruins . . . were enclosed by high walls
of adobes--large mud bricks, some from 1 to 2 yards in thickness, length and
breadth. The "huaca" of the "Bell" contains about 20,220,840 cubic feet of
material, while that of "San Miguel" has 25,650,800. These two buildings
with their terraces, parapets and bastions, with a large number of rooms and
squares--are now filled up with earth!
Near "Mira Flores," is Ocheran--the largest mound in the Huatica valley. It
has 95 feet of elevation and a width of 55 yards on the summit, and a total
length of 428 yards, or 1,284 feet, another multiple of twelve. It is
enclosed by a double wall, 816 yards in length by 700 across, thus enclosing
117 acres. Between Ocharas and the ocean are from l5 to 20 masses of ruins
like those already described.
The Inca temple of the Sun, like the temple of Cholula on the plains of
Mexico, is a sort of vast terraced pyramid of earth. It is from 200 to 300
feet high, and forms a semi-lunar shape that is beyond half a mile in
extent. Its top measures about 10 acres square. Many of the walls are washed
over with red paint, and are as fresh and bright as when centuries ago it
was first put on. . . . In the Canete valley, opposite the Chincha Guano
Islands, are extensive ruins, described by Squier. From the hill called
"Hill of Gold," copper and silver pins were taken like those used by ladies
to pin their shawls; also tweezers for pulling out the hair of the eyebrows,
eyelids and whiskers, as well as silver cups.
"The coast of Peru," says Mr. Heath, "extends from Tumbey to the river Loa,
a distance of 1,233 miles. Scattered over this whole extent, there are
thousands of ruins besides those just mentioned, while nearly every hill and
spire of the mountains have upon them or about them some relic of the past,
and in every ravine, from the coast to the central plateau, there are ruins
of walls, cities, fortresses, burial-vaults, and miles and miles of terraces
and water-courses. Across the plateau and down the eastern slope of the
Andes to the home of the wild Indian, and into the unknown impenetrable
forest, still you find them. In the mountains, however, where showers of
rain and snow with the terrific thunder and lightning are nearly constant, a
number of months each year, the ruins are different. Of granite, porphyritic
lime and silicated sand-stone, these massive, colossal, cyclopean structures
have resisted the disintegration of time, geological transformation,
earthquakes, and the sacrilegious destructive hand of the warrior and
treasure-seeker. The masonry composing these walls, temples, houses, towers,
fortresses, or sepulchres, is uncemented, held in place by the incline of
the walls from the perpendicular, and adaptation of each stone to the place
destined for it, the stones having from six to many sides, each dressed, and
smoothed to fit another or others with such exactness that the blade of a
small penknife cannot be inserted in any of the seams thus formed, whether
in the central parts entirely hidden, or on the internal or external
surfaces. These stones, selected with no reference to uniformity in shape or
size, vary from one-half cubic foot to 1,500 cubic feet solid contents, and
if in the many, many millions of stones you could find one that would fit in
the place of another, it would be purely accidental. In 'Triumph Street,' in
the city of Cuzco, in a part of the wall of the ancient house of the Virgins
of the Sun, is a very large stone, known as 'the stone of the twelve
corners,' since it is joined with those that surround it, by twelve faces,
each having a different angle. Besides these twelve faces it has its
internal one, and no one knows how many it has on its back that is hidden in
the masonry. In the wall in the centre of the Cuzco fortress there are
stones 13 feet high, 15 feet long, and 8 feet thick, and all have been
quarried miles away. Near this city there is an oblong smooth boulder, 18
feet in its longer axis, and 12 feet in its lesser. On one side are large
niches cut out, in which a man can stand and, by swaying his body, cause the
stone to rock. These niches apparently were made solely for this purpose.
One of the most wonderful and extensive of these works in stone is that
called Ollantay-Tambo, a ruin situated 30 miles north of Cuzco, in a narrow
ravine on the bank of the river Urubamba. It consists of a fortress
constructed on the top of a sloping, craggy eminence. Extending from it to
the plain below, is a stony stairway. At the top of the stairway are six
large slabs, 12 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 3 feet thick, side by side,
having between them and on top narrow strips of stone about 6 inches wide,
frames as it were to the slabs, and all being of dressed stone. At the
bottom of the hill, part of which was made by hand, and at the foot of the
stairs, a stone wall 10 feet wide and 12 feet high extends some distance
into the plain. In it are many niches, all facing the south."
The ruins in the Islands in Lake Titicaca, where Incal history begins, have
often been described.
At Tiahuanaco, a few miles south of the lake, there are stones in the form
of columns, partly dressed, placed in line at certain distances from each
other, and having an elevation above the ground of from 18 to 20 feet. In
this same line there is a monolithic doorway, now broken, 10 feet high by 13
wide. The space cut out for the door is 7 feet 4 inches high by 3 feet 2
inches wide. The whole face of the stone above the door is engraved. Another
similar, but smaller, lies on the ground beside it. These stones are of hard
porphyry, and differ geologically from the surrounding rock; hence we infer
they must have been brought from elsewhere.
At "Chavin de Huanta," a town in the province of Huari, there are some ruins
worthy of note. The entrance to them is by an alleyway, 6 feet wide and 9
