The message of the engraved stones of Ica

At 360 kilometers south of Lima - capital of Peru - in the coastal province of Ica, there were discovered in 1961 some strange and mysterious stones shaped somewhat like river rocks. The strangeness, the mystery of the stones was that they pictured animals, men and ways of life very different from those previously discovered by students of the classical cultures of Peru. The stones came from Ocucaje, an agreeable little town located 40 kilometers south of Ica. In this region, underground, are to he found innumerable graves of men who lived in the times of the Inca and before; lying on the surface of the earth are petrified remains of both tiny and huge prehistoric animals. Ocucaje lies in an immense desert criss-crossed by mounds of ancient rocks, perhaps the oldest on the planet. There, in the solitude of the desert landscape, testimonials to the recent past and the ancient past lie side by side. And if it were not for the small fields that arise on either side of the river - dry most of the year - that crosses the desert, it might be said that this part of the world had died, that time stopped here.

The strange stones were found by the peasants of Ocucaje. Ocucaje lies in the zone where since the beginning of the century the finest ancient textiles and ceramics have been unearthed, and the peasants have dedicated themselves, generation after generation, to the clandestine practice of searching for artifacts. On a clear night, armies of men armed with picks, their faces covered so as not to breath the stench of the graves, protected by amulets to defend them against evil spirits, with the silence as their only witness, perform the enigmatic task of literally uncovering the past. For long hours these moving shadows people the desert; if someone unaware of what they were doing should happen to surprise then at their work, he would think that the dead had abandoned their endless sleep to arise from the grave and take up their lives where death had interrupted them in some unknown moment so long ago.

The unusual figures engraved on the stones amazed the archeologists who saw them: they could not he reconciled with what was known of the men who had lived in ancient Peru, and they toppled all knowledge that had been pieced together regarding that era. Doubt about the authenticity of the stones was their first response. Loyal to the notion that the oldest human beings in Peru dated from no more than 20,000 years ago and that only 3,000 years ago was there an advanced civilization to he found in the region, they could not admit the hypothesis that the stones might be evidence of a civilization much older than the classical cultures of Peru, that is to say, older than the Incas or the Pre-Incas.

The incredulity of the archeologists was communicated to the cultural authorities of the country. The engraved stones of Ica, which kept appearing and finding their way into private collections, were passed over by the archeologists and other specialists. Carlos and Pablo Soldi, who had collected the first stones that appeared in Ocucaje repeatedly requested that their specimens he studied, but the experts decided to ignore their persistent petitions. In 1966, an architect named Santiago Agurto Calvo carried out excavations in the graves of Ocucaje to try to determine if the engraved stones, of which he had a substantial collection acquired years before, came from them. Santiago Agurto Calvo was able to find some specimens which led him to believe that the stones had been carved by pre-Incaic man. It was the first time that the exact provenance of some specimens was known. But despite this conformity with the demands of the science of archeology, archeologists were still not interested in studying the stones.

Six years after the first discoveries of the engraved stones, and without being aware of the work of the Soldi brothers and of Santiago Agurto Calvo, I came across several hundred examples. My investigations in the field of biology, in connection with my lectureship at the Universidad Nacional "San Luis Gonzaga" of Ica, allowed me to identify the unusual fauna engraved on the stones as animals which paleontologists tell us existed in prehistory. By a simple process of deduction I realized that the engraved stones of Ica revealed the contemporaneous existence of man and prehistoric animals, which meant that man existed a million years ago. I knew, of course, that scientists are convinced of the idea that man, as an intelligent being, appeared - after a long, slow process of primate brain development - only 250,000 years ago; but I was forced to the conclusion that the Ica stones called into question not only conventional wisdom about the antiquity of original Peruvians but also about the appearance of man on earth. I began to collect the stones in order to study then and determine their scientific validity.

Later, after more examination, I observed that certain apparently enigmatic figures which in some cases gave the impression of being decorative, were symbols used in a system of expression. Thus the engraved stones of Ica were revealed not as evidence of an art form carved in stone, but as testimonials to the deeds and actions of human beings. After nearly ten years of patient and systematic study of the over 11,000 specimens which up my museum, I have been able to derive much valuable information, not all of which, given its variety and its sheer mass, fit in one book. They are facts that have nothing to do with the Inca or Pre-Inca cultures, cultures of Peru's recent past. On the contrary, they are proof that the engraved stones come only very rarely from the tombs of these cultures, and that man existed on earth millions of years ago. They speak of the existence of a people whose capacity to reflect, whose ability to increase and conserve knowledge led them to reach a scientific and technological level much more advanced even than today. The marks left by this humanity are to be found in many mediums, in many and varied objects from all aver the world; the figures and symbols used by other ancient cultures are part of the same system of expression that was used in the engraved stones of Ica. These signs of universality reveal that one people was established throughout the globe. Put since the medium of choice of this ancient people to leave their record was that almost eternal material, the stone I have decided to call the engraved stones "glyptoliths" and the people that left them "glyptolithic humanity".

The information conveyed in the stones of Ica contains invaluable messages left by an ancient humanity to the humanity of the future. Under strange and difficult to explain circumstances, they have been deciphered in our time. And as their messages reveal to us that man is capable of unthinkable intellectual achievements if he merely aspires to the heights that those who came before him have attained, I believe that the engraved stones of Ica are the most important legacy of our time. My belief in this has compelled me, willingly, to open my museum to the disposition not only of students and scientists but of any person who wishes to see them. When I am asked to publish my opinion about them or to share the results of my investigations, or for permission to photograph them, I have acceded with great pleasure. The 11,000 stones wait for other foreign students and scientist and, especially, for the students of the Peruvian past to examine them and confirm the truth they tell.

I think that the engraved stones of Ica explain rationally much of what we now see as enigmatic or fabulous about the past existence of man. The achievements of that remote humanity are so far beyond the present capabilities of man that, if the concrete evidence did not exist, the inferences I draw from them in this book would risk sounding like the product of an extraordinary imagination.

ANOTHER HUMANITY EXISTED

It was the beginning of May, 1966. Felix Llosa Romero, my childhood friend, crossed the Plaza de Arras of Ica and arrived at ray home, where I regularly saw my patients. Felix Llosa Romero had in his right hand a small stone. "I’ve brought you a present", he said, "I thought it would make a pretty paperweight for your desk". When he handed it to me it felt surprisingly heavy. It was shaped like an oval, and it was engraved on one side with a carving of a fish I did not recognize. The stone struck me as most unusual (Fig. 1).

This was the second carved stone I had seen. About thirty years earlier, when the land my father owned in Salas (a district of Ica) was being cleared for planting, the plow uncovered a similar stone. The workers said the stone had been carved by the Incas. They attributed the engraving to the Incas because it was common in this zone to find ceramics, metal and wood objects, textiles, and human remains of the ancient Peruvian civilizations that had inhabited the region (1). I remember that the stone the plow brought to light was decorated with a bird unknown to me. My father kept the stone. I was sixteen years old at the time and intended to enroll at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de "San Marcos" in Lima to study medicine. I was intrigued by the stone, but my studies quickly made me forget it, and I do not know what became of it...

My friend Felix Llosa Romero stood in my doorway as I pondered the possible origin of the stone he had just given me. I asked him where he had gotten it and he said his brother, who had a vast collection of such stones, had given it to him. This surprised me, because in Ica one was always hearing of ceramics, textiles, and other objects that from time to tine were found in Precolombian graves, but I have never heard of engraved stones. My surprise grew when Felix Llosa Romero added that for many years the huaqueros (2) of Ocucaje had been discovering a large number of these stones and had been selling them to archeology buffs. He also told me that Carlos and Pablo Soldi, who owned and lived on a plantation in Ocucaje, had the biggest collection of these stones that the architect Santiago Agurto Calvo had a collection, and that the Museo Regional of Ica had a few. I was perplexed.

Immediately I went to see Llosa's brother and caught a glimpse, for the first time, of the enormous range of these ancient engravings. I saw carvings of birds, lizards, spiders, snakes, fish, shrimp, frogs, turtles, llamas (3). I saw drawings of men. I saw both staple and elaborately executed scenes of hunting and fishing. I saw also that the animals represented had different characteristics from those of the species as we know them: there were snakes with small wings on their spines; birds with horns; insects with pincers as long as their bodies; fish covered with wings. The scenes seemed actually to move, as if they were being enacted for my benefit. The owner of this collection confirmed what his brother had told me of the provenance of the stones.

This first experience with the engraved stones of Ica truly engaged my interest: I felt profoundly the need for a scientific investigation to clarify their mysterious origin and relation to the classical cultures of ancient Peru.

Quite by chance about that time, something happened which made me think there was a possibility that such an investigation might be carried out with official support: I was asked to found and direct the Casa de Cultura of Ica, an institution devoted to the promotion of science and letters in the region. It would be affiliated with the Casa de Cultura del Peru in Lima.

With the authority of new position, the first thing I did was approach Adolfo Bermudez Jenkis, Director of the Museo Regional of Ica, and ask him to let me see the engraved stones that, according to my friend Llosa, were in the possession of the Museum, none of which, on numerous visits, could I ever recall having seen. The Director confirmed the existence of the stones, and called for them to be taken out of storage so I could inspect them. When I tried to interest him in the idea of an official study of the stones, he replied that this was not necessary, since a friend of his had told him they were carved by the same huaqueros who then sold them. I asked him if his friend's opinion was supported by laboratory tests, and again he replied that such tests were not called for.

To try to awaken the interest of Peruvian and visiting foreign scholars in the stones, I decided to form a collection of them to exhibit in the Casa de Cultura. With my own funds I began to acquire specimens, and eventually I accumulated over 5000. Some time afterwards I found out that to my surprise a year before my friend Llosa had given me my first stone, a student of Peru's past, Herman Buse, had published a book in which he acknowledged the existence of the Ica stones (4). Buse writes that in 1961 a flooding of the Ica River had uncovered, in the zone of Ocucaje, a large number of these stones, which ever since had been an object of commerce for the huaqueros who found them. He added that many of these stones had been acquired by the Soldi brothers, who had later tried again and again, in vain, to interest archeologists in a study.

On December 11, 1966, I read a Lima newspaper article by Santiago Agurto Calvo - then Rector of the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria - in which he noted the recent discovery of engraved stones in Pre-Incaic graves in the digs known as Max Uhle and Tomaluz, to the south of Ocucaje (5). The article said that one of the stones was carved on one side with the figure of a bird with outstretched wings, in full flight, carrying an ear of corn in its claws; another had a star-shaped design. The discovery had been made in the company of Alejandro Pezzia Assereto, an archeologist from the Patronato Nacional de Archeologia del Peru, a trustee of the Museo Regional of Ica and in charge of archeological investigations in the region. Agurto Calvo concluded that the discoveries proved the authenticity of the Ica stones and that they promised to open new avenues of research. After the publication of this article, written by a prestigious intellectual, I felt certain that archeologists would finally take an interest in the stones. In the months that followed I waited impatiently for an influx of students of ancient Peru, but they did not come.

While I waited, with my own collection of the stones before me, I set myself, somewhat idly at first, to try to discover the significance of the drawings. I had always had the feeling that the figures were not intended so much for artistic or decorative purposes as for the purpose of communicating aspects of the life of the human beings who had inhabited Peru in remote times. What I found as I continued to study the stones convinced me more and more each day that this had indeed been the intention.

Footnotes:

(1) Archaeologists say that humanity in Peru is 20000 years old and that only 3,000 years ago did it acquire a cultural level of any importance. Culturally the Peruvians form very differentiated groups, distributed in different valleys of the Peruvians’ geography, and are referred to as Pre-Inca kingdoms or cultures. The kingdom of Cusco, the Inca culture, is much more recent and it dominated the others, some of which were by that time decadent, others having disappeared and the rest having maintained their splendor. The Inca and Pre-Inca cultures are called cultures of ancient Peru, Pre-Columbian cultures or Pre-Hispanic cultures; in the last two cases to indicate the limit of their existence, due respectively to the arrival of Columbus in America and the Spanish Conquerors in Peru. Sometimes in this book I refer to them as the classical cultures of ancient Peru, with the intention of stressing that they are from a recent past and therefore do not correspond to the humanity which is the subject matter of this book and which was spread throughout the world; and whose remains (the engraved stones of Ica) are the proof that man's existence on Earth goes back billions of years.

(2) Huaquero: One who illegally does excavations in search of archaeological treasures, an activity severely penalized by Peruvian laws to protect the archaeological heritage of the country. The word comes from the Quechua word: huaca, which was used to designate all that was sacred, especially certain places. Nowadays, along the Peruvian coast, the mounds which contain retains of Pre-Columbian cultures, are known as "huacas".

(3) Llama: Animal of the camel family, native to Peru.

(4) Herman Buse: INTRODUCCION AL PERU. Lima, 1965.

(5) Santiago Agurto Calvo: "Las piedras magicas de Ocucaje". In the supplement of the daily newspaper El Comercio. Lima, 11 December 1966.

THE MYSTERY OF THE CARVINGS

Daily exposure to the stones was gradually permitting to penetrate the mysteries of the stones’ designs. The stones are of different sizes, weight, and color. The smallest weigh 15-20 grams, and the largest about 500 kilograms. They are grey, black, yellowish, and pinkish. They are shaped like river rocks, the pebbles and small boulders seen on river barks, beaches, and alluvial plains. But river rocks are notable for their durability; the Ica stones, on the other hand, are so fragile that if one knocks against another or is dropped to the floor, it will shatter. This singular characteristic of the stones was suggested when I first held the one given to me by my friend Liosa Romero. I refer to its high specific gravity compared to the river rock.

From the outset I felt that mere contemplation, no matter how serious, of the figures engraved on the stones was not sufficient to understand them. Before an object of art, perhaps, such contemplation would have sufficed. But observation had raised more questions than it had answered, making me suspect that the carvings had been conceived with a purpose in mind other than to amuse or engage the eye. It occurred to me that perhaps the designs conveyed some message. This idea kept recurring; I began to think that the etchings might be some unknown form of writing, in which the figures were symbols that represented objects, subjects, qualities, attitudes, circumstances, events. Operating on this principle, I set myself to deciphering this strange form of writing.

But then I remembered something that momentarily deterred my progress: the findings of historical investigations on ancient Peru all agreed that the Incas and Pre-Incas lacked a system of writing. This led me to restate the problem in the form of a question: are the Ica stones art or a form of writing? I had noted during my long hours and days spent observing the stones that they lacked plan, proportion, and perspective. I remembered that the absence of these elements also characterized the drawings left by cultures like the Sumerians and the Egyptians (from 6000 years ago), considered much older than the Incas or Pre-Incas, drawings that all concede are a form of writing. I was more than ever convinced that the Ica stones contained a form of writing that only could have existed in a past much earlier than the Inca or Pre-Inca periods.

I found myself, as a result of these ruminations, at the door that could lead me to an understanding of the strange messages that these ancient men had carved. This obliged me to study the stones even more carefully. After a systematic review of the 6000 samples that made up my collection, I realized that in many stones the designs seemed to repeat themselves. Comparative analysis revealed, however, that even when two figures were very similar, the presence of one or more new elements inserted in the design, or variations in the posture of figures, animal and vegetable, as well as changes in the placement of objects, made each design unique. I then began to separate into groups stones with superficial likeness to each other. It was at this point that I discovered something that meant a big step forward in my investigation: each group of stones made up a series built around a theme and, within these series, the design of each stone presented a different aspect of the theme. Examining the themes, I found that they revolved around aspects of the human knowledge. But if the nature of the theme could be determined at a single glance, it was harder to know precisely the significance of each part of the design. It seemed that, in order to decipher the system of expression used, I would have to have at my disposal more stones so as to avoid inferences based on incomplete series. To this end I began increasing my collection, all the while continuing my study of the system of expression which would permit me to extract the information, the messages contained in the drawings.

