A detail of the hill that overlooks the temple complex of Ollantaytambo. A section of the hil clearly reveals a face, which has been linked with the god Viracocha, the civilizing deity of the Inca.
The stone face of Viracocha towering over Ollantaytambo is the key to why massive blocks were positioned here; his face shows that the Creator God is still present, watching over his people. But whereas most attention goes to the massive stone blocks of the Temple Hill, the Salazar brothers have identified that in the valley below, the first beam of the sunrise falls on the so-called Pacaritanpu, the House of Dawn, where the gods became “God.” This structure is hardly identifiable, unless it is looked upon with the “right eyes.” At first, there appears to be nothing but a cultivated field near the river. Though dating from the Inca time period, it is hardly recognizable as important. But a second glance will reveal that the entire field portrays a gigantic pyramid; this two-dimensional structure is viewed as a three-dimensional pyramid. And this is not a mere trick of the eye, as the position where the sunbeam hits the ground has been clearly and uniquely marked by a stone structure.
Such subliminal images in the Inca structures are not unique. Elsewhere, the Inca used the same technique, often in city planning. The Salazar brothers have identified various animal forms in the hills and designs of Macchu Picchu. The design of the capital Cuzco is equally ingeniously created to form the image of a puma, the royal animal. Many of these constructions were achieved by using a mixture of natural shapes, which were then augmented—“stressed”—by human intervention, often by creating fields in very specific shapes.
The notion that sacred geography underlines Inca city planning is not a new observation. The Jesuit Father Bernabe Cobo, in his book The History of the New World (1653), wrote about “ceques” in Cuzco. These were lines on which “wak’as”—shrines—were placed and which were venerated by local people. Ceques had been described as sacred pathways, similar to the straight lines that can be found in Nazca. Cobo described how ceques radiated outward from the Temple of the Sun at the center of the old Inca capital. These were invisible lines, only apparent in the alignments of the wak’as. The ceques radiated out between two lines at right angles, which divided the city into four zones and extended farther out into the Inca Empire, which is how the empire got its name: Tawantinsuyu, meaning “Four Quarters of the Earth.”
When Macchu Picchu was discovered in 1911, its beauty and majesty made it a must-visit place. Though the stones used in its construction are not as massive as elsewhere in Peru, its location makes it part of a sacred pattern that involved the wanderings of the civilizing deity Viracocha.
Cuzco was the Inca capital; its original Quechua name was Qosqo, meaning “navel.” It is here that some of the most impressive stone masonry of South America is on display. The Dominican Priory and Church of Santo Domingo were built on top of the impressive Coricancha (Temple of the Sun), in an effort to prevent the local population from continuing to worship Viracocha. When the Spaniards arrived in Cuzco, they saw 4,000 priests serving at the Coricancha. Ceremonies were conducted around the clock. Little remains of the Coricancha today, but what is left shows how impressive it was. The granite walls were once covered with more than 700 sheets of pure gold, each weighing around 4.5 pounds. The courtyard was filled with life-size sculptures of animals and a field of corn, all fashioned from pure gold. Even the floors of the temple were covered in solid gold. Facing the rising sun stood a massive golden image of the sun, encrusted with emeralds and other precious stones. At the center of the temple was the true navel—the Cuzco Cara Urumi, the “Uncovered Navel Stone.” This was an octagonal stone coffer covered with 120 pounds of pure gold.
Remarkable stonework built by pre-Inca people who lived in Peru can be seen in various locations, but one of the more interesting and accesible sites is the streets around the Coricancha in the “navel” of the Inca capital of Cuzco.
As at Ollantaytambo, the true miracle of the Coricancha is its massive granite blocks. A major earthquake on May 21, 1950, caused severe localized damage in Cuzco. The buildings from the colonial era were affected, but the city’s Inca architecture withstood the earthquake. Many of the old Inca walls were at first thought to have been lost after the earthquake, but what truly happened was that the earthquake merely exposed the original granite retaining walls of the Coricancha. The superiority of these stones is on display in the streets around the Coricancha. Here, the lower levels of the stones are monolithic and with complex angles, engineered so as to withstand earthquakes. On top are smaller stones. Archaeologists here imitate the work of their colleagues in Baalbek: They obscure the extraordinary difference between the layers, pretending somehow that both layers were the work of the Inca civilization. It is clear that the walls around the Coricancha are evidence of two distinct building techniques, the foundations showing that whoever built them possessed advanced engineering knowledge of working with stone, which was clearly lost by the time the upper layer was built.
When the Spanish Conquistadors discovered the Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun, in the heart of the Inca capital of Cuzco, they stripped all of its walls of their gold. Little remains of the temple, but what does reveals the extraordinary workmanship that went into it, including this doorway.
All of these massive building projects were carried out for one reason: This was the path walked by Viracocha. Modern research has looked at the legend of Viracocha and the Sacred Valley of the Vilcamayu and Urubamba rivers and has concluded that the Sacred Valley symbolized the Milky Way. The Milky Way was the Path of Souls. Cuzco is situated between the two rivers, and on a stellar map of the Milky Way this corresponds with the “dark gate” north of Sagittarius, which was seen as an entry to the Otherworld: a navel indeed!
