Baalbek and Tiahuanaco – Part II

Continued from the previous post regarding the the parallel of construction of Baalbek in the Old World and its striking resemblance to the historicity of a site of Tiahuanaco in the Western Hemisphere of Andean Peru, which has become known as the “Baalbek of the New World.” 
    It should be noted that this area of Tiahuanaco was the capital of an empire that extended into present-day Peru and Chile, and to show how important the complex was, it is believed to be one of the most important cities of ancient America. In fact, Andean legends claim the area around Lake Titicaca was the cradle of the first humans on Earth. According to the myths, Lord Viracocha, the creator God of all things, chose Tiahuanaco as the place of creation. It is unknown how old these ruins are, but some researchers suggest that they extend far back into B.C. times.
    Even today, like Garcilaso de la Vega in the 16^thcentury, professionals wonder how such blocks were quarried with no metal tools, how they were transported to the building site by a civilization claimed to be without the wheel, and how they were assembled to form the piers and docks that once existed.

The high artificial hill, built on stone foundations to which Garcilaso refers has been determined by modern technology to be an entirely man-made earthen mound, faced with a mixture of large and small stone blocks. In fact, ground-penetrating radar has revealed not only an underground pyramid at the site, but also numerous “underground anomalies” suspected of being monoliths and an underground tunnel.
    According to Ludwing Cayo, director of the Tiahuanaco Archeological Research Center, the site will be undergoing further investigations and has scheduled excavations to begin shortly and continue over a five-year period on the pyramid at Kantatallita area of Tiahuanaco, located 44 miles west of La Paz in Bolivia, and in its height, covered 373,000 square miles, with “a legacy of impressive stone monuments such as Kalasasaya, the semi-underground Templete, sculptures of prominent figures, the Gate of the Sun and ruins of palaces, along with numerous blocks of stone scattered about weighing hundreds of tons.”
    The question plaguing scientists is how did these huge blocks of hewn stone get scattered about in such disarray? Did some tremendous geological cataclysm tumble these gigantic monoliths into this horrible disorder? And if so, what catacalysmic event would that have been?
    According to Alan L. Kolata in The Tiwanaku: Portrait of an Andean Civilization, “During the time period between 300 B.C. and 300 A.D., Tiwanaku is thought to have been a moral and cosmological center for the Tiwanaku Empire, and one to which many people made pilgrimages. Researchers believe it achieved this standing prior to Tiwanaku expanding its powerful empire” (Wiley-Blackwell, New Jersey, 1993).
    Then there is the ceremonial center with its pyramids, temples, stone idols. The characteristics of construction are unique and splendid, with planners and architects having singular drawing of simple lines designed lavish temples; the engineers calculated the inclinations of the walls, and with an excellent urbanistic technique created superficial and underground networks of channels to eliminate the rainwater. Masons sculpted stones of excellent design, metallurgists made plates for the iconographic bas-reliefs, managing to cover monuments with golden metals, which sparkled under the sun; and the priests oriented the temples astronomically with amazing precision. A multitude of men cut the stone in distant quarries and transported it to this complex resulting in a radiation of culture, a concentration of knowledge and location of science—the influence of Tiahuanaco is noticed in its monuments of Peru, Ecuador, and communities of Marajó Island at the mouth of the Amazon River. The seal of this culture is also found in ceramic or metal objects manufactured by the communities of northern Chile, northern Argentina, Peru, and eastern Bolivia. Its culture was considered the most important of the pre-Columbian period in Andean territory, achieving not only great advances in science and art, but created an exceptional technique of cultivation in ridges for the flat lands and on platforms or terraces for the slopes. Undoubtedly, it exerted a powerful influence on other cultures.
    The various buildings in the complex are known as the Kalasasaya ("Place of Vertical Stones"), the semi-Subterranean Temple, a so-called "Palace," and the Akapana Pyramid. This subterranean Temple is one of the most amazing sites yet uncovered, which is one of the most finished architectural realizations of the era of splendor, and is more than 6 ½ feet below the level of the surrounding area, almost quadrangular in shape, and made up of walls with 57 sustaining pillars of red sandstone and ashlars of the same material. These walls are decorated internally by 175 nailed heads, mostly worked in limestone, each one different from the others. The drainage system in this subterranean area is made by channels made of stone, with a perfect slope of 2% that still works today, and flows into a collector.
    Embedded in the floor of the temple was the largest anthropomorphic piece, known as monolith Pachamama and has been transferred to the city of La Paz to fix it in the square next to the stadium Hernando Siles. Today it has been returned and installed in a museum built especially for tourists to appreciate it. This piece has a height of 24-feet and an approximate weight of 20 ton. In addition, the monolith known as the Templete "Monolito Barbado" or "KonTiki Wiracocha" (Lord of the Waters, with beards, and dressed in a long skirt) sculpted in sandstone, which is accompanied by two other minor stelae, all excavated in the same site.
    In addition, a few minor buildings are also present in this complex, and many of the building blocks are estimated to weigh close to 200 tons. The Akapana Pyramid is a step pyramid, and, like the Great Pyramid, is aligned perfectly with the cardinal directions. It was originally covered with smooth Andesite stone, only 10 percent of which is still in sitü. The ruinous state of the pyramid is due to stone pirates who have carried off the stones for building materials in the nearby city of La Paz.
    The conventional practice of dating Tiahuanacu is based on carbon dates of numerous examples of pottery, small statues and other artifacts. An obvious fact ignored by orthodox archeologists is that it is common for late arrivals to be awed by old ruins (attributing their origin to gods or giants); who then incorporate those very images in their own pottery, textiles, etc. It may be a colossal mistake to fuse the cultures into one, skewing dates of the megalithic stone ruins to match those of later artifacts.
    According to Alden J. Mason in The Ancient Civilizations of Peru, “as a result of these problems, several major archeological authorities describe the dating of the buildings and sculptures at Tiahuanaco as "insecure" (Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1968).
    The point is, like Baalbek in Lebanon, the complex at Tiahuanaco is relatively unknown—who built it, when it was built, and what specific purpose the region served is all unknown to modern man. The fact that it dates to the Nephite period, and has the semblance of ancient and advanced construction, lends credence to the story of the Book of Mormon and the Land of Promise being in this general area of Andean Peru.