With the new acquisitions and the ordering of the stones in series, my collection began to present a more logical vision of the engravings, since each series had its own compartment on my shelves. The series were arranged around relating to astronomy, biology, zoology, anthropology, transportation, rituals, fishing, hunting, etc. It is worthy of note that the human figures had a different form from that of modern man and for that matter from the Inca and Pre-Inca (which are, after all, modern man), although certain ornaments that the figures wore on their heads looked like the three feathers the Incas used to denote power and nobility (Fig. 3).

It is also noteworthy that the animals, while they bore resemblances to modern creatures, had characteristics which set them apart. I consulted manuals of Paleontology (6) to be certain, and I found that they had a morphological affinity to prehistoric animals. The stones show, for example, horses and llamas with five toes (Fig. 4 and 5); megatherium (huge giant sloth bear, Fig. 6); alticamellus (a mammal with the head and neck of a giraffe and the body of a camel, Fig. 7); Megaceros (giant deer, Fig. 8); mammoths (primitive elephants, Fig. 9); diatrymas (giant carnivorous birds, Fig. 10); and other animals. This could only mean that the people who had carved these stones lived in a time that much preceded the Incas or the Pre-Incas. I remembered that in 1920 the doctor and archeologist Julio C. Tello had studied Tiahuanaco-influenced artifacts in which llamas appeared with five toes, like the prehistoric llamas, extinct for 40 million years (I derive this date from analogy with the evolution of equine animals). These representations in the queros were attributed to the imaginations of Precolombian artists, who it was assumed, wished to invest the llama with human characteristics. The possibility that man and these animals coexisted was dismissed. But later Tello found in Peru fossilized skeletons of the llama with five toes. This discovery, which ought to have suggested to paleontologists and archeologists the possible coexistence of man and prehistoric animals, passed unnoticed, despite the fact that present day llamas come from Peru (7).

I remembered also that in 1865 Ephrain George Squier, an early Northamerican archeologist, after long and careful study of the civilizations of ancient Peru, had claimed that Peruvian culture existed in two culturally differentiated epochs: one in the remote past, possessed of a high technology and culture, and another - that of the Incas - very close to contemporary man, with low levels of technology and culture. Squier thought that between the two epochs an indiscernible amount of time had passed. He also thought that the huge stone edifices spread across Peru were left by a remote culture. Squier says: "From what period do they date? They were, of course, the result of a gradual evolution, the last stage of progress. But where are the rest of the stages, where are the monuments that mark the antecedents of this evolution?... Weren't those works built, inspired, or suggested by an exotic people, fully developed, by immigrants or masters of much older civilizations, of civilizations of which this one is no more than a copy, a caricature?" (8). And he answers that there exists some evidence in Peru of a remote past, such as the ruins of Tiahuanaco, which, he affirms, are as admirable as the ruins of Assyria, Egypt, Greece, or Rome, and that the sundials of Sillustani are so similar to those of England, Denmark, and Tartary that only the most discerning eye could tell the difference. As regards the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Peruvians had been imported from across the sea or that their civilizations were imported, he asserts that even if this were the case, "there is still evidence that their arrival in Peru predates all human record" (9).

The discovery of Tello and the argument of Squier confirm that the Ica stones suggest: the existence of a Peruvian culture of unknown antiquity, but very much older than the Incas or the Pre-Incas. This made me reflect on the attitude of archeologists toward the discoveries they make in excavating Inca or Pre-Inca graves. The textile, ceramics, carved stones, necklaces, tools, weapons, food, and other objects that they often find next to a mummified body are assured to have belonged to the dead or his contemporaries, by the arbitrary rule of association, a basic tenet of the archeological method. The arbitrariness of applying this rule derives from the fact that they do not consider the possibility that at least some of the objects found were not made by the occupant of the tomb or his contemporaries; he may just have found the object himself, and not having at hand an explanation for where it came from nor what it represented, may have thought it came from the gods and would be a good thing to deposit in his grave to accompany him to his next life. It is also possible that although the object may have been made by the Inca or Pre-Inca man, the design or the style was not of his conception, but was instead copied from another object which, generations and generations of copies before, was conceived by a culture that lived in the remote past.

Tello and Squier's words were confirmed by a startling discovery that I made studying my new acquisitions: I found figures of prehistoric animals even older than the ones I had already identified. There were megacheiroptera (huge bats), dinosaurs (giant reptiles), and agnata (primitive fish without maxillae, all animals that the paleontologists tell us existed in geological eras earlier than the era in which man appeared. The megacheiroptera dates from the Cenozoic era (63 million years ago); the dinosaur from the Mesozoic era (181 millions years ago), and the agnata from the Paleozoic era (405 million years ago). I can only deduce that the men who carved these stones co-existed with these animals. This of course means that man is at least 405 million years old, as apposed to 40-250 thousands years old as paleontologists would have it, based on human fossils found for the Cenozoic era (Cromagnon, Grimaldi and Neanderthal man). But this was not all. Arranged according to theme, the stones show that the men who carved them not only knew these animals, but knew them well in a biological sense: the reproductive cycle of the megacheiroptera, dinosaur, and agnata; their eating habits; and their physical vulnerabilities are all portrayed in the drawings.

Footnotes:

(6) Paleontology: the science which deals with the discovery, classification and interpretation of the many remains of the existence of life in past times. The word fossil refers not only to bones, teeth, shells, and other hard parts from an animal or plant which have been conserved, but also to any footprint or imprint left by an organism that existed in a remote epoch.

(7) Archeologists reject the possibility of the coexistence of man with prehistoric animals, on the basis of what they consider to be unchallengeable: that man appeared recently, only 250,000 years ago. However, when human remains were found in America with fossils of animals that lived millions of years ago, they arbitrarily stated that in America such animals became extinct very recently.

(8) Ephrain George Squier: PERU INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL AND EXPLORATIONS IN THE LANDS OF INCAS, Harper E Brother Publishers, New York, 1887.

(9) Squier, Ibid.

PREHISTORIC BIOLOGY IN THE ENGRAVED STONES

Paleontological discoveries have shown that the megacheiroptera was an animal of grand proportions, with membranous wings and a long tail. The only animal existing today that resembles it, though on a much reduced scale, is a type of bat that lives in the forests of Australia and Africa, the only species of bat with a tail. Bats are mammals and as such are born alive after a period of gestation in the womb. Given the likeness of this bat to the megacheiroptera, paleontologists infer that the latter was also a mammal. Nevertheless, study of a series of 48 stones beginning with a simple representation of an animal and ending with the animal in what I suppose to be its fully-developed state, reveals that creature to be the same megacheiroptera reconstructed by paleontologists. Clearly this series permits us to see each phase of the development of the animal. The artists carved a representation of an egg on its tail in each phase, which suggests symbolically that each carving portrayed the animals at the same point in the reproductive cycle. This in turn could only mean that the reproductive cycle was oviparian, like the cycle of a bird. I found myself, to my surprise, faced with a fact that contradicted paleontology on this point: the megacheiroptera was not live-born, like the bat, but hatched from an egg (see photographs: chart 1).

Paleontology also asserts that the dinosaur was the largest living thing ever to walk the earth. It was, according to scientists, oviparian: The females buried the eggs in the sand so that the sun could warm them and allow the eggs to hatch, much like reptiles today which, after incubation inside the eggs, are born fully-formed. These conclusions are based on skeletons and fossilized eggs, as well as fossilized marks left by skin fragments and footprints in mesozoic igneous rocks (volcanic rocks). But in one of my stones I found a succession of figures shown from all sides which concludes with the figures of two adult dinosaurs next to a very small one, which I identified as belonging to the species stegasaurus (10). Undoubtedly this was the male (6 in Fig. 11), the female (5 in Fig. 12) and their young (4 in Fig. 13). The figures in the other stones started out in a larval form that recalls the larvae or tadpole of the amphibians (1 in Fig. 14), continued with a similar figure except with two feet (2 in Fig. 15), and ended with a very small form of reptile with four feet (3 in Fig. 16). This succession of figures illustrates a well-known biological phenomenon: metamorphosis. The discovery is startling because paleontologists have assumed that dinosaurs reproduced just like present-day reptiles - in other words, they were hatched from the egg completely formed. Metamorphosis is characteristic of amphibians, which, unlike reptiles, do not emerge fully formed from the egg, but instead have to go through a series of organic changes (metamorphosis) that begin with the larval state and when the animal reaches the stage at which all that remains is to grow into an adult. Identifying the process of metamorphosis in the engravings allowed me to distinguish the male from the female adult dinosaurs: the larval stage of growth was pictured over the spine of one of the adults, while over the other we see a later stage of development (the larvae with two feet), the first I infer to identify the dinosaur to which the creature was born in other words the female. This inference was supported by the fact that, as in many species, the male was larger than the female (see Chart 2).

As regards the agnata, I had 203 stones that illustrated its reproductive cycle. After careful study, I found it to be metamorphic as well. With extraordinary attention to detail, the artist who carved these stones had portrayed in each stone one aspect of the metamorphosis of this ancient fish. His obviously close study of his subject matter has been ignored by paleontologists, who at best have the barest notions of the physical outlines of the creature, determined by fossilized specimens found in Paleozoic layers 405 million years old.

In sum, these findings revealed that a) man's existence on earth dates at least from the time when the agnata lived, in the oldest geological era, the Paleozoic; b) that man also lived in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic era, to judge from his coexistence as seen in the stones with the dinosaur and the megacheiroptera, respectively; and c) that the man who lived in these eras was intellectually highly evolved, given his understanding of complex biological functions like the reproductive cycle. The revelations provided by the stones were so different from the principles of biology and anthropology I myself taught as a professor at the Universidad Nacional de "San Luis Gonzaga" de Ica, that I must confess I felt obliged to reflect deeply on the need to confirm the authenticity of the stories. I decided to reexamine the traditional scheme of the evolution of man and the animals.

Footnotes:

(10) At the time I made this discovery I also possessed stones the engravings of which show the embryological cycles of other species of dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Lambeosaurus, Brontosaurus, Triceratops. I am gathering together in a book (which I will publish when ready) my investigations of everything referring to the knowledge engraved about different species of dinosaurs.

According to the theory of evolution, higher animal forms are the result of a slow process that began with the first living forms (microorganisms) that arose from the primitive seas of our planet. This process has taken millions of years. Studying the strata that form the surface of the earth, geologists have identified five main geological levels, each of which conforms to one of the stages of this slow process, and in each of which have been found long-extinct animal and vegetable remains. The antiquity of the layers has dated the organisms found in them. Each one of these five geological eras has been subdivided into smaller time frames called periods (see chart). The oldest geological era is the Archeozoic. This era does not begin with the origin of the earth (which is calculated to have occurred about 5,000 million years ago), but with the formation of the earth's crust, when there already existed seas, rocks, and mountains. This era began 3,500 million years ago and lasted 2,000 million years. It is believed that during this period there was a great deal of volcanic activity and shattering cataclysms that culminated in the formation of mountain chains. Since organic material is transformed into carbon under certain conditions of temperature, pressure, and time, the abundance of carbon found in the rocks of the Archeozoic era leads one to the conclusion that there was considerable animal and vegetable life during this period. The next era, the Proterozoic, began 1,500 million years ago lasted 900 million years. This, it is believed, was a period of glaciers. In Proterozoic rock spicules of sponges, aguas vivas (evidence of waters in which organisms can live), and remains of mushrooms, algae, mollusks, arthropods, and worms have been found. All this demonstrates that in this era life not only existed, but the process of evolution had advanced notably.

At the beginning of the next era, the Paleozoic, all vegetable and animal life still lived in the seas. We find primitive crustaceans and organisms similar to arachnids. At that time most of what is now land was covered with shallow sea. Fish with hard, shell-like coverings, without fins or mandibles, next emerged, one of which was the agnata. Later terrestrial plants developed. The mandible-less fish evolved into a grater variety of fish, a fact which has led to this era being called the Age of the Fish. Ancestors of osseous (bony) fish appeared, which evolved into forms with lobular fins and even radiated fins. One type of fish with lobular fins, the celacanth, was believed to be extinct, but in 1939 and 1952 fishermen caught live specimens 2 meters long in the waters around Madagascar. The first amphibians appeared, similar to the fish with lobular fins, but with feet instead of fins. The extensive marshy forests that eventually created the earliest carbon deposits arose. At the end of the Paleozoic era primitive reptiles appeared, among them the seymuria, the oldest reptile known, about which it is difficult to say whether it was an amphibian about to become a reptile or a reptile scarcely differentiate from an amphibian. Also at the end of this era important climactic and tectonic changes occurred. The continents emerged from the seas. In North America the Appalachian mountain range was formed. In Europe other mountain ranges appeared. There was a period of glaciation from the Antarctic that covered most of the southern hemisphere. This era began 600 million years ago and lasted 370 million.

The most distinctive feature of the era that followed, the Mesozoic - which began 230 million years ago and lasted 167 million - was the origin, differentiation, and finally the extinction of an enormous variety of reptiles, for which the period is also known as the Age of the Reptiles. Moreover, many species of reptiles achieved enormous size, among them certain species of dinosaurs. Some giant dinosaurs walked on two feet, like the tyranosaurus, the iguanodon, the lambeosaurus, the coritosaurus, and the parasaurolopus. Others walked on four feet: The brontosaurus, the diplodocus, the brachiosaurus, the stegosaurus, the anchilosaurus, the triceratops, and the tirocosaurus. There were also huge marine dinosaurs with fins, like the ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, elasmosaurus, etc. Related to the dinosaurs were flying reptiles with membranous wings and stumpy legs; some had a long tail that served as a sort of rudder, and others had a short tail; the feet of the flying reptiles were not capable of supporting the weight of the animal and these creatures, like the bats, rested by hanging from their feet. Warm-blooded mammals began to appear, as well as the oldest species of birds known to us, one of which, the archeoterix, was about the size of a crow, covered with feathers. It had undeveloped wings, jaws with teeth and the long tail of a bird. At the end of this era was a cataclysmic event known as the Revolution of the Rocky Mountains, much like that which had ended the previous era. This new cataclysm gave rise to the Rockies, the Alps, the Himalayas, and the Andes.

The next era was the Cenozoic, which began 63 million years ago, and saw among many other things the separation of North and South America. It has been divided into two periods: The Terciary (which lasted 62 million years) and the Quaternary (which lasted 1 million). At the beginning of the Cenozoic era certain winged mammals and mammals with tails became extinct, among them the megacheiroptera. However, this era is noted for the evolution of the birds, insects, plants and especially the mammals, for which it is known as the Age of the Mammals. During this era we find thirty main groups of mammals. Some primitive species have managed to survive in Australia, where there was little competition from more advanced species, since this continent was separated from the others since the end of the Mesozoic era. Two examples are the ornitorrinco and the echidna. Unlike other mammals whose young are born live, both are oviparian, which suggests their link to the reptiles. Also during this era we have the mastodon, the mammoth (both now extinct), and their descendants the elephants. The evolution of the horse begins at the start of this era, with a species of small horse with toes instead of hooves. Llamas and camels date from the Cenozoic - the alticamellus with its several toes is an example - as do huge armadillos, megatheres, etc. The most, advanced of these in terms of brain size were, of course, the primates. Primates appeared approximately 70 million years ago (at the end of the Cretacic period, Mesozoic era), evolved from their mammalian ancestors.