feet high, roofed over with sandstone partly dressed, of more than 12 feet
in length. On each side there are rooms 12 feet wide, roofed over by large
pieces of sandstones, 11/2 feet thick and from 6 to 9 feet wide. The walls
of the rooms are 6 feet thick, and have some loopholes in them, probably for
ventilation. In the floor of this passage there is a very narrow entrance to
a subterranean passage that passes beneath the river to the other side. From
this many huacas, stone drinking-vessels, instruments of copper and silver,
and a skeleton of an Indian sitting, were taken. The greater part of these
ruins were situated over aqueducts. The bridge to these castles is made of
three stones of dressed granite, 24 feet long, 2 feet wide by 11/2 thick.
Some of the granite stones are covered with hieroglyphics.
At Corralones, 24 miles from Arequipa, there are hieroglyphics engraved on
masses of granite, which appear as if painted with chalk. There are figures
of men, llamas, circles, parallelograms, letters as an R and an O, and even
remains of a system of astronomy.
At Huaytar, in the province of Castro Virreina, there is an edifice with the
same engravings.
At Nazca, in the province of Ica, there are some wonderful ruins of
aqueducts, four to five feet high and 3 feet wide, very straight,
double-walled, of unfinished stone, flagged on top.
At Quelap, not far from Chochapayas, there have lately been examined some
extensive works. A wall of dressed stone, 560 feet wide, 3,660 long, and 150
feet high. The lower part is solid. Another wall above this has 600 feet
length, 500 width, and the same elevation of 150 feet. There are niches over
both walls, three feet long, one-and-a-half wide and thick, containing the
remains of those ancient inhabitants, some naked, others enveloped in shawls
of cotton of distinct colours and well embroidered. . . .
Following the entrances of the second and highest wall, there are other
sepulchres like small ovens, six feet high and twenty-four in circumference;
in their base are flags, upon which some cadavers reposed. On the north side
there is on the perpendicular rocky side of the mountain, a brick wall,
having small windows, 600 feet from the bottom. No reason for this, nor
means of approach, can now be found. The skillful construction of utensils
of gold and silver that were found here, the ingenuity and solidity of this
gigantic work of dressed stone, make it also probably of pre-Incal date. . .
. Estimating five hundred ravines in the 1,200 miles of Peru, and ten miles
of terraces of fifty tiers to each ravine which would only be five miles of
twenty-five tiers to each side, we have 250,000 miles of stone wall,
averaging three to four feet high--enough to encircle this globe ten times.
Surprising as these estimates may seem, I am fully convinced that an actual
measurement would more than double them, for these ravines vary from 30 to
100 miles in length. While at San Mateo, a town in the valley of the River
Rimac, where the mountains rise to a height of 1,500 or 2,000 feet above the
river bed, I counted two hundred tiers, none of which were less than four
and many more than six miles long.
"Who then," very pertinently enquires Mr. Heath, "were these people, cutting
through sixty miles of granite; transplanting blocks of hard porphyry, of
Baalbic dimensions, miles from the place where quarried, across valleys
thousands of feet deep, over mountains, along plains, leaving no trace of
how or where they carried them; people (said to be) ignorant of the use of
wood, with the feeble llama their only beast of burden; who after having
brought these stones fitted them into stones with Mosaic precision;
terracing thousands of miles of mountain side; building hills of adobe and
earth, and huge cities; leaving works in clay, stone, copper, silver, gold,
and embroidery, many of which cannot be duplicated at the present age;
people apparently vying with Dives in riches, Hercules in strength and
energy, and the ant and bee in industry?"
Callao was submerged in 1746, and entirely destroyed. Lima was ruined in
1678; in 1746 only 20 houses out of 3,000 were left standing, while the
ancient cities in the Huatica and Lurin valleys still remain in a
comparatively good state of preservation. San Miguel de Puiro, founded by
Pizzaro in 1531, was entirely destroyed in 1855, while the old ruins near by
suffered little. Arequipa was thrown down in August, 1868, but the ruins
near show no change. In engineering, at least, the present may learn from
the past. We hope to show that it may in most things else.
IV
To refer all these cyclopean constructions then to the days of the Incas is,
as we have shown before, more inconsistent yet, and seems even a greater
fallacy than that too common one of attributing every rock-temple of India
to Buddhist excavators. As many authorities show--Dr. Heath among the
rest--Incal history only dates back to the eleventh century, A.D., and the
period, from that time to the Conquest, is utterly insufficient to account
for such grandiose and innumerable works; nor do the Spanish historians know
much of them. Nor again, must we forget that the temples of heathendom were
odious to the narrow bigotry of the Roman Catholic fanatics of those days;
and that, whenever the chance offered, they either converted them into
Christian churches or razed them to the ground. Another strong objection to
the idea lies in the fact that the Incas were destitute of a written
language, and that these antique relics of bygone ages are covered with
hieroglyphics. "It is granted that the Temple of the Sun, at Cuzco, was of
Incal make, but that is the latest of the five styles of architecture
visible in the Andes, each probably representing an age of human progress."
The hieroglyphics of Peru and Central America have been; are, and will most
probably remain for ever as dead a letter to our cryptographers as they were