These radical interpretations that are being put forward will no doubt require time before being accepted by each and all. Still, they sit within a worldwide phenomenon of creator beings walking the land and sculpting it as they go.
It will take even longer before their influence and novel approach is adapted and adopted by archaeologists. Meanwhile, several tourists continue to walk the Sacred Path of Viracocha: Many travel from Tiahuanaco to Cuzco, onward to Ollantaytambo, and finally make the arduous trek to Macchu Picchu. The path is a natural way of moving about the country and has been walked for hundreds of generations, from the earliest farmers to the Inca kings—but it is said that it was first walked by Viracocha.
Fewer tourists, however, visit Tiahuanaco, which author Igor Witkowski has described as “the city that breaks all the rules.” It does. Its most famous feature is a tremendous stone construction known as the Gate of the Sun, with a central image of Viracocha carved into it, showing how this city sits firmly within the bailiwick of the Sacred Valley. It is here that Viracocha is said to have landed on planet Earth.
Officially, the origins of Tiahuanaco date back to 1500 BC, but its heyday is normally placed in the first centuries AD. It was built in an area that was virtually infertile, and therefore the Tiahuanacos created farming platforms. They first placed large rocks on the land to form a base, and then a layer of clay to waterproof it. Then they added a layer of gravel, sand, and soil to create farmable land. Then a series of irrigation ditches were created and filled with water so that agriculture could provide for the local people. The extent of the work involved to make this area inhabitable suggests that there was a very good reason for people to go to so much trouble. Otherwise why didn’t these people simply live somewhere else, where life was easier? The answer to that question was Viracocha.
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THE ANCIENT ALIEN QUESTION
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The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull is the most enigmatic of all crystal skulls. Its detachable jaw, made from the same piece of crystal as the rest of the skull, has posed an impossible challenge for those looking for a simple explanation.
Ever since Macchu Picchu was discovered in 1911, its beauty and majesty has made it one of the mus
t-visit places on the planet. Though the stones used in its construction are perhaps not as massive as those used in others such sites in Peru, its location makes it part of a sacred pattern that involved the wanderings of the civilizing deity Viracocha.
Skull and Macchu Pichu images courtesy of author.
Background image. Credit: NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)
The Zoser Pyramid is the oldest pyramid in Egypt. The entire complex, both in layout and inscriptions, reveals the true purpose of the pyramids. They speak of a festival in which the Pharaoh was to become one with the gods, so that his power and character as a ruler were proven in the eyes of his subjects.
Just slightly smaller than the Great Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre has retained some of its covering stones at the top. It therefore allows one to imagine how brilliant these pyramids must have looked in the sunlight during their heyday.
The three pyramids at Giza, just outside of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, are the ancient world’s most enduring legacy. Their size and majesty can only be appreciated in person. They were laid out in the form of Orion’s Belt, conforming to the layout of the Hopi Mesas in Arizona, as well as the pyramid complex in Teotihuacán, Mexico.
The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán has many things in common with the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Together with the Pyramid of the Moon and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, it forms the layout of Orion’s Belt, which the pyramids at Giza also mirror. How were these cultures, separated by time and space, able to build their monuments according to the same template?
Images courtesy of author
A detail of the hill that overlooks the temple complex of Ollantaytambo. A section of the hill clearly reveals a face, which has been linked with the god Viracocha, the civilizing deity of the Inca. Judging from the extraordinary engineering that went into some of the ancient structures found in Peru, the divine origins of their builders’ techniques should not be dismissed.
Ollantaytambo image courtesy of the author
The Wali Hopi Mesa is one of three Mesas in the heartland of the Hopi reservation in Arizona. Laid out according to Orion’s Belt (background image of Orion Nebula), it formed the final goal of a series of wanderings by various Native Americans, carried out on orders of their god, Maasaw.
Wali Hopi Mesa image courtesy the Hearst Museum. Background image. Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team
The Tayos Cave was once wrongly identified as the site of the famous Metal Library, arguably one of the greatest treasure troves ever discovered. But when the Cave was explored in 1976, it became evident that sections of the complex were man-made.
The temple complex of Baalbek in Lebanon became the home of the largest Roman temple. But it is the platform below the Roman complex that is one of the great enigmas of the ancient world: it contains stones that weigh hundreds of tons, and no one knows how they were transported.
Tayos Cave image © Estate of Stan Hall, used with permission. www.goldenlibrary.com. Baalbek image courtesy of author
The Piri Reis map is an early 16th-century map that was constructed using several maps. The map shows the correct longitudes for the Brazilian coastline and, as some researchers suggest, the correct, pre-glacial coastline of Antarctica, a continent that would only be discovered three centuries later.
When the Spanish Conquistadors discovered the Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun, in the heart of the Inca capital of Cuzco, they stripped all the walls of their gold. Little remains of the temple, but what does remain reveals extraordinary workmanship that went into it, including this doorway.