Based on evidence from living primates, the theory of evolution has established the following order of appearance: tupaids, lemurs, loris, tarsiers, monkeys, and anthropoids. Anthropoids are different from their immediate ancestors - the monkeys - in the absence of a tail. Gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees are living anthropoids (Fig. 17). The theory of evolution holds that there must have been a branch of anthropoids, unknown to us, which divided, producing one branch which was the origin of present day anthropoids and another which was the origin of man. Fossils of anthropoids have been found dating back 25 million years.

In 1967, the anthropologist Luis Leakey found in Kenya the remains of an anthropoid more fully developed than those I have just mentioned; his age has been established at 20 million years (kenyapithecene Africanus). Earlier in 1962, and also in Kenya, the same anthropologist and discovered the retrains of another anthropoid, the Kenyapithecene Wiquerii, next to a rudimentary stone hammer. His age has been estimated to be 12 million years. Leakey considers these two anthropoids to be more akin to man than to anthropoids; in short, he believes they are hominids. Fossilized remains of more advanced hominids have also been found in Africa. The 1.7 million year old zinjanthropus - a much more advanced hominid than the others - is believed to have provided the common trunk from which each of the human races as we know them developed: the australoid, the mongoloid, the caucausian, and the negroid (see chart 4 on human evolution). In each of these branches fossilized remains of humanoid forms between the zinjanthropus and the human have been discovered, usually jawbones, teeth, femurs, humeri, skull fragments, and in a few cases, complete skeletons and/or skulls: the Australopithecene, 1 million years old, found in calcareous rocks in the austral zone of Africa; and the Neanderthal, 250,000 years old, found for the first time in Germany.

Within this evolutionary process, the Neanderthal man is considered to be human, because he used tools and fire and buried his dead in ritualistic fashion, to judge from the bones and utensils that have been found. Cro-Magnon man (40,000 years old), found in many parts of the world, was not unlike modern man, not only because he used tools and fire, lived in society, and practiced funeral rituals, but also because he left artistic testimonials to his high intelligence compared to those who came before him: the drawings that decorate the caves where he lived. Good examples are the caves of Altamira, in Spain, and Lescaux, in France.

What this classical theory of evolution tells us is that the man that illustrated the reproductive cycles of the megacheiroptera, the dinosaur, and the agnata on the stones of Ica could not be any of the humanoids that existed between the zinjanthropus and the Neanderthal, since these humanoids appeared much, much later than the animals depicted, and also because even had they coexisted, and even had they been able to guess at the reproductive processes of the beasts around them, their brains were simply not developed enough to have executed the drawings.

For Cro-Magnon man, whose brain development was complete, one must raise similar objections. Although he may have carved animal figures (bisons, goats, giraffes, pigs, bears, horses, etc.), with an accuracy that suggests high intelligence (Fig. 18), he was even farther removed chronologically from the prehistoric animals depicted in the Ica stones, and moreover, his high intelligence notwithstanding, Cro-Magnon man clearly had not achieved the intimate understanding of biology - as great as that of modern man - that the artists of the Ica stones possessed.

At this point in my investigations I must confess I was surprising myself at every turn. The engraved stones of Ica were revolutionizing paleontology and radically changing the date of the appearance of culture and intelligent man on earth. One question remained: Was it possible that the engraved stones of Ica were somehow being manufactured by modern man? I remembered the assertion made by the Director of the Museo Regional of Ica that the peasants of Ocucaje were making them. The assertion strained credulity, since these are simple people who totally lack the specialized understanding of science that can be seen in the stones. Possibly the stones were not manufactured by peasants but by one or two men who did possess such understanding and who had the stones carved with the intention of selling them. Despite the fact that I knew from Herman Buse's account that these stones had been sold since 1961 for very little (11), amounts that would not even come close to compensating the enormous trouble they cost, I decided that I must have laboratory confirmation of the age of the stones.

THE LABORATORY CONFIRMS THE STONES' ANTIQUITY

It was in the month of May, l967, and one day I selected from my collection 33 stones, among them a few that showed the reproductive cycle of long-extinct animals, which I knew would be controversial if their authenticity could not be established.

I went to my friend Luis Hochshild, a learned mining engineer and Vice-President of the Mauricio Hochshild Mining Co., based in Lima. I asked if his laboratories could perform an analysis that would determine the nature of the stone and the antiquity of the engravings. At the beginning of June I received a report from the laboratory, in a document signed by the geologist Eric Wolf which stated:

This is unquestionably natural stone shaped by fluvial transport (river rock). Petrologically I would classify them as andesites. Andesites are rocks whose components have been subjected mechanically to great pressure which causes chemical changes to take place. In this case the effects of intense sericitation (transformation of feldspar into sericite) are obvious. This process has increased the compactness and specific weight, also creating the smooth surface that ancient artists preferred for carving. I will try to confirm this preliminary opinion by means of a more detailed test in the laboratories of the Engineering School and of the University of Bonn, West Germany. The stones are covered with a fine patina of natural oxidation which also covers the engravings by which their age should be able to be deduced. I have not been able to find any notable or irregular wear on the edges of the incisions which leads me to suspect that these incisions or etchings were executed not long before being deposited in the graves or other places where they were discovered. -- Lima, 8 June 1967; Eric Wolf

This analysis revealed three important facts: a) The engraved stones have a highier specific gravity than common river rocks found in riverbeds and beaches, which I had guessed as soon as I first held one in my hand; b) The engravings are old, to judge by the coating of natural oxidation that covers the incisions as well as the stones themselves; and c) The stones were engraved not long before being deposited in the spots where they were found, to judge by the absence of wear on the edges of the incisions, which means that the stones were not engraved for utilitarian or even artistic purposes, but rather to be deposited in a safe place - for some unknown reason.

One year before, Santiago Agurto Calvo had published the results of a petrological analysis of the engraved stones in his collection. These results were part of the newspaper article mentioned earlier, in which he discussed the discovery of engraved stones in the Ocucaje zone (12). Specifically, the article dealt with some specimens that he had purchased in 1962 from huaqueros which, according to him, contained "unidentifiable things, insects, fish, birds, cats, fabulous creatures and human beings, sometimes apart and other times shown together in elaborate and fantastic compositions". He had entrusted the analysis to the mining Faculty of the Universidad Nacional de Ingeneira and it had been performed by two engineers, Fernando de las Casas and Cesar Sotillo. Since the analysis I had commissioned promised that the preliminary study would be followed up by a closer examination in the laboratories of the Universidad Nacional de Ingeneira de Peru and the University of Bonn, I decided to compare the analysis of my stones with that of the stones of Agurto. The analysis of Agurto's stones read:

All the stones are highly carbonized andesites, despite their coloration and texture, which suggest a different nature. The stones come from lava flows dating from the Mesozoic era, characteristic of the zone where they were found. The surface has weathered, and feldspar has been turned into clay, weakening the surface and forming a kind of shell around the interior of the stones. This shell measures an average of grade 3 on the Mohs scale (which measures the comparative capacity of a substance to scratch another or be scratched by another) and up to 4 1/2 in the part not so affected by weathering. The stones can be worked with any hard material such as bone, shell, obsidian, etc., and naturally, by any prehispanic metal implement.

As he says in his article, Agurto Calvo specified in his instructions to the laboratory that he wished to know the hardness of the stones. He thought that if they were very hard it would have been impossible for them to have been carved by prehispanic man (Incas and Pre-Incas), since these people did not have hard metal inplements. If the laboratory confirmed that the stones could have been carved with the tools known to prehispanic man, which it did, Agurto was prepared to conclude that they were indeed of prehispanic origin.

Agurto, following in the traditional path of Peruvian archeology, which does not admit the possibility of an advanced culture earlier than the well known prehispanic cultures, assumed that Peruvian prehistory extends only as far back as the Incas and the Pre-Incas. This explains why he ignored various clues he had to hand that could have led him to suspect the existence of a more distant cultural horizon in Peru. I refer to the laboratory tests he solicited, which show that the stones come from lava flows pertaining to the Mesozoic era, characteristic of Ocucaje, where the stones were found. We know that Mesozoic rocks date from 230 million years ago. And although this date is far removed from the accepted date of the appearance of man on earth (250,000 years ago), it is not scientific to dismiss the possibility that the engraved stones are evidence of the existence of man in a previous, unknown past. He was also led to ignore the implications of the "unidentifiable things"... engraved on the stones and mentioned in his own article. Scientific dogma regarding the living things which inhabited the earth in the different geological eras should have alerted Agurto that such "fabulous figures and human beings... shown together in elaborate and fantastic compositions", were not products of the imagination of the men who carved them, but represented real animals that long ago lived on the earth.

Both sets of laboratory results fit in with my own observations everything pointed to the possibility that man coexisted with prehistoric animals. At the very least, it seemed clear that the stones had unusual archeological significance. I was convinced that this significance could most rapidly be appreciated with the collaboration of Peruvian archeologists, so I decided to publish the results of my investigations to awaken their interest and to set in motion a plan to preserve the Ocucaje zone and stop the illegal removal of the stones from the region, a commerce in which had been carried on since 1961 under the noses of unconcerned local authorities. I began to give lectures, interviews, and to publish in the periodical press, and the results of my investigations were disseminated throughout Peru and beyond. At the first convention of Directors of Departmental Cultural Centers held in June 1968 in Ica, I spoke of the necessity to study the engraved stones. I wanted especially to reach these Directors, to gain their support for the sort of official investigation by the Casa de Culture of Peru which I had proposed earlier, and which had been met with silence. The convention expressed its unanimous support and I noted with pleasure the enthusiasm that the stones inspired.

In December of that year, as 1 was preparing my case for official authorization to effect systematic excavations in the archeological zone of Ocucaje, I was relieved of my position as Director of the Casa de Cultura of Ica in a general reorganization of the country's cultural centers. Nonetheless, I decided to allow my collection to continue to be exhibited in the Casa de Cultura of Ica. But then something happened which made me think twice about leaving my collection at the disposal of the new Director: I found out that I was to be succeeded by the Director of the Museo Regional of Ica. I remembered my conversation with him nearly two and a half years ago when I had gone to the Museo Regional to ask about that institution's collection of engraved stones. I remembered that this collection was not on display, but was hidden away in a vault. And I remembered the Director's opinion that laboratory tests on the stones were unnecessary since a friend of his had assured him that the stones were manufactured by the peasants of Ocucaje. Finally, fearing that the 6,000 stones that I had managed to collect would be locked away, I moved them to my home. So that they could continue to be available to interested visitors, I converted my consulting room and a few other rooms into display areas, which over the years I remodeled to form what is today "the Museum of Engraved Stones of Ica. Thus I became their custodian as well as their student.

It was becoming increasingly clear to me that I should harbor no illusions that archeologists and cultural authorities employed by the central government were suddenly going to take an interest in studying the stones. Eight years had passed since the existence of the stones was first made public (in 1961), and those who should have come forward to examine the stones, at the very least to determine their antiquity, had instead ignored them. This attitude could only mean that the scientific community assumed that the stones were of no particular value. The incredulity of specialists and other persons who claimed the right to an opinion was epitomized in a curious phenomenon: When the stones first began to appear they were known as the "engraved stones of Ocucaje", but when I began disseminating material that revealed their extraordinary archeological value, they came to be called, half in distain, half-jokingly, "Cabrera's stones". This falsely implied that the stones had not existed until I began to take an interest in them, and deliberately concealed the references to them made by Herman Buse and Santiago Agurto Calvo.

In the preceding pages I have observed that the figures carved on the stones separate themselves into different themes, and each theme is carried forward in a series of stones. In light of general indifference on the part of the experts (who ought to have been taking pains to see that the stones were collected, organized, and protected), I worried that continuing commerce in the stones would hopelessly disperse them and make reconstruction of these thematic series quite impossible. I had no choice but to expand my own collection. I would have liked to reunite all the stones in possession of collectors in Ica and Lima, as well as the many specimens that were (and still are being sold daily by the huaqueros of Ocucaje, but this was beyond my limited financial means, especially considering the inflated prices that collectors were likely to demand before they could consider parting with their collections.

My concern that the information contained in the stones should not be lost translated into the near-doubling of the holdings of my Museum, to 11,000 specimens. I arranged them all into series, managing in the process not only to fill gaps in my first sets of series, but also to discover entirely new themes. The variety of prehistoric animals was enormous, though I was limited to identifying only those familiar to me from my study of paleontology, the notion that man had lived in the remote past was expanded to include the corollary that this was a people with an amazing knowledge of science and technology. Among other things were rendered maps of the cosmos, a zodiac, a calendar, planetary maps, maps showing the continents, instruments for study of the cosmos and for study of the microscopic world, machines for flying and launching flights, advanced surgical techniques (organ transplants) and surgical implements, animal and human embriology, parasitology, ritual dances, and musical instruments. In short, my museum came to house a testimonial in stone to man's earliest presence on Earth.

On January 28, 1969 I received word from Eric Wolf that the results of the laboratory analysis conducted by a Professor Frenchen and his assistants at the University of Bonn were available. He had sent some of the same samples from my collection which he had analyzed in Lima, and the results of this second analysis merely confirmed his own: The stones were andesite and were covered by a patina or film of natural oxidation which also covered the etchings, permitting one to deduce that they are very old. The report added that it was difficult to determine precisely their antiquity, and that in this task the comparative methods used in stratigraphy and paleontology should be employed.

As regards the comparative methods of stratigraphy, Wolf pointed out the need for excavations, in order to establish in which geological strata the stones are found. The antiquity of the strata would determine, by the principle of association, the antiquity of the engravings. The comparative method of paleontology works much the same way: The age of fossilized vegetable, animal and human remains found in the strata where the stones were found could be determined, and by the same principle of association, could determine the approximate date at which the engravings were executed.

In view of the fact that the patina of oxidation that covered the stones proved the general but not precise antiquity of the engravings, and in view of the fact that precision could only be had by using the comparative methods of stratigraphy and paleontology, I requested authorization in April 1970 from the Patronato Nacionial de Arqueologia to carry out excavations in the appropiate zone. This institution alone had the power to authorize such excavations. On July 16, 1970, my request was refused. Thus the only means of dating the Engraved Stones of Ica was closed to me. All that was left was to concentrate on my study of the system of expression used by this ancient people who chose to carve messages in stone.

Footnotes:

(12) Agurto Calvo, Ibid.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES PROVE THE EXTRAORDINARY ANTIQUITY OF MAN

The coexistence of man and prehistoric animals strongly suggested by the Engraved Stones of Ica inspired me to a closer study of paleontology, to see if I could find some overlooked clues that might confirm or deny such a coexistence. In the case of Peru, I remembered that on the coast of the departments of Ica and Arequipa there are deposits of petrified animals and vegetable matter dating back millions of years. These deposits, found in three zones of the department of Ica and one in the northern part of Arequipa, could all be part of one large deposit that begins in Sacaco (Arequipa) and continues running north, cropping out only in few zones of the neighboring department of Ica in the provences of Nasca, Palpa, Ica, Pisco, and Chincha. Because of agents of erosion (water, wind, and temperature) constantly at work on the surface of the earth, the deposit is visible in only these four zones out of the immense area over which it might, theoretically, extend. It is possible, therefore, that the subsoil of this vast region might contain petrified remains not only of ancient flora and fauna, but of the oldest men to inhabit the earth. In the zones in which the deposit is visible, one can see layer upon layer of diatoms (one-celled organism), remains of millions of snails and sea animals (including giant sharks, dolphins, and whales), mastodons, etc. In Marcona, a mining center near the plains of Nasca (Ica), mining excavations have uncovered petrified tree trunks, snails, and conches. The prehistoric vegetable and animal species of these zones (and the zones themselves) have not been exhaustively studied, perhaps because Peruvian and foreign experts alike persist in the belief that the Peruvian coast was relatively recently formed and so the petrified animals and plants found there are not very old. This prejudice lingers despite the fact that it has been scientifically proven that the area around Nasca comprises one of the five oldest tectonic plates identified to date in five parts of the globe. The notion that the Peruvian coast is of recent vintage would seem to be confirmed by the fact that the fossils found there are close to the surface. However, this theory falters when we remember that these zones are noted for their powerful and persistent winds, which are quite capable over time of exposing fossils that were originally buried deep in the earth.