to the Incas. The latter like the barbarous ancient Chinese and Mexicans
kept their records by means of a quipus (or knot in Peruvian)--a cord,
several feet long, composed of different colored threads, from which a
multicolored fringe was suspended; each color denoting a sensible object,
and knots serving as ciphers. "The mysterious science of the quipus," says
Prescott, "supplied the Peruvians with the means of communicating their
ideas to one another, and of transmitting them to future generations. . . ."
Each locality, however, had its own method of interpreting these elaborate
records, hence a quipus was only intelligible in the place where it was
kept. "Many quipus have been taken from the graves, in excellent state of
preservation in color and texture," writes Dr. Heath; "but the lips, that
alone could pronounce the verbal key, have for ever ceased their function,
and the relic-seeker has failed to note the exact spot where each was found,
so that the records, which could tell so much we want to know, will remain
sealed till all is revealed at the last day." . . . if anything at all is
revealed then. But what is certainly as good as a revelation now, while our
brains are in function, and our mind is acutely alive to some pre-eminently
suggestive facts, is the incessant discoveries of archaeology, geology,
ethnology and other sciences. It is the almost irrepressible conviction that
man having existed upon earth millions of years--for all we know,--the
theory of cycles is the only plausible theory to solve the great problems of
humanity, the rise and fall of numberless nations and races, and the
ethnological differences among the latter. This difference--which, though as
marked as the one between a handsome and intellectual European and a digger
Indian of Australia, yet makes the ignorant shudder and raise a great outcry
at the thought of destroying the imaginary "great gulf between man and brute
creation"--might thus be well accounted for. The digger Indian, then in
company with many other savage, though to him superior, nations, which
evidently are dying out to afford room to men and races of a superior kind,
would have to be regarded in the same light as so many dying-out specimens
of animals--and no more. Who can tell but that the forefathers of this
flat-headed savage--forefathers who may have lived and prospered amidst the
highest civilization before the glacial period--were in i the arts and
sciences far beyond those of the present civilization--though it may be in
quite another direction'? That man has lived in America, at least 50,000
years ago, is now proved scientifically and remains a fact beyond doubt or
cavil. In a lecture delivered at Manchester, in June last, by Mr. H. A.
Allbutt, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society, the lecturer
stated the following:--"Near New Orleans, in one part of the modern delta,
in excavating for gas works, a series of beds, almost wholly made up of
vegetable matter, were dug through. In the excavation, at a depth of 16 feet
from the upper surface, and beneath four buried forests, one on the top of
the other, the labourers discovered some charcoal and the skeleton of a man,
the cranium of which was reported to be that of the type of the aboriginal
Red Indian race. To this skeleton Dr. Dowler ascribed an antiquity of some
50,000 years." The irrepressible cycle in the course of time brought down
the descendants of the contemporaries of the late inhabitant of this
skeleton, and intellectually as well as physically they have degenerated, as
the present elephant has degenerated from his proud and monstrous
forefather, the antediluvian Sivatherium whose fossil remains are still
found in the Himalayas; or, as the lizard has from the plesiosaurus. Why
should man be the only specimen upon earth which has never changed in form
since the first day of his appearance upon this planet? The fancied
superiority of every generation of mankind over the preceding one is not yet
so well established as to make it impossible for us to learn some day that,
as in everything else, the theory is a two-sided question--incessant
progress on the one side and an as irresistible decadence on the other of
the cycle. "Even as regards knowledge and power, the advance, which some
claim as a characteristic feature of humanity, is effected by exceptional
individuals who arise in certain races under favourable circumstances only,
and is quite compatible with long intervals of immobility, and even of
decline,"9 says a modern man of science. This point is corroborated by what
we see in the modern degenerate descendants of the great and powerful races
of ancient America--the Peruvians and the Mexicans. "How changed! How fallen
from their greatness must have been the Incas, when a little band of one
hundred and sixty men could penetrate, uninjured, to their mountain homes,
murder their worshipped kings and thousands of their warriors, and carry
away their riches, and that, too, in a country where a few men with stones
could resist successfully an army! Who could recognize in the present
Inichua and Aymara Indians their noble ancestry?" . . . Thus writes Dr.
Heath, and his conviction that America was once united with Europe, Asia,
Africa and Australia, seems as firm as our own. There must exist geological
and physical cycles as well as intellectual and spiritual; globes and
planets, as well as races and nations, are born to grow, progress, decline
and--die. Great nations split, scatter into small tribes, lose all
remembrance of their integrity, gradually fall into their primitive state
and--disappear, one after the other, from the face of the earth. So do great
continents. Ceylon must have formed, once upon a time, part of the Indian
continent. So, to all appearances, was Spain once joined to Africa, the
narrow channel between Gibraltar and the latter continent having been once
