Was there Writing in Ancient South America? – Part II

Continued from the previous post regarding the existence of writing in ancient Peru before the Inca.

First of all, the stone walls throughout Andean Peru are remarkable (Alma 48:8), some with extensive carving and engraved writing on them in the form of characters, hieroglyphs geometric lines and other designs. It has been estimated that at least 250,000 miles or more of stone walls, some as high as 150 feet, others around 60 feet, and most 10 to 15 feet in height and some 30 to 100 mile in length. Much of these walls are found in terracing. Around Rimac, on the eastern side of Lima, there are more than 800 miles of stone wall on just one side of the ravine (The Journal of Science [formerly the Quarterly Journal of Science], Ed. William Crookes, vol. 16, London, 1879, p103-104).    These walls were made from cutting through 60 miles of granite, transplanting blocks of hard porphyry, of huge dimensions, miles from the place where quarried, across valleys thousands of feet deep, over mountains, and along plains, leaving no trace of how or where they carried them. 
    They were then dressed and fitted into walls with mosaic precision, terracing thousands of miles of mountain side, building hills of adobes and earth, and huge cities, leaving works in clay, stone, copper. silver, gold and embroidery, any of which cannot be duplicated at the present age (Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, ed Theo. S. Case, vol.II, Ramsey, Millett & Hudson, 1879, p466). 

    The key to the hieroglyphics and characters carved into walls has not been found an cannot be referred to the Incas, since they apparently had no knowledge of characters. It is interesting that Spanish writers refer all to Inca make, but Incal history only dates back a short time, which would be insufficient, nor do their histories speak of many of these works. After all, the imperial glories of the Incas were but the last gleam of civilization that mounted up to thousands of years—long before Manco Capac, the Andes had been the dwelling place of races whose gigantic architecture points far back in time (p467). 
    In fact, the gigantic dimensions of the architecture, including mummification in burial and embalming points back to Egypt, while the distaff, plough, manner of threshing and of making brick are the same as was done by the Hebrews.
    Around this area about Cuzco from the north, east, and south, was the Chachapoya domain. Cuzco itself is in a series of tall mountains that continue eastward for more than 100 miles, with Yana Urqu the tallest at 16,400 feet, before descending into the wide forests of Paucartambo (Pawqar Tampu). Near this point the Tono, with all its tributaries from the west, the Cusipata from the southwest, and the Piña-piña from the north having drained the wide forests of the “colored tambo” (C. R. Markham, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, London, 1854, vol.25,p158).
    In this area were Huari in the north and Sahpuayacu and Huayti in the east (see map in previous post). Another find was in the south in an area 2½ miles from Arequipa. This discovery was perhaps the most remarkable.  of all. It was made, says Senior Mariano de Rivero y Ustariz, on a granite rock eight leagues from Arequipa. Many of the engravings are of animals and flowers and of a fort anterior to the age of the Incas. To the northeast, beyond Lake Titicaca in an area called Huayti there was a gold field in Bolivia 75 miles north of La Paz. There was found a ruined palace of unknown age and origin, and certainly not Inca.
    Nearby, a mass of granite was engraved with these curious figures. The “hot cross bun” sign is exactly the same in form, and, perhaps, significance as that associated with the mysteries of the sun-god, Baal, or Bacchus, or the Phoenician letter Teth (Tyrian alphabet). As for the primitive gentleman standing on the back of a large bird, and with the rays issuing from the crown of his head and tips of his fingers, one might think of aviation or electricity, or electro-magnetic healing.  
    At one place called Huayti northeast of Lake Titicaca was found a ruined palace of unknown age and origin and certainly not Inca. About 100 miles south of Cuzco in the area of Arequipa, Peru, are lengthy engravings on a Granite rock.

A form of writing or carved characters on a granite rock in South America 

The point is, that both American and British archaeologists need to stop insisting on the absurd and unhistorical assertion that ancient Peruvians never devised a form of writing. In fact, a writing existed in Peruvian South America long before the Inca quippus.
    A wide-held legend long before the Spanish arrived claims that an insane and superstitious tyrant of an Inca emperor forced the class or order of amautas or learned scribes to adopt the quippus. Ferdinand Montesinos, whose authoritative Memorias Antigas Historiales del Peru, was largely copied from the lost and most valuable manuscript Vocabulario Historico del Peru of the learned Jesuit, Blas Valera, a son of a Peruvian lady and a conquistadorian soldier, tells us how this came to pass. This manuscript was last seen by the historian of the Society of Jesus, Padre Anello Olivia, who records seeing it in 1631.
    Montisenos, repeating what Blas Valera collected of oral tradition and history, from the mouths of Peruvian priests and nobles in the days just after the conquest, says that in the reign of the Inca Huanascaui: “The amatuas of learned scribes, who knew the events of those times by very ancient traditions passed from hand to hand say that the Inca had letters and also wise men amautas who taught reading and writing, evidently doing so on the leaves of birch or agru bark or palm leaves of trees, which they dried and then wrote upon, hence the idea came to Juan Coctoito, in his Itinerario Hierosolimitano y Siriano that the ancients wrote upon these leaves, and that the lines which are used in parchments in Italy, today, owe their origin to this  custom. And also in Chile, when paper for his Araucana was lacking, Don Alfouso de Arcila, an Indian filled his need with leaves of the plantain tree (tropical tree of the banana genus), and on them he wrote great portions of his poem as the Padre Acosta says.

Petroglyphs found throughout Peru carved into stone

Also, the Old Inca wrote on stones. A Spaniard found among the buildings of the Quinoans, here leaves from Buamanga, a stone with some characters which none could read. And thinking that the memory of the guaca (burial place or tomb) was inscribed there he kept the stone for the sake of understanding better. These letters were lost to the Peruvians through an event which befell in the time of the Inca Pchacuti the Sixth.”
    According to Blas Valera, this event was a horrendous plague that struck the Inca after Tupac Cauri Pachacuti had broken tradition and given the letters of his full name, which was claimed by the priest to have caused the plague.
    So the Incas decreed pain of death to any trafficking in the quilcas, or writing-material, which were the parchment and leaves of the trees on which they used to write. Nor were any to use any sort of letters. And, because, in later times, a learned amautas invented some characters, they burnt him alive, from that time forth, they used threads of quippus.”
    However,the plagues as well as earthquakes and floods happened as frequently after the reactionary Inca had turned back the hands of the clock of Peruvian culture. These hieroglyphics, written or copies on the quilcas, were the royal mail of the Old Inca Empire. After the decree of the reactionary Inca, such messages were memorized by the runners and committed to memory--eventually, the quippus were designed to aid in this memorization.
However, before the Inca and initially with the Inca, there was writing in Andean Peru.  Numerous carvings bear testimony to that fact.