In July of 1967 I received permission from the Casa de Cultura de Peru to send to the United States a pertrified skull of what appeared to be a prehistoric dolphin, with a diameter at its largest point of about eighty centimeters, which was found in the topsoil of one of these zones (Sacaco, in the northern part of the department of Arequipa). My purpose was to obtain a laboratory analysis to determine the identity and age of the specimen and thus the age of the geological strata in which it was discovered. This analysis was performed by Ledoux and Company, a laboratory specializing in this sort of project. I received the analysis on October 10. The laboratory had used a small fragment of the temporal bone to determine that this was the well-preserved cranium of a dolphin that lived 50 million years ago. The report added that such specimens are found with some frequency in the region between Nasca and Callao (700 kilometers north of Sacaco). Paleontologists tell us that present-day dolphins and whales descended from a similar species called zeuglondonts, which became extinct 58 million years ago in other words, shortly after the beginning of the Cenozoic era (which began 63 million years ago). It is very possible that these animals, given their extinction 58 million years ago, may have lived during the last period of the preceding Mesozoic era, the Cretaceous period, which began 135 million years ago (13).

I put this information together with the research of the Argentine paleontologist Florentino Ameghino, who theorizes that man originated in the Americas, specifically in the Argentine pampas. According to his theory, the first animal who stood erect lived on the pampas, and evolved into the homo sapien. Here were three intermediate stages, each more advanced than the previous, and the last of which is man's direct ancestor. As evidence of three of these four ancestors he gives: a femur and a cervical vertebrae found in Monte Hermosa, Argentina, from the first ancestor; front the third, a skull found during excavations of the port of Buenos Aires; and from the fourth, the immediate ancestor, a series of craniums and bones from Necochea, Miramar, and other parts of Argentina. He also had tools and utensils found in a geological layer which he identified as belonging to the Miocene period (which began 25 million years ago and lasted 12 million), in the Cenozoic era. These included a silex knife, a stone anvil, files and rasps, an amygdaloid instrument made of quartz and carved on both sides, same silex and quartz arrowheads, a highly-polished, pear-shaped greenstone marble, mortars and pestles, beveled bones that could have been used as swords or spears, various round marbles, one of them grooved, the femur of a toxodon (a fat, leaf-eating mammal measuring three meters in length that lived in the Pliocene period 13 million years ago) in whose lower part was embedded a quartz arrowhead. All of this was found near a small town five kilometers northwest of Miramar (450 kilometers south of Buenos Aires) on the Atlantic coast. It was later proven that the cervical vertebrae and the skulls found by Ameghino actually belonged to man and not to his ancestors - in other words - they did not come from evolving anthropoids. As far as the tools and utensils are concerned, it cannot be denied that they belonged to man, but their age has been disputed; indeed it appears that since they are much like the tools found in the top-soil of the pampas and Patagonia, they were probably made by relatively modern but culturally retarded men. Furthermore, if man had existed in America over 20 million years ago who knew not only how to carve but even to polish stone (a discovery made by Old World man much later) it is inexplicable that America man had not evolved culturally farther than the European at the time of the Conquest.

Almost a century after Ameghino's discoveries, I can affirm that not only were errors of focus committed by Ameghino, but also by those who have raised objections to his work. Unstinting and unimaginative application of the classic theory of evolution was the cause of these errors. The anthropoid has been considered a species intimately related to man, because the theory of evolution holds, that an unknown 'Missing link" is the anthropoid from whom evolved both the only anthropoids which now live (gibbons, gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees) and man. Since no form of living anthropoid not fossilized remains of an anthropoid exist in America, it was deemed impossible that man could have originated in the Western Hemisphere. This notion is apparently confirmed by the fact that American cultures had not achieved the scientific and technological development of Europeans at the time of the conquest. Faithful to the rules of this doctrine, Ameghino erred in trying to establish the presence of man in the Americas 20 million years ago (indisputable on the grounds of the tools and utensils found), by instead making reference to human cranial bones which he mistakenly believed belonged to evolved anthropoids - in other words - by mistakenly trying to establish the missing link.

Based on the geological layers where the skulls of these three supposed anthropoids had been found, Ameghino put their antiquity at about the same age as the tools and utensils. His critics, who correctly proved that the bones were not those of anthropoids but of humans, and who admitted that the tools were undoubtedly made by humans, arbitrarily and improperly applied the rule of association: They did not believe that the tools could have been found in the geological strata indicated by Ameghino as pertaining to the Miocene period, but instead must have come from more recent strata. Two prejudices caused them to apply this rule unscientifically: That the origin of man could not have been in the Americas because American culture was less advanced than European culture at the time of the Conquest, and that tools and utensils similar to chose offered by Ameghino had been found on the surface and in the recent geological layers of the pampas and Patagonia. Both prejudices against the possibility that these tools belonged to a people over 20 million years old stem from the belief that the evolutionary step from anthropoid to human could not have been made in America because no form of living or dead anthropoid had even been found in this hemisphere.

The existence of man over 20 million years ago, as asserted by Ameghino, was also rejected because of the lack of paleotological sophistication in those days. They did not have means of dating fossils by radioactive methods, and furthermore they did not know that there were anthropoids in America. This latter discovery was made many years later, when a scientific expedition to the Amazon jungles, while exploring an area near the Tarra River in Venezuela, was attacked by two large anthropoids. One of them was shot and the animal turned out to be an unknown species. The body was carefully photographed. It was a female over one and a half meters tall, without a tail. This anthropoid resembled human beings like no other (Fig. 19). The discovery reinforces the thesis that the missing link is to be found in America, gives new weight to Ameghino's argument that man existed 20 million years ago, and permits us to place the appearance of man as an evolved being much earlier than the traditional evolutionary schema has it.

The extraordinary likeness of this anthropoid to man - not only in its head and facial features out in its body as well - suggest the possibility that it is in fact a hominid, the only hominid that has survived, since other species of hominids are known to us only through fossils.

In 1972 in southwest Africa, near Lake Rudolph in Kenya, the anthropologist Richard Leakey (14) found a fossilized skull 2.8 million years old (end of Pliocene period, Cenozoic era), a skull closer to that of modern man than any that had been found to date. The age of the skull is beyond doubt, since sophisticated dating methods were employed to determine. The discovery has proven that the evolution of man began much earlier than anthropologists had previously thought. And it has served as the basis for Leakey to assert that all the human fossils thought by anthropologists to be immediate ancestors of man are not such at all, because it is clear that man has existed much longer, beyond even the date at which paleontologists had argued that present day anthropoids emerged (in the pleistocene period, 1 million years ago) (Fig. 20). If all this revisionism can flow from the discovery of a 2.8 million years old cranium, one can imagine the intellectual revolution that Florentine Ameghino would have caused had he had access to sophisticated dating methods to confirm the tools and utensils age of 20 million years, which he had determined by association with the geological strata where they were found.

At this point in my research I could not help but reflect on an event that preceded the Leakey discovery by two years; scientific confirmation of one part of the theory of continental movement and formation formulated at the beginning of the century by Alfred Wegener. This theory postulates that at one time the continents all formed one large land mass, and during an ice age the earth's crust fractured and finally fragmented to form the continents more or less as we know them. In 1970 Melvin Patterson and other oceanographers from UNESCO found that geological layers on the west coast of Africa matched up with similar layers on the east coast of South America. This strongly suggested that Africa and South America had at one time been one and the same continent. What all this means is that the areas where Ameghino and Leakey made their discoveries (the eastern coast of South American and the western coast of Africa, respectively) had once formed a single continent, a fact which goes far toward explaining the existence of ancient man in America. This should cause Argentine experts to reexamine, in light of these indisputable facts, the paleontological finds of the unjustly forgotten Florentine Ameghino, using the latest dating methods. I would not be surprised in the region where Ameghino worked were to yield evidence that would confirm the extraordinary antiquity of man's presence on earth.

In June of 1970 Richard Macneish, Ph.D. in Anthropology and head of the Department of Archeology at the Phillips Academy discovered, during a dig in the basin of the Montato River (a tributary of the Amazon) to the southeast of Lima in Ayacucho, utensils used by humans positioned next to fossilized skeletons of prehistoric bears, horses camels, deer and various feline species. These utensils, as well as the skeletons of extinct animals (smilodon), were found across five geological strata. Paleontologists tell us that the megaterio, or prehistoric bear, became extinct 1 million years ago, that the prehistoric horse and camel became extinct 13 million years ago, and that the deer and the feline became extinct 1 million years ago. Unquestionably Macneish found himself faced with evidence that ancient man had coexisted with prehistoric animals and that, at the very least, this coexistence must date from the epoch in which the animals became extinct, and probably earlier. Nevertheless, Macneish did not dare reveal the true implications of his discoveries, and insisted that the tools belonged to a people who lived but 20,000 years ago. His statements reflect a very strange application of the comparative method, but they cannot hide the transcendent significance of his find.

In April 1971 excavations in a place called El Boqueron, in the state of Tolima, Colombia, uncovered a fossilized skeleton of the dinosaur iguanodon, twenty meters long, next to a human skull. The fossilization process had turned the skull into gray calcareous stone with whitish striations; the eye sockets were almost obliterated; the nose was elongated; and the skull had a crest from the top of the forehead to the base of the cranium. The chin was slightly angled and the jawbone vertical, like a simian. The cranium measured 25 centimeters in length. The find was made by the Colombian anthropologist Homero Henao Marin, a professor at the Universidad de Quindio, Colombia. This find was of tremendous paleontological significance, for several reasons. For one, it is the first time a human fossil has been found anywhere in the world next to that of a dinosaur. Second, it is the first time that in Ameria a human fossil has been found next to this particular species of dinosaur which permits us to conclude, by association, that they lived at the same time. The iguanodon appeared at the beginning of the Jurassic period, 181 million years ago, and became extinct 63 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. Henao Marin also found skeletons of other animals: a huge serpent, an animal with the head of a dog and an open gullet, as well as some petrified fins. Six years before Henao Marin had found in the same area a megaterio fossil, an animal which appeared in the Oligocene period, 36 million years ago, and became extinct in the Pleistocene, 1 million years ago.

To follow the traditional path of paleontology is to be confused by evidence like this, which suggests chronological correspondence between the iguanodon and the megaterio. If we consider the fact that these animals were found in the same geological strata with the remains of a man that paleontologists tell us lived no more than 250,000 years ago, our confusion grows. The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn in that paleontology persists in a chronological schema in dire need of revision, a schema of dating the appearance and extinction of animals as well as the appearance of man on earth which was, after all, devised in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, well before these recent discoveries and before modern dating methods were available. Beyond this, even though radioactive dating is more precise than previous methods, it must be used with caution since it is not foolproof. The discrepancies I have noted in this case also appear in the case of the megaterio and human utensils found by Macneish in Ayacucho.

In 1974 Dr. A. A. Zoubov, a Russian anthropologist and a member of the Academy of Sciences of his country, came to Ica at the invitation of the University in Ica to give a series of lectures on his specialty. In conversation with him he told me that in 1973 Hindu anthropologists had made a surprising paleontological find in India: human fossils in Mesozoic rocks. The discovery was reported to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. This discovery, which establishes beyond doubt the existence of man in the Mesozoic (in other words, between 230 and 63 million years ago), surprised me not only in its particularities, but also in the fact that the information was hidden from the world until further, similar discoveries could be made; it is as if science were trying to argue that one swallow does not a spring make.

Teeth and fossilized jawbones of eleven hominids, whose age has been determined by radioactive isotope dating to be 63.75 million years, are the oldest evidence found to date of man's ancestors. They were discovered by Mary Leakey, the 26 and 27 of December 1974, in a dry river bed called Laetolii, some 40 kilometers from Olduvai, in Tanzania. Mrs. Leakey has claimed that the fossils seem to belong to the genus homo, or appeared human, and not to the genus australopithecene (the hominid discovered by Raymond Dart). The Mary Leakey find is interesting because it reveals that man's ancestors existed 63.75 million years ago, during the transition from the Mesozoic to the Cenozoic era. The discovery, whose age was established by modern dating methods, shows that the unknown anthropoid who gave rise to branches, one of which led to modern anthropoids and the other to modern man, must have emerged many years before the date in the Miocene period (Cenozoic era) 25 million years ago, at which classic anthropology has always set the emergence of this creature.

Geologists tell us that our planet took form 5,000 million years ago, and life - the earliest microorganisms - began 3,500 million years ago. Paleontologists have found fossilized evidence of this life, and assigned to it (before the discovery of radioactive dating methods) an antiquity of 700 million years. The intervening 2,800 million years have yielded no concrete evidence of life on earth. But in 1969, a U.S. scientist named Albert E. J. Engel, a geologist with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego, California, found fossils of microorganisms in ancient rocks in the region of the Transvaal, South Africa. We are talking about cup and rod-shaped microorganisms, the largest of which measures 39 millionths of an inch. Modern dating methods determined that the rocks in which the fossils were found were 3,500 million years old, that is, they dated from the Archeozoic era.

All of these discoveries topple the traditional chronology of paleontology and destroy the idea, cherished by anthropologists and archeologists, of the recent origin of man.

Nevertheless, I believe that the amazing antiquity of life on earth and of man revealed by these finds are only a beginning that future discoveries will further confirm.

Footnotes:

(13) I will make the result of my investigations about these deposits of fossilized specimens in my next book, "Humanity in the Mesozoic".

(14) The son of Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, the famous English anthropologists to whom anthropology is indebted for their crucial discoveries which have made contributions to the knowledge of human evolution. The Leakey couple, as well as Richard Leakey, has spent a great part of their lives in Africa searching for the remains of ancient man.

THE STRANGE POWER OF A STONE

I never could have imagined that a small stone given to me as a ‘paperweight’ could turn into a sort of friendly, living thing, compelling me to enter the unknown world it represented. The thousands of stones I later came to know spoke to me of a people who existed in the oldest geological era, and who had coexisted with prehistoric animals. Laboratory analyses had revealed that these stones cane from volcanic flows in the Mesozoic era (230 to 63 million years ago), and that the patina of oxidation covering the engravings proved their antiquity. Various startling paleontological finds confirmed the coexistence of man and prehistoric animals and thus the archeological validity of the Engraved Stones of Ica.