upon a time dry land. Gibraltar is full of large apes of the same kind as
those which are found in great numbers on the opposite side on the African
coast, whereas nowhere in Spain is either a monkey or ape to be found at any
place whatever. And the caves of Gibraltar are also full of gigantic human
bones, supporting the theory that they belong to an antediluvian race of
men. The same Dr. Heath mentions the town of Eten in 70 S. latitude of
America, in which the inhabitants of an unknown tribe of men speak a
monosyllabic language that imported Chinese labourers understood from the
first day of their arrival. They have their own laws, customs and dress,
neither holding nor permitting communication with the outside world. No one
can tell whence they came or when; whether it was before or after the
Spanish Conquest. They are a living mystery to all, who chance to visit
them. . . .
With such facts before us to puzzle exact science herself, and show our
entire ignorance of the past verily, we recognise no right of any man on
earth--whether in geography or ethnology, in exact or abstract sciences--to
tell his neighbour--"so far shalt thou go, and no further!"
But, recognizing our debt of gratitude to Dr. Heath of Kansas, whose able
and interesting paper has furnished us with such a number of facts and
suggested such possibilities, we can do no better than quote his concluding
reflections. "Thirteen thousand years ago," he writes, "Vega or a Lyræ, was
the north polar star; since then how many changes has she seen in our
planet! How many nations and races spring into life, rise to their zenith of
splendour, and then decay; and when we shall have been gone thirteen
thousand years, and once more she resumes her post at the north, completing
a 'Platonic or Great Year,' think you that those who shall fill our places
on the earth at that time will be more conversant with our history than we
are of those that have passed? Verily might we exclaim, in terms almost
psalmistic, 'Great God, Creator and Director of the Universe, what is man
that Thou art mindful of him'!"
Amen! ought to be the response of such as yet believe in a God who is "the
Creator and Director of the Universe."
____________________
NOTES ON "A LAND OF MYSTERY" 
To the Editor of the THEOSOPHIST--I have read with much pleasure your
excellent article on the "Land of Mystery." In it you show a spirit of
inquiry and love of truth which are truly commendable in you and cannot fail
to command the approbation and praise of all unbiased readers. But there are
certain points in it, in which I cannot but join issue with you. In order to
account for the most striking resemblances that existed in the manners,
customs, social habits and traditions of the primitive peoples of the two
worlds, you have recourse to the old Platonic theory of a land-connection
between them. But the recent researches in the Novemyra have once for all
exploded that theory. They prove that, with the exception of the severance
of Australia from Asia, there never was a submersion of land on so gigantic
a scale as to produce an Atlantic or a Pacific Ocean, that, ever since their
formation, the seas have never changed their ancient basins on any very
large scale. Professor Geike, in his physical geography holds that the
continents have always occupied the positions they do now, except that, for
a few miles, their coasts have sometimes advanced into and receded from the
sea.
You would not have fallen into any error, had you accepted M. Quatrefages'
theory of migrations by sea. The plains of Central Asia are accepted by all
monogenists as the centre of appearance of the human race. From this place
successive waves of emigrants radiated to the utmost verge of the world. It
is no wonder that the ancient Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, Peruvians and
Mexicans--men who once inhabited the same place--should show the strong
resemblances in certain points of their life. The proximity of the two
continents at Behring Straits enabled immigrants to pass from Asia to
America. A little to the south is the current of Tassen, the Kourosivo or
black stream of the Japanese, which opens a great route for Asiatic
navigators. The Chinese have been a maritime nation from remote antiquity
and it is not impossible that their barges might have been like those of the
Portuguese navigator, Cabral, in modern times, driven by accident to the
coast of America. But, leaving all questions of possibilities and accidents
aside, we know that the Chinese had discovered the magnetic needle even so
early as B.C. 2,000. With its aid and that of the current of Tassen, they
had no very considerable difficulty to cross to America. They established,
as Paz Soldan informs us in his Geografia del Peru, a little colony there;
and Buddhist missionaries "towards the close of the fifth century sent
religious missions to carry to Fou-Sang (America) the doctrines of Buddha."
This will no doubt be unpleasant to many European readers. They are averse
to crediting a statement that takes the honour of the discovery of America
from them and assigns it to what they are graciously pleased to call "a
semi-barbarous Asiatic nation." Nevertheless, it is an unquestionable truth.
Chapter XVIII or the Human Species by A. De Quatrefages will be an
interesting reading to any one who may be eager to know something of the
Chinese discovery of America, but the space at his command being small, he
gives a very meagre account of it in his book. I earnestly hope you will
complete your interesting article by adverting to this and giving us full
particulars of all that is known about it. The shedding of light on a point,
which has hitherto been involved in mysterious darkness, will not be
unworthy of the pen of one, the be-all and end-all of whose life is the
search of truth and, when found, to abide by it, be it at whatever cost it
may be.
       