Piri Reis map image from Wikipedia, made available through the Wikimedia Commons License. Coricancha door image courtesy of author
The Nazca lines in Peru are one of the mainstays of the Ancient Alien Theory. Their patterns are reminiscent of the landing strips of modern airports; indeed, many tourists visiting the lines approach them in an airplane in a faux aborted landing so they can experience the full excitement.
Nazca line images courtesy of Erich von Däniken, used with permission
In the 19th century, when Frenchman Augustus LePlongeon found seashells at Tiahuanaco he concluded that the city had been a seaport in antediluvian times and had likely been located at a far lower altitude. Then somehow, a cataclysm—the Deluge—had lifted up the entire mountain range. Arthur Posnansky was the next to claim that Tiahuanaco was antediluvian. He labeled it the oldest city on Earth. Posnansky calculated it to date back to 15000 BC. Various university professors, such as Dr. Hans Ludendorff, director of the Astronomical Observatory of Potsdam, were intrigued by Posnansky’s interpretation and held a three-year study, between 1927 and 1930, and concluded that Posnansky was right. Today, scientists state that Posnansky has been proven incorrect.
LePlongean and Posnansky weren’t the first to give Tiahuanaco such an eminent distinction. When chronicler Pedro de Cieza de Leon asked the natives there whether the Inca had built Tiahuanaco, they “laughed at the question, affirming that they were made long before the Inca reign and...that they had heard from their forebears that everything to be seen there appeared suddenly in the course of a single night.” Another Spanish visitor added that his information said that the stones had been miraculously lifted off the ground, and “carried through the air to the sound of a trumpet.”7
But the most enigmatic feature of the Tiahuanaco complex is Puma Punku, a structure that proponents of the Ancient Alien Theory almost uniformly hold as among the best available evidence for it. One of the construction blocks here weighs an estimated 440 tons, and others weigh between 100 and 150 tons. Many of these monoliths were fixed with I-shaped metal clamps. However, it is not the size of the blocks that is of primary interest but the precision of the stonecutting—to one 10th of a millimeter, roughly the thickness of a piece of paper. Each stone has three-dimensional edges; modern cutting machines do not allow us to make the sharp edges we see here. There are a series of complex blocks, the so-called H-letter-type blocks, which have almost 80 surfaces each—rather than the usual six surfaces on a normal brick. The precision of these blocks rules out manual processing: The sides are smooth, have exactly the same diameter, and are precisely parallel. One block contains a precise groove that has a semi-elliptical cross section, 4.5 millimeters wide and around 1 meter long. In it, distanced at 28 millimeters, is a row of holes, with a diameter slightly less than that of the groove. All the holes have the same diameter of 4 millimeters, and the deviations in depth between the holes do not exceed 0.1 millimeters—stunningly precise. Only extremely sophisticated machining can accomplish such a block today. What made these stones in Puma Punku? Science has no answer, and wishes Puma Punku to remain largely unknown—in stark contrast with the fame Tiahuanaco had among the Inca.
Puma Punku is one of the world’s most enigmatic sites. The stones are not only gigantic in size, but they also show chiseling that is so precise and intricate that it is beyond the means of ordinary tools, but required machinery on par with our most modern equiptment.
Even though we could reproduce some of the chiseling in the rocks, there are so many diverse shapes, channels, tubes, and holes that it is not simple to ascertain their purpose.
Pedro de Cienza de Leon, the Chronicler of the Incas, wrote in 1553 about Tiahuanaco, stating that the sun emerged from the Island of Titicaca. The Inca said that there appeared from the south a large white man who performed miracles, and whom they called Maker. He taught the people to be good and to love one another. As he traveled north, he became known as TiciViracocha. Later, another white man appeared, performing miracles, and he was given the name Viracocha. In the province of Cocha, however, the locals wanted to stone him, so he knelt and raised his head to the sky, and at that very moment a large fire approached in the sky and the natives feared for their lives. Viracocha then ordered the fire to cease, but the fire and heat had already scorched the surrounding stones,
making them light as cork, so that even the biggest of stones could be easily picked up.
And so with Viracocha, we are once again confronted with a civilizing deity, whose cult involves some of the greatest stone blocks ever carved, and some of them most intricately carved. We are once again confronted with a legend that is on par with other cultures elsewhere in the world. Wherever we turn, the common denominator of these anomalies is that they were built by or as a result of a foreigner, in the possession of extraordinary techniques and technology. That is the conclusion that all the available evidence suggests. Instead, what science believes is that there is nothing to see; that we should quickly move on, for all of this is merely the hard work of the indigenous people.
The Quest for the Metal Library
Sometimes it is not a case of what you know, but who you know. In 1973, Erich von Däniken, at the height of his fame following the success of Chariots of the Gods, claimed that he had entered into a gigantic subterranean tunnel system in Ecuador, which he was told spanned the length of the continent. Surely this was evidence that our ancestors were highly advanced, or that the builders of this network were extraterrestrial? The structure was believed to house a library in which books were made out of metal. This in an area where today there is nothing but “primitive” Indian tribes with no written language. Is the library evidence of a lost civilization? Or an extraterrestrial presence on planet Earth?
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