But the Ica Stones reveal more than this. The representation of the reproductive cycle of the agnato in one series of stones suggests that it was executed in the Devonic period (405 to 345 million years ago), in the Paleozoic era. They reveal also a profound knowledge of science and a technology much more advanced than our own. These revelations raise an important question: if million of years ago there lived on earth an intellectually, scientifically, and technologically advanced people, how is it that modern man has only begun to approach that level of advancement? And more: how do we explain that paleontological discoveries make clear that only 1.7 million years ago there were beings on earth who were just initiating a pre­human phase? One explanation is that man, after he evolved into a thinking being, endured over million of years without becoming extinct as a species, but for various reasons - one of which I discuss in Chapter Six - at least once his scientific and technological knowledge was destroyed, and he was forced to begin all over again. A second explanation is that the destruction of man's scientific achievements occurred because of the extinction of the human species, so that the advancement of knowledge required a new process of evolution from anthropoids or hominids. According to this reasoning, across the millennia a series of human phylums would have emerged, only then to disappear; the last one would be the phylum of which modern man is part. But this second explanation does not seem to me to be particularly convincing. If the human species has become extinct several times and has then re-evolved; how can we explain the cannon reference points shared by peoples the world over: the shared reference in legends, myths, and histories to fabulous animals (dragons, monsters, flying serpents, gargoyles, etc.) that are so like paleontological reconstructions of prehistoric animals; the shared references to the existence of advanced civilizations; the shared references to a cataclysm that buried entire continents leaving only a handful of survivors to repopulate the earth? All of this can be explained, however, if we start with the premise that the human species never became extinct.

The Engraved Stones of Ica are testimonials to the scientific and technological achievements of man in a long-past moment of his history. These achievements were lost. I cannot state categorically if, or how many times, man later rose to equal heights - all I know is that the men who carved these stones lived in a very remote past. But even if we are not related in a linear fashion to this other flourishing civilization, we are certainly related by our common human genus.

THE GLIPTOLITH

Many cultures have left figures carved on stone as a record of their existence. These carved stones are known as petroglyphs, and they are scattered throughout Peru and in other parts of the world. Despite the large number of specimens that has been found and the perseverance of the investigators who attempt to interpret them, these stone writings, if you will, remain undecipherable, constituting one of the most puzzling mysteries of archeology the world over.

Unlike petroglyphs, the Engraved Stones of Ica are, in form, much like river rocks. Carvings on stones similar to them have also been found in Acambaro (Mexico), and in Colombiere and Dordogne, France. But even so the Ica Stones are notable for their abundance, the quality of the engravings, the wealth of information they contain, and the unquestionable presence of a system expression which has been used to reduce that information to a communicable norm. To distinguish the Ica Stones from petroglyphs and from the stones of Acambaro, Colombiere, and Dordogne, I have called them gliptoliths.

In the course of examining thousands of these gliptoliths I have come to the conclusion that they obey a system of communication in which certain figures and parts of figures are used as symbols to denote subjects, actions, objects, qualities and circumstances. These symbols permit us to decipher both simple and complex sequences.

I have identified three types of symbols. One is very simple: a figure symbolizes what it represents. For example the figure of a bird is also the symbol for bird; the drawing of a continent symbolizes " continents", and so on with other figures such as men, animals, leaves, and stars.

The second type of symbol consists of a figure whose significance is not precisely or solely what it appears to be (as in the first type), but something related and yet transcendent. To illustrate, the figure of a bird might in some contexts mean not "bird", but apparatus for flight. The figure of a primitive camel, an animal ideally suited to withstand high temperatures, symbolizes planetary overheating. A pyramid symbolizes a complicated technological system where by energy is captured, accumulated, and distributed. A leaf may signify biological energy, conversion of photosynthetic energy into electrical energy, or even "cognitive energy" (the reflexion power of man). A branch is the symbol for trees and also for a group of people. A star is the symbol for a central energy source.

The third type of symbol is not an identifiable animate or inanimate object. For example: a series of rectangles that may signify human life or man's capacity to reflex; the number of rectangles gives a given subject a numerical dimension; parallel lines are the symbol for vegetable life or knowledge in general; a grouping of rhomboids means animal life; two concentric circles are the symbol for the apparatus for space flight.

Sometimes the symbol associated with a figure takes on a more complex meaning. For example, lines drawn through a figure of a table already identified as an operating table mean that there is a system of energy at work during the surgery; the angle of the lines serves to indicate the stage of the operation itself. The figure of a house juxtaposed with the rhomboids means that the "house" is a stable or corral. A primate holding a leaf (the symbol of human life) means that the animal is on the verge of attaining the power to reason which will elevate him to the status of human. If next to this primate we see two concentric circles - symbol of the apparatus for cosmic flight - this forms a complex grouping of symbols which, taken together, mean that the step from primate to human was brought about by the actions of intelligent men from outer space.

Understandably, few of the figures engraved on the stones look exactly like what they are meant to represent; the majority are symbols, and are rather far from resembling their models. For example, a surgical operating table is shown as a sort of rustic bench. The surgeons are not depicted using sophisticated tools, but simple, almost primitive instruments, their true nature being communicated though the group of symbols that make up the scene. The advanced technology is not described figuratively, but via symbols that on first glance appear to have no significance whatsoever. Social hierarchies, determined by mental capacity, are represented graphically by what might seem to be ornaments on the heads and body of the individuals pictured, but are in fact symbols.

As we have seen in Chapter One, a grouping of gliptoliths contains information around a certain theme, so that the grouping forms a series. The number of gliptoliths that make up a series varies according to the complexity of the theme. Thus I have one series of six gliptoliths that deals with the process of brain transplant; each stone is about one meter in diameter. Another series, on the reproductive cycle of the agnata, is composed of more than two hundred stones of varying sizes. The smaller stones are used for the early stages of the cycle and as the cycle progresses the stones increase in size.

In complementary fashion, these two characteristics of the gliptoliths - the nature of the drawing and the size of the stone - came together to communicate the ideas intended. In the majority of the specimens, the engraving has been made using simple grooved etchings, a method used when the figures do not need details to make the idea clear. The depth of the grooves is one or two millimeters. On the other hand, when more details were required, a second method was followed: the bas relief. There are gliptoliths that combine both methods. Often, for example, the reproductive cycle of an animal is being shown, the grooved lines are used to convey the image of the animal in its very simple form, early in the cycle, whereas later, when the animal was more developed, bas relief was employed to show details and to convey the multiplicity of ideas that the artist wished to communicate. Complex themes demanded stones of over 1.3 meters in diameter. Such was the case with a gliptolith that pictured two space ships. Simpler compositions use smaller stones: gliptoliths that represent single animals, for example, whose diameter can be less than three centimeters.

The Engraved Stones of Ica, or gliptoliths, are, then, a unique system of writing employed million of years ago by an humanity who had achieved advanced levels of scientific and technological development. Modern man can refuse to believe that what the gliptoliths convey on first impression is a form of writing, and can prefer to think of them as mere drawings whose purpose was decorative, sentimental, or to amuse and occupy the artist. But the presence of themes dealing with incredibly advanced scientific knowledge is enough to dispel this disbelief, especially in addition to the fact that the schematized figures and signs are not things of beauty. It seems clear from this that the engravings were intended to transmit messages in code to the men of the future.

But to decipher the messages contained in each series of gliptoliths requires two things: first, one must have access to at least the majority of the gliptoliths that made up the series, and second, one must have a good, up-to-date background in the knowledge that modern man has acquired regarding the themes in the series. Without the first, one runs the risk that the messages are not complete, and without the second, the gliptolith loses its sense and becomes merely a stone.

THE LEAF, SYMBOL OF LIFE

By means of chlorophyll (the substance that gives leaves their green color); plants convert solar energy into electrical/chemical energy. This energy permits the leaf to transform simple inorganic matter (voter, carbon dioxide, ammonia, etc.), into complex, organic matter (sugar, fats, proteins, etc.). Plants use some of these organic substances and store the rest. This capacity to transform inorganic into organic matter is also characteristic of a few species of animals. Most animals and man, who lack this capacity, depend on plants to survive. The leaf, then, is the fundamental element of life.

Life is energy, and in man energy takes several forms: caloric energy (production of heat), mechanical energy (movement), electrochemical energy (organic functions), electric energy (in electrolytic fluids), and cognitive energy (will, feelings, thought). Except for the pacemaker, used to reestablish cardiac rhythm by electronic stimulation from a battery, and with the further exception of the utilization of solar energy to effect skin-level metabolic changes, man has not been able to adapt his organism to use energy that does not come from food. This holds true for both solar and cosmic energy, the latter is much more powerful than the former.

In my observation and analysis of the symbols contained in the 11,000 gliptoliths in my collection, I have found the most important symbol to be the leaf. In conjunction with the figure of a man, animal, or object, the leaf can signify human life or a given form of energy with which the leaf is associated. Shown in conjunction with the figure of a man, it generally means cognitive energy, that is, that capacity to reason, and if two human figures are involved, or one human figure and an animal, it means that one is endowing the other with this capacity to think and reason. Pictured next to the feet of a bird which is itself a symbol of a machine used for flight, the leaf means that the aircraft is carrying human life. Next to the beak of a bird, the leaf means that the aircraft not only carries men, but that the man or men on board carry within themselves the means to fuel the machine.

The leaf symbol used by gliptolithic humanity to show different types of energy can be explained by the fact that, unlike modern man, this people not only understood chlorophyll to be the basic element of life, but also knew how to adapt the process of utilization of chlorophyll to the human organism, so that men could capture and assimilate solar and cosmic energy directly, as plants do, without having to consume food. This in turn explains how men could be capable of producing fuel for air and space craft, they captured this fuel directly from the cosmos.

MAN IN THE GLIPTOLITHIC WORLD

As will be seen in Chapter Six, in which human life on other planets is discussed, the gliptolithic world was created by men from outer space. Through the transplantation of cognitive codes to highly intelligent primates, the men from outer space created new men on earth. Based on information contained in a gliptolith dealing with this type of transplant, and based also on present day experiments on animals, I conclude that cognitive codes were molecular compounds of nucleic acids and proteins, which formed the physical basis for knowledge (on the transplantation of cognitive codes, see Chapter Seven). To judge by the figure of a primate which is repeated in many gliptoliths, I think that the primate in whom the cognitive ability was transplanted was the notharctus, which according to paleontologists became extinct about 50 million years ago (see Chart 4).

Million of years ago the notharctus hunted in the forests in search of insects and fruits. His name means "false bear", because when notharctus fossils ware first found, they were thought to be of a small bear. This primate had a long tail which could probably be wrapped around a branch, like a monkey. He had a thin, fox-like face, with large tail and prehensil toes on his four feet. He was similar to the modem lemur, a small tree-dwelling primate. The notharctus is the oldest known ancestor of the monkey and lemur family. Compared to other contemporary prehistoric animals, it is likely that the notharctus was very intelligent, since his brain size in relation to his body was quite considerable. Paleontologists tell us that he measured about one meter in length, half of which was his tail, but it seems logical that the notharctus from which men from outer space created other men must have been much larger and more highly evolved, in terms of brain size. All of the men created from the notharctus fell somewhere on a scale from greater to lesser cognitive ability (see Chapter Six). Those at the top of the scale belong to the level I have called "Reflective Scientific Man". The only ones above this level are the men from outer space, that is to say, the true gliptolithic men, a name used only by extension to designate the men created by them. Nonetheless, based on a reading and interpretation of a Paracas cloth, I conclude that the men from outer space raised up to their cognitive level a few reflective scientific men, via genetic modification of the somatic code of these men; on other wards, via alteration at the molecular level of the embriogenetic system, which is responsible for the formation of human organs (on this point see Chapter Seven). More precisely, this alteration, combined with the transplant of cognitive codes, raised the notharctus to the level of a simple humanoid (the lowest level in the scale of human beings that was created). Gliptolithic humanity had mastered science and technology to the extent of finding the means by which intellectual capability could actually be expanded. They knew that this capacity was a form of energy - cognitive energy - which, when slowly increased, could lead men toward a knowledge of the universe and toward the ability to put to use all the other forms of energy. To achieve these ends, it was necessary not merely to adapt one's organism to the physical environment, but to the cognitive function. For this reason, unlike modern man, for whom happiness and the aim in life is material well-being, gliptolithic man's aim was the development of intellectual power (cognitive energy) to increase and preserve knowledge. If occasionally we today experience the ecstasy (through love, poetry, art, science) of elevated and profound emotion or thought, gliptolithic men experienced this ecstasy on a permanent and constant basis through the development of his intellectual capacity and the increase in his knowledge.

Gliptolithic humanity knew the centrally important function performed by the leaf; they knew that this function was the basis of life, and that life, for man, took the form of different kinds of energy. Since cognitive energy was for the gliptolithic man the most important of these, he took the leaf as the symbol to represent cognitive energy in his engraved stones. Thus reflective scientific man (the highest level in .the cognitive hierarchy) is depicted in the engravings with a grouping of symbols over his head in which the leaf is most prominent. In other words, what would appear at first glance to be an ornament made of leaves and worn on the head is nothing of the kind.

If we look at the human form in Figure 21, we see this grouping of symbolic elements drawn above the head. At the top of this grouping are pictured two semi-leaves (1 in Fig. 21), the symbol of an unknown mechanism which stimulated the brain in order to increase its cognitive function and also to convert solar (photonic) energy and cosmic (corpuscular) energy directly into electronic energy, so that it could be used to power tools and machines. I theorize that this unknown mechanism functioned much like the also-unknown mechanism of the chlorophyll molecule. Under the semi-leaves is a second configuration in the form of a band that ends in two points (2 in Fig. 21); this symbolizes that this man possessed an elevated cognitive range that placed him above most others. His range is that of a reflective scientific man, which means that he can perform all intellectual functions. (As we will see below, modification of one or more elements in this second configuration could show which intellectual activity the man performed). The third configuration, a cone shape with the tip pointing backwards (3 in Fig. 21), indicates that this man has an enormous store of knowledge which he can use, through his powerful intellectual capacity, to generate new information. Put another way, this stored knowledge, which can be manipulated by the analytical mind, acts as a sort of programmed computer data bank. The section filled with rhomboids that this figure wears like trousers (4 in Fig. 21) is also a symbol; rhomboids are the symbol form animal life and in this case mean that the organism of this man functions like that of an animal, despite the fact that he does not need food to create energy, since he draws energy directly from the sun and the cosmos. However, to judge by the information contained in other gliptoliths, it would appear that this capacity to capture energy directly was used only occasionally, since other gliptoliths depict in detail the production of food. Finally, associated with this human figure is one other symbol: two parallel lines at each ankle (5 in Fig. 21). This signifies the capacity for movement, that is to say, movements natural to a human being. We can also see in Fig. 21 the symbol for a group of men, which is a branch with many leaves attached. If the branch has roots it means that the group of men has established itself in a certain place. If it is topped by a flower, it means that the efforts of this group have met with success.

Modern man has idealized the figure of the athlete. We see this not only today, but in historical documents and in archeological finds. Human sculptures like those of the Greeks the discus-thrower of Miron, and practices such as those followed by the Spartans, who left infants who were not well-formed to die, reveal that modern man has always upheld the athletic ideal. The athletic figure requires long, strong legs for maximum stability and speed; it also requires a large lung capacity (and so a large chest) so the body can receive enough oxygen to perform strenuous functions. These functions can only be performed with strong arms and hands with a thumb placed in opposition to the other fingers - the hands of modern man have some claw-like features. The athletic figure, to be perfect from the mechanical point of view, needs a head that is not out of proportion to the body, that will not imbalance the body. For this reason the cranium cannot hold a larger brain. The human figure which is depicted in the gliptoliths is, of course, only a symbolic representation, but I think it likely that the figures bear a resemblance to the true physicality of gliptolithic man. It can be seen in Figure 21 that the figure is not athletic. There is a disproportion between the size of the head, the torso, and the extremities. The head is huge, the abdomen even larger, the upper extremities are long and have fingers all of the same length, with no thumb as we know it, which shows that these men did not perform mechanical functions. The lower extremities are strong and short. Since gliptolithic man had as a goal the development of the capacity to increase and preserve knowledge, his physical functions had to adapt themselves to the constant exercise of the cognitive function. It follows that this man should have a large head, and that his arms and fingers, not needed for the performance of mechanical tasks, were weak and ill-suited for such tasks. Short, strong legs and a large abdomen balance the large head. Thus this symbolic representation of the human body reinforces what we infer from other gliptoliths: that is, that the existence of gliptolithic man was geared to intellectual growth.