AMRITA
LAL BISVAS.
Calcutta, 11th
July.
Scant leisure this month prevents our making any detailed answer to the
objections to the Atlantan hypothesis intelligently put forth by our
subscriber. But let us see whether--even though based upon "recent
researches" which "have once for all exploded that theory"--they are as
formidable as at first sight they may appear.
Without entering into the subject too deeply, we may limit ourselves to but
one brief remark. More than one scientific question, which at one time has
seemingly been put at rest for ever, has exploded at a subsequent one over
the heads of theorists who had forgotten the danger of trying to elevate a
simple theory into an infallible dogma. We have not questioned the assertion
that "there never was a submersion of land on so gigantic a scale as to
produce an Atlantic or a Pacific Ocean," for we never pretended to suggest
new theories for the formation of oceans. The latter may have been where
they now are since the time of their first appearance, and yet whole
continents been broken into fragments partially engulfed, and left
innumerable islands, as seems the case with the submerged Atlantis. What we
meant was that, at some pre-historic time and long after the globe teemed
with civilized nations, Asia, America and perhaps Europe were parts of one
vast continental formation, whether united by such narrow strips of land as
evidently once existed where now is Behring Strait (which connects the North
Pacific and Arctic Oceans and has a depth of hardly more than twenty to
twenty-five fathoms) or by larger stretches of land. Nor shall we fight the
monogenists who claim Central Asia as the one cradle place of humanity--but
leave the task to the polygenists who are able to do it far more
successfully than ourselves. But, in any case, before we can accept the
theory of monogenesis, its advocates must offer us some unanswerable
hypothesis to account for the observed differences in human types better
than that of "divarication caused by difference of climate, habits and
religious culture." M. Quatrefages may remain, as ever, indisputably a most
distinguished naturalist--physician, chemist and zoologist--yet we fail to
understand why we should accept his theories in preference to all others.
Mr. Amrita Lal Bisvas evidently refers to a narrative of some scientific
travels along the shores of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, by this
eminent Frenchman, entitled--"Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste." He seems to
regard M. Quatrefages in the light of an infallible Pope upon all scientific
questions: we do not, though he was a member of the French Academy and a
professor of ethnology. His theory, about the migrations by sea, may be
offset by about an hundred others which directly oppose it. It is just
because we have devoted our whole life to the research of truth--for which
complimentary admission we thank our critic--that we never accept on faith
any authority upon any question whatsoever; nor, pursuing, as we do, TRUTH
and progress through a full and fearless enquiry, untrammelled by any
consideration, would we advise any of our friends to do otherwise.
Having said so much, we may now give a few of our reasons for believing in
the alleged "fable" of the submerged Atlantis--though we explained ourselves
at length upon the subject in Isis Unveiled (Vol. I, pp. 590, et seq.). 
First.--We have as evidence the most ancient traditions of various and
widely-separated peoples--legends in India, in ancient Greece, Madagascar,
Sumatra, Java, and all the principal isles of Polynesia, as well as those of
both Americas. Among savages, as in the traditions of the richest literature
in the world--the Sanskrit literature of India--there is an agreement in
saying that, ages ago, there existed in the Pacific Ocean, a large continent
which, by a geological upheaval, was engulfed by the sea. And it is our firm
belief--held, of course, subject to correction--that most, if not all of the
islands from the Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, are fragments of that
once immense submerged continent. Both Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at
the two extremes of the Ocean and which, since the memory of man, never had
nor could have any intercourse with, or even a knowledge of each other, have
yet a tradition, common to all the islands and islets, that their respective
countries extended far, far out into sea; that there were in the world but
two immense continents, one inhabited by yellow, the other by dark men; and
that the ocean, by command of the gods and to punish them for their
incessant quarrelling, swallowed them up.
2. Notwithstanding the geographical fact that New Zealand, and Sandwich and
Easter Islands, are at a distance, from each other, of between 800 and 1,000
leagues; and that, according to every testimony, neither these nor any other
intermediate islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Feejee,
Tahitian, Samoan and other islands, could, since they became islands,
ignorant as their people were of the compass, have communicated with each
other before the arrival of Europeans; yet, they, one and all, maintain that
their respective countries extended far toward the west, on the Asian side.
Moreover, with very small differences, they all speak dialects evidently of
the same language, and understand each other with little difficulty; have
the same religious beliefs and superstitions; and pretty much the same
customs. And as few of the Polynesian islands were discovered earlier than a
century ago, and the Pacific Ocean itself was unknown to Europe until the
days of Columbus, and these islanders have never ceased repeating the same
old traditions since the Europeans first set foot on their shores, it seems
to us a logical inference that our theory is nearer to the truth than any
other. Chance would have to change its name and meaning, were all this due
but to chance alone.
Theosophist, March, April, June, August, 1880 

