Continuing with the last post
about the ancient site of Tiahuanco (Twanaku), which included the areas of Puma
Punku, Arkapana, Titicaca and the Altiplano. This magnificent ancient stonework
that was dismantled soon after then Spanish arrived, bore testimony to an
advanced society of the past, dating into B.C. times who erected the entire
city that some claim housed as many as 1.2 million people, including its
surrounding environs.
Yet, Tiahuanaco is by no means
unique to the area of Andean Peru, for scattered throughout the Andes are
several fortresses of very similar design, all predating the ancient Incas by
an unknown span of time—and all probably built by the same race of men who
constructed Tiahuanaco. People unknown to history, and unknown even to the Inca
who occupied the areas this ancient people built.
A unique layout of 233 stones on the dead-flat platform at El
Enladrillado in Chile, 12 to 16 feet high, 20 to 30 feet long, and weighing
several hundred tons, these stones were laid out in an obvious pattern across a
level ground
In Chile, high on the plateau of
El Enladrillado and well within the borders of the old Inca empire, are 233
stone blocks that have been placed geometrically in an amphitheater-like
arrangement. The blocks are roughly rectangular, some as large as twelve to
sixteen feet high, twenty to thirty feet long, and weighing several hundred
tons. As at Tiahuanaco, huge chairs of stone have also been found in disarray
among the ruins, each weighing a massive ten tons. But perhaps the most
important find at El Enladrillado, Altos de Lircay, Chile, was the discovery of
three standing stones at the center of the plateau—each is three to four feet
in diameter and perfectly aligned with magnetic north, while a line through one
of these and the third stone points to the midsummer sunrise.
To the north, at Ollantaytambo,
is another pre-Inca fortress, with rock walls of tightly fitted blocks weighing
between 150 and 250 tons each. Most of the blocks consist of very hard
andesite, the quarries for which are situated on a mountaintop seven miles
away. Somehow, at an altitude of 10,000 feet, the unknown builders carved and
dressed the stone (using tools the nature of which we can only guess to
penetrate such hard rock), lowered the two-hundred-ton blocks down the mountainside,
crossed the river canyon with 1,000-foot sheer rock walls, then raised the
blocks up another mountainside and placed them in the fortress complex.
According to South American antiquarian Hyatt Verrill, “mere men, no matter how
many—Indian or otherwise—could not duplicate this feat using only their muscle
power and the stone implements or crude metal tools, ropes and rollers that we
know about.” As Verrill noted, “It is not a question of skill, patience and
time.” It would be a matter of a higher knowledge than we know about even
today.
Ollantaytambo
is a hill top fortress that involves thousands upon thousands of stones, some
weighing many tons and intricately carved, positioned up a hillside with an
extensive terraced entrance
Was this some of the “Great
Things” the Lord told Nephi about? (1 Nephi 18:3).
Between Ollantaytambo and
Tiahuanaco, lies another example of these engineering geniuses, that of
Sacsayhuaman above Cuzco. It rests on an artificially leveled mountaintop at an
altitude of 12,000 feet and consists of three outer lines of gargantuan walls,
1,500 feet long and 54’ wide, surrounding a paved area containing a circular
stone structure believed to be a solar calendar. The ruins also include a
50,000-gallon water reservoir, storage cisterns, ramps, citadels and
underground chambers. But what is truly remarkable about this fortress is the
stonework.
Here extremely skilled
stonemasons fitted blocks weighing from fifty to three hundred tons into
intricate patterns. A block in one of the outer walls, for example, has faces
cut to fit perfectly with twelve other blocks. In addition, other blocks were
cut with as many as ten, twelve, and even thirty-six sides. Yet all the blocks
fit together so precisely that a mechanic’s thickness gauge could not be
inserted between them.
The stonework of this
pre-historical people dating into the B.C. period is remarkable, with these
intricate cuts and fittings, and with such unusual patterns and joints
Modern historians can claim this
was built by the Inca all they want, but when the Spanish arrived, the Inca had
no idea who built Sacsayhuaman, nor when or how it was built, even though
modern historians claim it was built within 100 years of the conquest. In
addition, the magnificent fortress is not mentioned, nor does it figure into
any of the Inca legends. And lastly, the Inca had no knowledge of higher mathematics,
no written language, no iron tools, and did not even use the wheel, yet modern
historians want to claim they built Sacsayhuaman and other sites around the
Sacred Valley. The truth of the matter is, all these sites were built by
others, dating back into B.C. times, and when the Inca arrived on the spot,
they simply moved into these buildings and occupied them.
It is interesting that when the
Lord wanted to help man for his own purposes, he told Noah exactly how to build
his Ark, even to the overall dimensions; when he wanted the Brother of Jared to
build eight barges, he told him exactly how to do so; when the Lord wanted a
temple built to him, he gave Israel the overall dimensions, the interior design,
and what and how things were to be displayed within it; when the Lord wanted
Nephi to build a ship, he told him exactly how to construct it, which was not
after the manner of men, but entirely different. Let us not forget that the Lord has been intricately involved in numerous building efforts through the
centuries, and in giving man knowledge of how to build, create, and accomplish
certain things—certainly, when he had Nephi up on the mountain, not only did he
instruct Nephi, who went to the mount often, on how to build his ship, but also
instructed him on many “great things” (1 Nephi 18:3).
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