The men who arrived from outer space - the authentic gliptolithic men - are represented in the engraved stones as the reflective scientific man. The other levels of the hierarchy (as will be seen in Chapter Six) are distinguished graphically by certain symbols which reveal different gradations of intellectual capacity and knowledge.

A GLIPTOLITHIC EXCERPT: DINOSAUR RANCHES

I have chosen one gliptolithic messages in order to introduce the reader to the study and interpretation of gliptolithic symbolism. This is a message that tells us about a ranch for dinosaurs.

The Engraved Stones of Ica, or gliptoliths, which deal with this theme are very numerous and form a series. I have 150 specimens in this series, and I know that other specimens are to be found in the collections of private individuals. Here I will use only three specimens, which seems a sufficient number for my purposes.

One of these gliptoliths is almost spherical, yellowish in color, and approximately sixty centimeters in diameter. Except for the part of the stone face that serves as the base, there is no part of the surface that has not been carved in has relief. On one of the faces we can see a dinosaur of the species stegasaurus, holding in its mouth a leaf; in this case the leaf is the symbol of biological energy, which means that the dinosaur is feeding (Fig. 22A). The branch that appears below the dinosaur (6 in Fig. 22A) represents tree; I think that it means the ceiba, a plant which according to paleontologists abounded in the Mesozoic era, the era during which dinosaurs existed. The presence of this branch in the engraving means that this was the favorite food of the reptiles and the figure of the dinosaur next to the branch suggests that the animal is found near an immense plantation devoted to the cultivation of this plant. To the left and above the dinosaur there is a human figure (1 in Fig. 22A) in the process of observing the dinosaur from above, using an optical instrument (7 in Fig. 22A). The human figure has a short, pointed weapon in one hand, which suggests that he is watching the dinosaur with the intent to shoot it. This human figure is ensconced in an aircraft whose rear part has an extension (5 in Fig. 22A) on which is superimposed a grouping of symbols which I will explain later. The front part of the aircraft contains the leaf (9 in Fig. 22A), symbol in this case of energy captured to fuel the vehicle. I infer that this energy cones from the sun and was obtained through a special method based on the principle that the leaf employs to convert solar photons (radiation) into electrons (electricity). This principle of conversion of photons to electrons is used today to power spy satellites which man has placed in orbit to monitor the earth. The unclear symbols on the head of the human reveal that he is not a reflective scientific man, but a man whose cognitive capacity is of a lower order. The parallel lines over the head signify that this is a man prepared for a specific task of a technological nature, as we will see when we discuss the types of men, grouped by cognitive ability, who lived during the gliptolithic age (See Chapter Six).

The other face of the gliptolith (Fig. 22B) contains a scene which is the continuation of the former scene. Emerging from the aircraft is a long, undulating design one end of which touches the snout of the dinosaur (4 in Fig. 22B). Note that this design has straight, parallel lines at its end nearest the aircraft, as opposed to the undulating lines nearest the dinosaur. I believe this means that the aircraft has gassed the dinosaur to paralyze it; the straight parallel lines mean that the gas leaves the aircraft under high pressure, as if shot, and the undulating parallel lines mean that as it reaches its target it begins to disperse. Note also the middle part of the design that represents the gas: it contains stair-step designs, pairs of vertical lines, and small circles. These are the same signs that appear in the rear extension of the aircraft (5 in Fig. 22A). This similarity suggests that the gas has been emitted from this part of the aircraft. It may also be observed that the man holding the weapon, who in the earlier scene merely watched the dinosaur, has now emerged from the aircraft and is standing on the tail of the dinosaur, though he is still tied to the aircraft by means of a type of cable (8 in Fig. 22B). The man is injecting the dinosaur, using his weapon. It is well known that the stegasaurus was a huge animal, but that its brain was by proportion quite small. It is also known that the spinal medula of the stegasaurus had at the top of the hip a ganglia twenty times larger than the brain, which was the sort of movement and control center of the lower part of the body. It is probable that the small brain of the stegasaurus did not suffice to control the animal's huge body. Given this information, I infer that the gas served to paralyze the front half of the dinosaur and that the injection was placed in the pelvic ganglia to complete the paralysis of the animal. Another human figure watches this process through binoculars from the aircraft (2 in Fig. 22B).

It is easy to see that we do not deal here with a crude hunt of this animal. To judge by the symbol that permitted me to discover that the dinosaur was in or near an immense plantation which grew his favorite food (the ceiba), I infer that this gliptolith is showing that men set aside special areas to feed and raise dinosaurs, much as we today devote whole farms to the cultivation of pasturage for cattle. This, and the knowledge we already possess of the stegasaurus physiology and what would have been necessary to capture this huge, fierce reptile, tell use that the scenes depicted in the gliptolith show the technical means and the planning used to utilize this ranch.

The notion that the brain of the stegasaurus was so snail that it did not have the capacity to control the animal's entire body in reinforced in another gliptolith from the same series (Fig. 23). This is a dark-colored gliptolith about one meter in diameter in which the designs - unlike those of the previous gliptolith - are grooved incisions and not has relief. In it we see a man (16 in Fig. 23) standing on the tail of the stegasaurus and applying the injection in the pelvic ganglia (13 in Fig. 23), which means that he has just finished paralyzing the lower half of the body, but the dinosaur's front half is unaffected, and continued to eat, as the symbol of biological energy - three leaves - indicates (14 in Fig. 23). The sensitivity of the front half of the animal is expressed symbolically by a series of criss-crossed lines (12 in Fig. 23). The presence of an aircraft (11 in Fig. 23), from which another human figure observes the process (10 in Fig. 23), using a telescope (15 in Fig. 23) make it clear that this is another scene showing the capture of a dinosaur, in which the procedure for .paralyzing the front half of the animal is not shown.

One of the faces of a third gliptolith from the sane series completes the above scene (Fig. 24A). This gliptolith is approximately 1.10 meters in diameter, gray in color, and etched with grooved incisions. We can see a man (2 in Fig. 24A) injecting the dinosaur in the pelvic ganglia (7 in Fig. 24A), thus paralyzing the lower half of the animal. Over the spine of the dinosaur we see another man (1 in Fig. 24A) who, using an axe-shaped weapon, empties something into the mouth of the animal (8 in Fig. 24A). To judge by the symbols over their heads, both men have greater thought capacity than the men in the previous gliptoliths; they are reflective scientific men.

If we recall that the two semi-leaves that the figure of gliptolithic man has on his head are the symbol of an unknown system by which solar (photonic) energy and cosmic (corpuscular) energy is captured and converted into electronic energy, it can be inferred that what one of these man is emptying into the mouth of the dinosaur must be an electric current, the purpose of which is to paralyze the front half of the body. Along with the use of paralyzing gas, the use of electric current is another means developed by gliptolithic man to capture dinosaurs. The axe shaped tool in this gliptolith is the symbol for a sophisticated instrument used to cause a powerful electric shock. The other face of the same gliptolith completes the previous scene (Fig. 24B). We see a reflective scientific man in the act of killing the dinosaur, after having totally paralyzed it (3 in Fig. 24B). We know the animal is unconscious because of the lines that project from the eye like a light-beam. This symbol is absent in the previous scene.

In another part of the gliptolith we see a young dinosaur (6 in Fig. 24B), which carries a man on its back (4 in Fig. 24B). The symbol above this man's head is the same as that on the heads of the man in the first two gliptoliths discussed here; that is, the symbol showing that this is a man of less cognitive ability than the reflective scientific man, and the parallel lines in the grouping of symbols over his head show that he is suited for specific, technological tasks. The leaf that the man holds in his hand (9 in Fig. 24B) over the head of the young dinosaur means that the animal still requires biological energy to complete its physical development, for which reason he is not yet an object of capture.

These gliptoliths clearly reveal that gliptolithic man did not fear dinosaurs. Modern humanity, all the while denying the possibility of the coexistence of man and dinosaur, has nonetheless amused himself by trying to imagine what such a coexistence would have been like. In the process, he has concocted the image of a terrified man pitted against a powerful beast, simply because he cannot rid himself of the erroneous assumption that a people older than ourselves must necessarily have been more primitive, incapable of devising a means to neutralize and overcome a dinosaur much stronger than mere man. But these gliptoliths not only demonstrate the coexistence of man and the dinosaur, but also show that man, instead of quivering with fear in the presence of the dinosaur, knew how to use the knowledge he had of the physiology of the dinosaur and his advanced technology to dominate these animals and even put them to use as an abundant natural source of protein.

WHY STONE WAS USED

The conventional wisdom that man as an intelligent, thinking being only appeared 250,000 years ago leads inevitably to the mistaken notion that before this date, all humanoid or humanlike beings were primitive, pre-human, incapable of intellectuality. It should not surprise, then, that one objection to the contention that in a very remote past a highly advanced humanity existed which recorded its messages for posterity on stone is this: if the civilization was so advanced, why did it leave its mark in such a common, primitive material as stone, rather than in some other medium more appropriate to the society's technological achievements? Modern humanity, after all, threatened by nuclear holocaust, is trying to conserve the most important scientific and technological knowledge on microfilms placed in vacuum tubes which are then buried underground and covered with a layer of concrete. It is on the surface a persuasive objection, since the linking of primitive beings and stone carvings, used to record daily life and to pass time, is strong in the popular imagination.

But this linking, and therefore the objection itself, are not justified. The scientific and technological achievements of the people whose historical documents are the gliptoliths flowed from the constant application of knowledge to the world around them. Their intention was not to leave documents to glorify themselves, but to leave a series of guideposts for future humanity, to show those who would come after them the ways that man can dominate his environment, and to warn that any departure from the pursuit of knowledge could cause regression to the level of animals, a level which could mean the extinction of the human race. If we consider the information contained in some gliptoliths regarding situations in the remote past which endangered human genus (see Chapter Six), the purposes behind the leaving of testimonials become more meaningful: the way in which man can avoid regression to the animal state and avoid extinction is through constant application of knowledge. The question for gliptolithic man became how to ensure the survival of these documents in a future they could not predict. Without spurning the use of other materials (metal, ceramic, wood, textiles, lithic architecture, etc., as we will see), gliptolithic man preferred to use stone. Stone had several advantages. First, it was abundant throughout the world, and therefore would not the likely to be used as a commodity in commerce. Second, stone would not run the risk of being oxidized like metal and would better resist the passage of time with engravings intact. Though they had dominated their environment, they knew it was likely that future men would not know how to control geological upheavals that might destroy the stones. For this reason, and also to protect the stones from the effects of nature (atmospheric gases, rain, heat, cold, radiation, etc.) they decided to protect them in excavated deposits in the most stable regions of the planet. And they took other precautions: they did not modify the nature shaped of the stone, so that it retained its resistance; and they buried the stones in sand so they would not rub up against each other. It is thus that after these remote past, the engraved stones are beautifully preserved.

OTHER MATERIALS WITH GLIPTOLITHIC WRITING

If we compare the designs on the gliptoliths with those on other ancient objects of porcelain, ceramic, wood, and cloth, scattered throughout the world, there is no doubt that gliptolithic nan also used these materials to leave his messages. There are figures representing fabulous animals which closely resemble many of those the paleontologists tell as lived in the remote past, such as the dragons on Chinese porcelain, a mythical animal but at the same time quite like the pterodactyl (winged dinosaur). Another example is the figure of a stegasaurus on a ceramic found in a tomb pertaining to the Pachacanac culture (a Pre-Incaic society) to the south of Lima (Fig. 25). Similarly, we have the carved wood objects found in the desert to the south of Ocucaje, lea, in which various prehistoric animals are depicted, one of which shows dinosaurs (Fig. 26) as well as human figures. In others the figures and designs reveal aspects of the scientific and technological achievements of gliptolithic man, as for example, the symbolic representation of the technology of space flight in many ceramics found in tombs from the Nasca culture (Pre-Incaic) in the department of Ica (see illustrations in Chapter 9); also the symbolic representations made in numerous Paracas cloths (Pre-Incaic culture) in the department of Ica, which reveal a profound understanding of human microphysical biology (see Chapter Seven, figure of Paracas cloth). In one Mochica (Pre-Incaic) ceramic we can see the different phases through which an animal passed before it was fully developed. There is no doubt that the animal in question is the stegasaurus and that the phases are metamorphic phases. This further documents that man coexisted with the dinosaur, that the latter was not hatched fully developed (unlike paleontology teaches), and that man was a being so far evolved that the possessed knowledge of biology (see figure previous page).

I also think that gliptolithic man left messages in sheets of metal resistant to time, such as gold and silver. The unusual sheets of gold found in Ecuador whose designs resemble those the gliptoliths, provide evidence for this hypothesis. These sheets form part of the collection of Father Carlo Crespi, and are housed in the Church of Maria Auxiliadora, in Cuenca, Ecuador (Fig. 27).The sheets have not been dated. It is possible that gliptolithic humanity knowing that man might have to avoid the end of his existence by reverting to an animal state in which the instinct of egoism would flourish, may have feared that man would then care less about figures and symbols than about the material in which the figures and symbols appeared. It is also possible that sheets of some unknown material may have been used, but the same fear about the acceptance of the messages would have prevailed. I think that gliptolithic man thought to counteract the acquisitive instinct of future men by inscribing messages not on utilitarian objects but on objects of beauty, as if they were adornments or decorations, so that man would be more likely to value them and conserve them, and they could one day be interpreted and understood for what they are. Thus gliptolithic humanity engraved messages on different types of silver ware, tools, and a variety of objects, preferably of gold and silver, whose shape and designs even today are the subject of ingenious and sometimes arbitrary interpretations. Such is true in the case of the well-known turns of gold with incrustations of precious stones, and the tumis made from a very durable material called champi (a combination of gold, silver and copper, although the bonding technique is unknown), found in Inca and Pre-Inca tombs.

Archeologists insist that these tumis were made by Inca or Pre-Inca men and they think that they were used in ceremonial rites and as surgical instruments. But the gold tumis with precious stones and the tumis made of charapi were made by gliptolithic humanity, and the designs are nothing but symbols amenable to deciphering (see Chapter Five).

GLIPTOLITHIC MESTIZAJE

That. some ancient objects made of gold, ceramic, carved wood, and cloth have been found in zones inhabited by different Pre-Incaic cultures and later by the Incas might suggest, as traditional archeological teaching holds, that the objects were made by these cultures and that as a result they are no more than 3,000 years old. But within the objects attributed to these cultures, there are distinctions to be drawn. Specimens differ in the quality of execution and in the subjects of the designs. It is well-known that the Incas and Pre-Incas lacked scientific and technological sophistication. This is indisputable. It is therefore quite impossible, given their modest technological achievements, that they could even have conceived of some of the things the objects deal with. There are ceramics from Nazca, for example, that treat, symbolically, the techniques for space flight. There are cloths from Paracas whose designs reveal deep understanding of human microphysical biology. There are objects of gold and champi - the tumis - that deal symbolically with aspects of human pathology. These objects, like the textiles and the wood carvings, are of excellent execution, in accordance with a technology far in advance of that possessed by the Incas or Pre-Incas. Alongside these objects are other which are very different in their primitive execution: objects of gold shaped by hammering or by simple bonding of one piece to another; ceramics of thick clay, with defective firing and rudimentary coloration; textiles of primitive weave dyed with tints with little durability; wooden objects carved coarsely. Some of these unsophisticated objects have designs with clear decorative purposes and others mix indiscriminately decorative figures with symbols that show deep scientific understanding. This strange juxtaposition of the crude and the sophisticated is also to be found in figures on the same objects, as well as from object to object. Curiously, within the same Inca or Pre-Inca grave one is likely to find ceramics, gold objects, textiles, carved wood, etc. Whose symbolic features reveal considerable scientific knowledge or an advanced technological development, next to other things that suggest that the occupant of the grave lived a very primitive life: kernels of corn, squashes, wooden utensils, obsidian spear points, shell or bone necklaces, and crude needles made of thorns.