 
1 See Stephens' Central America.
 
2 A paper published by Mr. E. R. Heath in the Kansas City Review of Science
and Industry, Nov., 1878.

3 This "idea" is plainly expressed and asserted as a fact by Plato in his
Banquet: and was taken up by Lord Bacon in his New Atlantis.

4 "The name America," said I, in Isis Unveiled, (Vol. 2, p. 591) three years
ago, "may one day be found closely related to Meru, the sacred mount in the
centre of the seven continents." When first discovered, America was found to
bear among some native tribes the name of Atlanta. In the States of Central
America we find the name Amerih, signifying, like Meru, a great mountain.
The origin of the Kamas Indians of America is also unknown.

5 Smithsonian contributions to Knowledge, Vol. 1.

6 New American Cyclopaedia, Art, "Teotihuacan,"

7 On Ancient Sculpturing on Rocks in Kumaon. India, similar to those found
on monoliths and rocks in Europe. By J. H. Rivett-Carnac, Bengal Civil
Service, C. I. E., F. S. A., M. R. A. S. F. G. S., &c 

8 See Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, November, 1878. 

9 Journal of Science for February, Article--The Alleged Distinction between
Man and Brute." 


===================================

Best wishes,

Keep the info coming I am most interested and will share it with others

Dal

==================================

-----Original Message-----
From: info@archaeologyanswers.com [mailto:info@archaeologyanswers.com] 
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 12:23 PM
To: dalval14@earthlink.net
Subject: Dallas, did a dumb man create this treasure?