How to explain this unusual juxtaposition? Obviously the objects that give evidence of scientific and technological sophistication could not have been created by primitive men. Instead, these are the messages left by gliptolithic man, which were originally deposited in very different places from the places where they ended up. It is logical to suppose that the Incas and Pre-Incas discovered sane of these deposits and removed the objects, thinking, because they were incomprehensible, that they were made by the gods. The fact that they are today found in Inca and Pre-Inca tombs reinforces the likelihood that they were considered sacred objects. Where sophisticated symbols and primitive designs are found in the sane object, we can infer that the Inca or Pre-Inca men were imitating what they thought to be sacred , and incorporating familiar elements from their own lives, in order to establish a link between themselves and the gods. Naturally, in these graves there are many objects that have nothing to do with gliptolithic humanity, that were conceived and executed entirely by the Incas or Pre-Incas.

Thus, not including the kernels of corn, wooden utensils, etc., there are three types of objects to be found in Inca or Pre-Inca graves. First, the objects of superior construction with figures and symbols that reveal that they were made by gliptolithic humanity; second, those of crude execution and design which were clearly the work of the Incas or Pre-Incas; and third, those objects, also of crude execution, with gliptolithic symbols mixed in with Inca or Pre-Inca designs. This latter category represents a sort of cultural "mestizaje" or mixture of the gliptolithic and the Inca or Pre-Inca.

Besides the evidence found in the tombs, the huge stone architectonic groupings scattered about Peru furnish further proof of this cultural mestizaje. The technology employed to create these structures is still a mystery: how such heavy stones could have been moved to such high elevations; how they were cut so perfectly that they fit together with no space in between; how they were held together with no binding material. These feats could not have been achieved using the technology possessed by the Incas and Pre-Incas. Archeologists believe that some of thee structures were trade by these cultures using the labor of many, many men over a very long period of time. But this explanation is unacceptable, because these structures reveal beyond doubt the use of an advanced technology that could not have been duplicated by manpower or time. They could only have been made by men who possessed the appropriate technology: the gliptolithic humanity. In these same stone constructions one can see, as evidence of cultural mestizaje, elements of Inca and Pre-Inca influence: the addition of new blocks of stone, deffectively cut and matched, placed on top ef or next to the earlier work. This can be seen, to use only one example of the many that exist in Peru, in the monument of Machu Picchu (Fig. 28).

Outside of Peru there is other evidence of this cultural mestizaje of the typically gliptolithic with elements of the ancient classical cultures. Such is the case with the models of livers made of clay that have been discovered in the regions once under the cultural influence of the Sumerians. Archeologists have suggested that these models are related to the practice of adivination performed by the Sumerians via inspection of the livers of animals sacrificed to the gods; the favorite liver was that of a sheep. One of these models is divided into forty small squares, the majority of which have a hole in them; each one of the squares contains the typical cuneiform writing of the Sumerians (Fig. 29). Archeologists tell us that this model was probably used by priests for consultation and for teaching adivination to their students; the small holes were used to hold a sort of toothpick which recorded on the model the changes in the liver of the sacrificed animal. Nevertheless, the widely-held but mistaken notion that the older the culture the more primitive it must have been has not permitted archeologists to see in the model what is obvious at a glance to anyone who does not share this assumption. That is, that this is a schematic model of the human liver, represented on two levels: a macroscopic and a microscopic level. The macroscopic level shows the shape of the liver with its right and left lobes, its biliar vesicule and supporting ligaments. The microscopic level reproduces schematically the hepatacites - the squares in the model - that is, the cells that comprise the hepatic system, and it also reproduces in cross-section the biliary capillaries - each hole that appears in the model - capillaries which have microscopic dimensions and form a network between the cells. In a few cases the biliary capillaries are depicted inside the cell (the squares); this is meant to show that bile is made by the hepatic cells. What we have, then, is a clay object that reveals a profound knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the human liver, knowledge that our own scientists and doctors have only quite recently acquired. It is certainly not a knowledge possessed by the Sumerians, but it was possessed by gliptolithic humanity.

The scientific information conveyed by the model must have reached the Sumerians or their ancestors in a form similar to that of the model itself, one of the objects made by gliptolithic humanity to leave evidence of his existence and transmit messages to the men of the future. Not understanding what they saw, the Sunerians reasoned much as did the Incas and Pre-Incas: they attributed the designs and the object itself to the authorship of the gods, and deemed it sacred. So as to ingratiate themselves with the gods, they made replicas of the object. The addition of inscriptions and the changing of the placement of some of the holes provide evidence of cultural mestizaje. The truth of the matter is that the archeologists are right, to a point: the practice of adivination using a sheep's liver is ancient, probably originating in the Middle East and spreading to the Mediterranean region; the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans are known to have used it. But what the archeologists ignore is that this form of adivination came about because of the discovery of a scientific message left by an advanced people - gliptolithic humanity - a message that it was inpossible for the Sumerians to penetrate, and so was turned to fraudulent uses, just as sometimes modern men alter, in a strange mixture of admiration and fear, ideas which they do not understand. This form of adivination practiced by the Sumerians is in itself a type of cultural mestizaje; indeed, I think that most of the the beliefs in magic held by ancient peoples were generated in the same fashion: by the discovery of other incomprehensible messages left by gliptolithic humanity.

THE MYSTERY OF ACAMBARO

The North American scientist Charles H. Hapgood, a dedicated archeologist, revealed in 1973 the results of his laborious study of an extraordinary collection of 32,000 artifacts, the property of the German collector Waldemar Julsrud. The collection is composed of ceramics, carved wooden objects, and engraved stones all from the region around Acambaro, in central Mexico (15). Looking at the color reproductions of many of these objects, one notes that the images of human beings do not resemble the inhabitants of the region in particular or the American Indian in general; and the animal images seem to be fantastic, though some species of extinct animals can be discerned. We see oriental, negroid, and Aryan human types, and we see, among the identifiable prehistoric animals, anthropoids, anteaters, crabs, horses, camels, crocodiles, and various species of dinosaur, including the stegasaurus, corinthosaurus, tyranosaurus, plesiosaurus, brontosaurus, and pelicosaurus (Fig. 30, 31, 32, and 33).

For over twenty years archeologists thought these pieces were fakes. In support of this hypothesis they pointed out that 1) never before had so many pieces been found in so small an area; 2) never before had such delicate and fragile objects been preserved underground in such pristine condition; 3) the objects made reference to unknown cultures; 4) the absence of patina and the accumulation of saltpeter was inexplicable, and 5) the depiction of dinosaurs was further proof that the etchings were phony. The suggestion that the pieces were of recent manufacture, and that the person who manufactured them was Odilon Tinajero, a resident of Acambaro, who had sold specimens to the collection with the assurance that they were unearthed by him and his family. But doubts remained: the collection contained pieces that demonstrated considerable knowledge on some themes, such as the customs and legends of the Indian people, and rare and exotic extinct animals; many also showed extraordinary artistic ability. But Odilon Tinajero scarcely knew how to read and write and like the rest of his family had never exhibited any talent for things artistic. Hapgood enlisted the services of a famous expert in the detection of falsifications. It had already been established that the pieces had been fired in an open oven, and given the sheer quantity of pieces that existed, this oven would have had to have been kept going day and night over a long period of time which would in turn have required copious firewood. The investigations carried out by the expert, the municipal authorities, and by a local professor, however, conclude that: 1) Odilon Tinajero did not own an oven; 2) no one had seen smoke that might reveal the functioning of such an oven, and 3) there was not wood sufficient in the area to permit the firing of the thousands of specimens. Beyond this, Odilon Tinajero was selling the pieces at a price which would not have covered the investment needed to fabricate them. Hapgood turned to laboratory analysis in order to try to verify the age of the pieces. The analysis - using radiocarbon dating and the thermoluminescent method - certified that the pieces were old. The first method gave an age of 6,400 to 3,500 years, and the second, for some pieces, an age of 4,500 years. Thus was Hapgood able to demonstrate the archeological value of this incredible collection, ending a long period of doubt and incredulity.

Among Hapgood's conclusions is the notion that the extinct animals and the age of the pieces suggest that the culture of Acambaro predates all others known in America, and that Acambaro culture had an influence on all later cultures. He also thinks that they nay have had a cult of reptiles, evidence of which appears in the collection. He does not argue for the coexistence of extinct animals and man in Acambaro. On this point Hapgood is correct: I think that on the basis of this collection the coexistence of prehistoric animals and the makers of the pieces cannot be postulated and that in all probability the age of the pieces is not greater than that given out in the laboratory report. I believe that this collection provides still more proof of cultural mestizaje between the artifacts of the gliptolithic era and the era of Acambaro man. Acambaro man must have had an oral tradition, and by way of his ancestors he heard of a world in which both man and prehistoric animals lived. This information was probably obtained by his ancestors through some gliptolithic objects, although it is possible that the information was imparted directly from generation to generation since, as we saw in Chapter One, while the splendor of the gliptolithic humanity came to an end, the human genus did not. The cultural mestizaje seen in the pieces from Acambaro can be seen in the alteration of the true morphologies of some men and animals, through the particular filter of the men who created the objects.

Footnotes:

(15) Charles H. Hapgood: Mystery in Acambaro. An account of the ceramic collection of the late Waldemar Julsrud in Acambaro, GTO., Mexico. Printed by Griswold Offset Printing, Inc. Brattlebaro, Vermont 1973.

THE MYSTERY OF OCUCAJE

The checkered history of the Acambaro collection is not unlike the history of the Engraved Stones of Ica, the gliptoliths. Skepticism among archeologists regarding the authenticity of the Acambaro pieces lasted twenty years, and the same skepticism has animated Peruvian archeologists where the gliptoliths are concerned. The difference between the Acambaro and Ica cases is that in the latter case the doubt has not yet been dispelled. Since 1961 when, according to the Peruvian scholar Herman Buse, the engraved stones first appeared in Ocucaje, constant efforts have been made, in vain, to enlist the help of Peruvian archeologists in verifying the authenticity of the stones. First to try were the Soldi brothers, who put together the first collection of stones bought from the huaqueros of Ocucaje. Even though the Soldis mistakenly thought the stones were made by the Incas, this does not diminish the persistence with which they requested official tests to prove what they were already sure of: that the stones were not of recent manufacture. Herman Buse reports in his 1965 book (16) that one of the brothers – Pablo - said that the existence of a thick layer of saltpeter covering the specimens could not be explained except by the passage of considerable time, and he added that the huaqueros who had found the stones were willing to take archeologists to the places were they had been discovered, to show them that this was not a hoax. Buse says that the other brother – Carlos - could not believe that anyone would have gone to the trouble to manufacture the stones only to sell them at the ridiculously low prices which the Soldis had paid. But when Peruvians archeologists heard of the Soldi collection, they immediately assumed a posture of incredulity, and they would not accompany the huaqueros to the excavations. Several years later, in 1966, Santiago Agurto Calvo felt the need to verify the authenticity of the stones that kept appearing in Ica, and he began to carry out excavations, first on his own and later in the company of the archeologist Alejandro Pezzia Assereto, director of the Museo Regional of Ica. Agurto Calvo had a collection of several hundred stones which he had put to test in the laboratories of the Faculty of Mining at the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria.

As we saw in Chapter One, these tests revealed that the stones came from lava layers dating from the Mesozoic era (frau 230 to 63 ruillion years ago), and one feature was the relative softness of the stones surface. Based on this characteristic, Agurto Calvo speculated that the stones may have come from the time of the Incas or Pre-Incas, since the tools used by these cultures would have been capable of executing the engravings on this type of stone. The excavations he made in Pre-Incas graves finally bore fruit: he found two samples, similar to those that made up his collection. This convinced him that there was no doubt as to the authenticity of the stones, and he declared them to be ancient, by virtue of having found specimens next to known remains and ceramics belonging to Pre-Inca man. The newspaper article in which Agurto Calvo reported his labors and his discovery concluded with these words: "To the fundamental question - are they false, or are they real? - which it has been my fortune to be able to answer, other questions flow which are equally provocative but even more difficult to answer. I am certain that the scholars and archeologists of the nation will give them prompt attention which will satisfy our curiosity and enrich the history and culture of Peru" (17). Two years later, in 1968, the archeologist Pezzia Assereto, who had accompanied Agurto Calvo, published a book on the archeology of the province of Ica, in which he makes note of the discovery: "Agurto was able after several attempts to find an engraved stone inside a tomb in the sector of Toma Luz of the Hacienda Callango del Valle in Ica on 20 August 1966... After informing the Museo Regional of Ica of such an important find, Agurto and I made another excavation on 11 September of the same year, in the hill called Uhle of the sector of La Banda in the Hacienda Ocucaje, and we found for the first time an engraved stone inside a tomb of the Paracas culture, a thing I was not expecting, but which proved, by association, the authenticity of these artifacts" (18).

Despite the fact that the Engraved Stones of Ica had been proven to be authentic archeological specimens, the cultural authorities of the central government remained indifferent. The discovery of Agurto Calvo alone should have been sufficient not only for the order to go out that the stones in existing collections be studied immediately, and not only that excavations in search of new specimens should be undertaken, but also that an end should be put to the illegal commerce in the stones. But none of this was done. Not even the collection of Carlos Soldi was studied, and on his death it passed to the Museo Regional of Ica, according to his wishes. It was at this time that I began to dedicate myself to increasing the stones in my own collection, buying specimens from some other collectors in Ica from whom I had acquired the stones I already possessed - and later - them from the huaqueros of Ocucaje.

In 1972 Herman Buse again brought up the issue of the engraved stones, at a moment when many national and foreign archeologists were convening in Lima at the First Congress of Andean Archeology. In an article published in the Lima daily El Comercio, written with the obvious purpose of pointing out to the participants in the Congress their obligation to give an official opinion on the stones in light of the absence of such an opinion so far, Buse discusses the unofficial opinions which had been circulating regarding the archeological validity of the stones. He points to the incredulity of the archeologists, and marshals the arguments of those who believe in the authenticity of the stones, and of those who do not. Buse casts doubt on the latter arguments: "The Cabrera collection, which is on display in the city of Ica, is composed of no fewer than 10,000 of these stones. 10,000 falsifications? Many of them purchased for only a couple of soles? Can such a price be explained given the delicate, complicated, difficult work involved?" (19). He adds: "Other responsible men believe in them, in their legitimacy and certifiable antiquity. For this reason it seems strange that professional archeologists reject theme out of hand." But the experts participating in the Congress paid no attention to Buse, and once more we see the inexplicable lack of interest on the part of archeologists in studying the stones and determining their authenticity.

In December 1974 a Lima daily (20) published a notice from Paris of a recent book by the Frenchman Robert Charroux, a well-known scholar and tireless student of ancient man's life on earth. Charroux, convinced that the origin of die earth is much earlier than the date set by most scientists, devotes a large part of his book to the Engraved Stones of Ica, which he considers the oldest evidence of man's existence on earth. Charroux believes that the Engraved Stones may come from one of the secret sanctuaries where the men who lived on the mysterious, vanished continent of Atlantis left testimonials to their highly sophisticated civilization. The information on the Ica Stones in Charroux's book (21) he gathered on two visits to my museum, in April 1973 and in March 1974. As I have always wanted above all for the Ica Stones to be studied, my museum has had many visitors. In the case of this illustrious scholar - who on his second visit brought along his editor Robert Laffont, of the prestigious house of the sane name, and another French scholar, Francis Maziere - I am convinced that this is one of the most exceptional visitors my museum has ever had.