Dallas, this news is from Jonathan Gray - 
www.beforeus.com You authorized this mailing when 
you requested your free report on our web-site or a 
friend enrolled you. See below for removal directions.

Can you answer this question? 

But first the evidence. Then the question.

THE FAIRY TALE ISLAND THEY DISCOVERED

Okay, the evidence. It almost shocked the boots off 
those Spaniards when they invaded Peru in the 1500s. 

You see, they sailed out to an island near Puna. 
And would you believe, here was a royal garden so 
amazing it might have come out of a fairy tale.

Just about every living thing you can name was 
modelled in gold and silver. Trees, even to the roots, 
and lesser plants with leaves, flowers and fruit - all 
were crafted in natural size and style; some as though 
they were ready to sprout, others half-grown or in full 
blossom.

Golden metallic birds sat perched on silver metallic 
trees, as if singing, while others were flying and 
sucking honey from flowers. 

Whole fields of maize were imitated - roots, stalk, 
flowers and cob; the beard of the husk in gold, the rest 
in silver. 

Other plants were similarly treated - a flower or 
anything of a yellow tint in real life was done in 
gold, the other parts in silver. 

>From the trees there even hung nuggets of fruit.

Nothing remained uncopied: rabbits, foxes, mice, 
lizards, lions, tigers, stags, snakes. All were set in 
their natural surroundings to enhance reality. All made
of metal. All stunningly life-like.

Then to top it off, golden metallic butterflies flitted 
around in the breeze.

There were life-size fish, ropes, hampers, baskets, 
bins and even woodpiles for burning - all fashioned in 
gold and silver, soldered together.

All these were in just one garden! But did you know, 
other such gardens graced all the royal residences 
throughout the land of the Incas. 

THEN CAME BIG TROUBLE

But when the Incas saw the grasping greed of the 
visitors, they disassembled the other gardens and 
stashed away the gold and silver models before the  
invaders could confiscate them.

These priceless artifacts still remain hidden - they 
have never been found.

However, the invaders did seize the items I have just 
described. They plundered that magical garden on the 
island. Then they melted down most of artifacts for
shipment of the gold and silver to Europe.

Doesn't that make you want to cry? 

So vanished an unbelievably precise metal technology.

SUCH INTRICATE TECHNOLOGY

But the Incas were heirs to a much earlier culture . . . 
As I see it, the evidence for an advanced knowledge of 
metallurgy in the remote past is irrefutable. 

Now, can you just picture this:

Did you know that in Egypt gold was hammered into 
leaves so thin that 367,000 made a pile only 1 inch high.

Did you know that in Peru and China threads of gold and 
silver were actually used in stitching.

Again, in Egypt, tiny objects of gold were so light in 
weight that one might suspect they were made by the 
ultramodern process of galvanoplasty.

And from Ecuador to Crete to Greece to Sumeria to Italy, 
granulation of gold was common. Just think about these 
examples:

* Ornaments made from tiny grains of gold half the size 
of a pin head, sometimes interspersed with even smaller,
hollowed out granules
* The same technique for the mane of a lion barely 
half an inch long; and the feathers and wings of a 
duck 1-1/4 inches
* And for the wings of a screech owl and the warts of 
a toad about 1 inch long
* The same technique for tiny purses and earrings
* And for other objects
These can be appreciated only by studying them through 
a strong magnifying glass.

SO HERE'S THE QUESTION

Okay, then, Dallas, here's my question to you. How 
could dumb folk, evolving up from savagery, have crafted 
such things? 

Dumb yesterday. Smart today. Really?  

How on earth could they have crafted such micro-objects
with no microscopes or lenses? 

If you'd like to know more, or if you would like 1,000
or more facts to stir up a sizzling hot discussion, 
just get yourself a copy of the best selling ebook Dead 
Men's Secrets. 

You can claim your copy NOW at http://www.beforeus.com
 
Hope you've enjoyed our little chat.

Best wishes
Jonathan Gray
       
DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?
       
Please email me your questions. I am here to help you 
with any questions on ancient mysteries. Just email 
me at info@archaeologyanswers.com

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International explorer, archaeologist and author 
Jonathan Gray has traveled the world to gather data on 
ancient mysteries. He has penetrated some largely 
unexplored areas, including parts of the Amazon 
headwaters. The author has also led expeditions to 
the bottom of the sea and to remote mountain and desert 
regions of the world. He lectures internationally.
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