The same newspaper that had printed the notice of Charroux's book the next day began a six-part series of articles on the Engraved Stones of Ica, (22) based on a long interview that I had given a group of reporters sent by the paper a few days before.

But twenty-two days later the Lima magazine Mundial published a long article seeking to demonstrate that the engraved stones are falsifications. Thirteen of the seventy-two pages in this issue were devoted to the task (23). The article claims that the engraved stones in my museum are not old, but were carved by two peasants who live in the region of Ocucaje: Basilio Uchuya and Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana. The article reports that a group of reporters from the magazine went to the city of Ica and then to Ocucaje they asked the lieutenant governor where Basilio and Irma might be found. 'We gave him the names we had been given in Ica", say the authors. Later they spoke with Basilio Uchuya's wife, who told them: "Several days ago my husband and Senora Aparcana were taken away by the PIP (24) to rake a statement as to whether the stones are false or real. Whether they carved them or found them. My husband told them that all of the stones he sold to Dr. Cabrera he had carved himself. That he hadn't dug them up. In the first chapter of this book, I explained what the word "huaquero" means: one who secretly digs in search of archeological treasures, an activity severely punishable by law; anyone who is caught, goes to jail. It is easy to picture the situation in which Basilio Uchuya and Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana found themselves, facing the question posed by the police as to whether the stone were real or not. To say they were legitimate meant having to admit they had dug them up, obviously from some archeological site, that is, having to admit that they were huaqueros. It is logical that they should answer that they themselves fabricated the stones. This way they can not only avoid jail, sparing themselves and their numerous families (the article says that each has eight children), but can also continue to sell the stones, which they could not do if they admitted that the stones were part of the national patrimony.

The article adds that Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana told the reporters that she and Basilio Uchuya carved the stones and that most of those she carved had been sold to Cabrera Darquea, but that for quite some time she had not sold any to him; the rest were purchased by tourists who came to Ocucaje looking for artifacts. Later, the article stated that Basilio Uchuya told reporters that he also carved stones and sold them to Cabrera Darquea. When Basilio Uchuya was asked whether he and Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana also made the stones sold to tourists, which were still on the market in Ica, lie responded: "Yes. We made all of them ourselves". Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana, according to the article, showed reporters where she obtained the stones to carve. "The workable stone cane from a promontory some 50 meters high, situated about 2 kilometers from her house", the article read. "On our arrival at the site we saw two perforations. Each one was about two meters in diameter and one meter deep, more or less. After half an hour with a pickax, Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana was able to make a hole one meter in diameter and some 50 centimeters deep, at which point she said, "Here's one". It was a stone weighing about 500 grams, about the size of a mandarin orange. "This is all?” we asked. “I already told you that they are getting hard to find”, she said, wiping the sweat from her brow. Now, my collection at the museum numbers 11,000. In the private collections I have seen - even before any recent new acquisitions - there are no less than another 10,000. If we add to this number the specimens that, according to the article, have been sold to tourists and those that still circulate in Ica, as well as those that have left the country - to judge by the declarations of the exporter Marino T. Carcelan, who claims to have exported some 600 stones since 1973 (25) and to judge by a local Ica newspaper article which said in 1973 that it was well-known that many stones had found their way to the U.S. (26) we can estimate that in total 50,000 engraved stones of Ocucaje have been sold. Note in this connection that the place where Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana says she obtained the stone had two small cavities, not counting the one she made in the presence of the reporters. If her statements are correct and she actually carved the immense number of stones she claims to have done, where did she get them? Not, obviously, from these small cavities. I alone possess 11,000 specimens.

To extract merely this quantity would have required a monumental excavation on the order of open pit mines. Moreover, if we remember the size of the stone she extracted after one-half hour of work in front of the reporters - the size of a small orange - meanwhile admitting that the stones were scarce, how can she explain not only the fact that there are 11,000 in my collection, but also the fact that most of mine are hundreds and even thousands of tines bigger than this rock? The article does not report on where Basilio Uchuya supposedly got his stones. But since Basilio Uchuya and Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana declare themselves, according to the article, to be the sole manufacturers of the Engraved Stones of Ica, we can assume that Basilio Uchuya got his stones from the same outcropping that Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana used. Thus my objections to Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana's story hold also for Basilio Uchuya's case. And if both of them were getting the stones from the same place, there is all the more reason to expect that the promontory should have an immense crater, not the two small cavities seen by the reporters.

The article repeats other statements made by Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana and Basilio Uchuya. She states that when she was dedicated full-time to the manufacture of the stones she was producing sane 20-25 pieces the size of an orange each week; Basilio Uchuya says that he began to engrave stones ten years ago, and that in the last two years he hadn't made any, and for that reason had not sold any to Cabrera Darquea. I want to respond to these declarations. If what Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana says were true, she would have been producing an average of three stones per day. Since the article says nothing about the rate of production of Basilio Uchuya, I will assume that he worked at about the same speed. So together they were manufacturing six pieces daily. Since they claim to be the makers of all the engraved stones that left Ocucaje, that is, the makers not only of my stones but of those bought by tourists, those that continue to be sold in Ica, those in the hands of other collectors since 1961, and those that have been exported, we can calculate that if each of them made 25,000 stones, they would have needed twenty-three years to complete the task. Basilio Uchuya says he began engraving ten years before the date of the article, that is, in 1965. But he adds that he had ceased his activity two years earlier, which leaves him eight years of work. This is, of course, quite incompatible with the twenty-three years needed to make his share of the stones. Twenty-three years before would have been 1950, eleven years before, according to the Soldi brothers and Herman Buse, the stones began to appear, another incompatibility. For Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana, who continued to make the stones after Basilio Uchuya quit, twenty-three years of labor would have put her starting date at 1952, also incompatible with the facts of the appearance of the stones.

The incongruities of the declarations given by both individuals are further revealed if we recall that the stones Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana says she made and sold to me were the size of an orange. One trip to my Museum makes clear what I have already mentioned: the majority of the engraved stones that I possess are much larger, some hundreds and some thousands of times larger.

Referring to the collection of engraved stones of Santiago Agurto Calvo, the article says: "Every single one of the engraved stones that Agurto acquired between 1962 and 1966, the year in which his investigations ended, contains representations of regional flora and fauna; both the designs and the themes are very like those that appear in the ceramics and textiles of the cultures of this zone: Nasca, Paracas, Tiahuanaco, Ica, and Inca. These themes, in every case, are flowers, corn, birds, fish, and animals of the region". I cannot but point out the lengths to which the authors seem prepared to go in order to avoid telling the truth about the Engraved Stones of Ica. They hide the fact that, in Agurto's own words (published in the 1966 article I have previously alluded to) (27), there are stones "representing unidentifiable things... fabulous figures and human beings, sometimes alone and sometimes together in elaborate and fantastic compositions". The author's intentions are also manifest in the statement "Agurto Calvo does not wish to comment on the authenticity of the engraved stones of Dr. Cabrera Darquea", which is followed later by "the opinions of reputed experts like Dr. Maria Reiche, Dr. Rosa Fung, and Arq. Santiago Agurto Calvo, are that the stones were engraved by talented artisans of our own tine". Besides making Agurto Calvo party to an opinion which according to the same reporters he did not wish to advance, I must object that neither the doctors Reiche and Fung nor anyone else can argue that the stones of my Museum have been carved during our time, since to date, despite my insistence and that of others that they be examined, not one Peruvian scientist has shown any interest in so doing.

So that the readers of the article would be convinced once and for all that the engraved stones in my museum are of recent manufacture, the authors obtained from Basilio Uchuya a written "confession" that he had made the stones in my collection, knowing full well that he had no choice but to say such a thing if he wished to get out of jail. The text of this "confession" is as follows: 'I, Basilio Uchuya Mendoza, declare that all of Dr. Javier Cabrera's stones were fabricated by me via a system of first burning the stones, then engraving them with a double-bladed knife, then dipping them in clay, then cleaning them with a rag, then blacking them with shoe wax. I have been doing this work since ten years ago, and the only person I have sold my work to in Dr. Cabrera, except that I knew him as Dr. Sotil". If the readers had not by now come to the desired conclusion, the reporters concluded with an unusual statement: that thus "was exposed the existence of a group of artisans of Ica who were the ones who engraved the stones with fabulous designs, at the behest of Cabrera". This statement is nowhere warranted in the testimony given by either Basilio Uchuya or Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana. I

n another part of the article the following dialog between the reporters and Basilio Uchuya is reproduced:

-He knew that you were carving the stones?

-Well, yes, he knew. I told him that I made all of them.

-And he bought them anyway?

-Yes, always.

-And why did he want them if they were engraved by you?

-Well, he told me he wanted them to study them. He said he was doing some kind of study, and he asked me to get him more.

I pause here to make a few observations. In the text of his “confession", Bassilio Uchuya does not say that I knew that he carved the stones, and yet in the dialogue he affirms just that. He also says that "he (meaning myself) asked me to get him more". This too is contradictory, because if I am supposed to know that he was engraving the stones himself, I would not have asked him to "get" me more, but to "make" me more. One asks a person to "get" him more of something if one knows that this person does not make it but knows where to get it. The reporters, possibly startled by this spontaneous information offered by Basilio Uchuya, and forgetting what they had just heard, asked him:

-To get him more instead of make him more?

-To make more, then. It's the same thing, right?

It is impossible not to sense in this dialogue some fear on the part of these simple peasants, and at the same tine to sense that, in order to rid, themselves of such feelings, they thought their only hope was to respond to questions in the manner in which they judge their interrogators wished them to respond. "A few days later", the article reads, "we interviewed Basilio Uchuya again, mainly to retake some photographs from our first visit which had not come out". It adds, "Basilio did not want to say if Dr. Cabrera Darquea had asked him to carve certain designs". This is possibly because by the time of the second interview Basilio Uchuya had begun to feel the oppressive atmosphere lifting.

The article concludes with an interview of the prefect of the department of Ica, the political authority under whose jurisdiction the police serves. Referring to Basilio Uchuya and Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana, he says: "They are simple people, who make their living selling things. We have taken their statements and that's all". Then, in recognition of the fact that police investigations are not always the best way to determine scientific truth, he adds, "On the other matter, that is, the determination of whether the stones were carved by these peasants from Ocucaje or by men who lived thousands of years ago, we cannot take a position. There are other entities charged to establish truth in science, history, and culture in general... I think that the last word in this thorny affair will be given by the experts whom the cultural authorities designate, if they consider this necessary.

This article to which I have had reference was published, as noted above, on 17 January 1975. Two days later, on the nineteenth, the Lima daily Correo published in its supplement an interview with Adolfo Bermudez Jenkis, Director of the Museo Regional of Ica (28). Adolfo Bermudez Jenkis holds, among other opinions, that the Engraved Stone of Ica were made by Basilio Uchuya and his relatives and that it was never necessary to solicit the opinion of an expert because his friend the northamerican John H. Rowe had assured him that the stones were fakes. In 1966, when I was Director of the Casa de Cultura of Ica, I had heard him say that investigations were pointless since a friend of his had told him the stones were carved by the huaqueros of Ocucaje. But this was the first time that I had heard him name his friend and name the alleged author of the engravings. To declare in public that the opinion of a specialist is not needed and thus to assume that the stones are fakes is to be anti-scientific.

But there is more. It is strange that in thirteen pages which Mundial devoted to the engraved stones, there are offered, as examples of the innumerable stones that Basilio Uchuya and Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana supposedly carved, only seven photographs of the same stone. It is also strange that the opinions of Adolfo Bernudez Jenkis, published only two days later, should also be illustrated with only two photographs, of a single stone. But this perplexity begins to clear and reveal the true shape of things when we discover that the stone in the Mundial photos is the same one as in the Bernudez Jenkis article. Moreover, both publications have used the same photographs.

In five places in the world scientists have found parts of the earth's oldest layers. One of the places is Nasca, in the south of the province of Ica, and on this ancient portion of the earth are situated many of the zones in the department of Ica, including Ocucaje. For many years now the peasants of Ocucaje have known that the earth holds countless graves belonging to ancient cultures that lived in the region, and so one of the principal activities of the peasantry has been excavation in search of archeological treasures, which they then sell. Some of the best ceramics and textiles shown in the museums of the world come from Ocucaje, and the region is one of the most important archeological sites in Peru. Ocucaje is also a region rich in petrified remains of prehistoric animals. The prestigious archeologist Max Uhle called Ocucaje the paradise of archeology.

The first engraved stones appeared in 1961, and the first to collect them, the Soldi brothers, got them from the peasants of Ocucaje. Because the region has so many Inca and Pre-Inca graves, it was originally believed that the stones ware products of these cultures. But this is not so.

As regards the discoveries of fine ceramics and textiles in Inca and Pre-Inca graves, I have given an explanation: these ware made by gliptolithic humanity, and the cruder specimens ware made by the Incas and Pre-lncas. Where designs and symbols of gliptolithic origin are reproduced on primitive ceramics and textiles, we have evidence of cultural mestizaje, or gliptolithic mestizaje. I have also explained that for good reason gliptolithic man used stone to document his existence and leave his messages, burying these documents in the most stable regions of the earth, cushioned by layers of sand. The presence of engraved stones in Inca and Pre-Inca graves is similarly explained. It is possible that the Incas and Pre-Incas found a deposit of engraved stones and removed - along with the finest ceramics, textiles, gold pieces, and carved wood also made by gliptolithic humanity - only a few specimens. It is logical that since they did not understand the symbols and some of the figures on the stones, they should imagine that they were the work of the gods, that they should have considered them sacred and made them objects of veneration. Their presence in the graves shows the desire of the deceased for sacred objects to accompany him on his trip to the afterlife. But some Incas and Pre-Incas also carved their own stones in imitation of the gliptolithic pieces. Thus, in Inca and Pre-Inca graves there are two types of engraved stones: those made by gliptolithic humanity, with figures and symbols that record his achievements - scientific, technological, and human - and stones engraved by Incas and Pre-Incas. This latter type takes three forms: 1) faithful and complete copies of gliptolithic pieces, which I also call gliptolithic, and which are evidence of cultural mestizaje; 2) stones that refer only to the simple life and habitat of the Incas and Pre-Incas; and 3) stones that mix gliptolithic figures and symbols with elements of the life of the Inca or Pre-Incas, another form of gliptolithic mestizaje. Based on the large number of stones (50,000 not counting those still being sold) possessed by a large number of people, and based also on the two rare engraved stones found in 1966 in Pre-Inca tombs in Ocucaje, after a slow, exhaustive excavation carried out by Santiago Agurto Calvo and Alejandro Pezzia Assereto, I can say that the Engraved Stones of Ica come only very infrequently from Inca and Pre-Inca tombs; instead, nearly all come from the original deposits made by gliptolithic man. I think these deposits must be very close to Ocucaje, and that some of the peasants who search for archeological pieces found them.

The stones are sold in Ocucaje, a small village made up of a scattering of houses, some made of came covered with clay, and other of adobe. Only a few of the peasants who live here sell stones. That those who do sell them do so out of their hones has led to the belief that this is a local handicraftsman. That they are sold with the sheen and color given by a layer of shoe-wax has reinforced this belief (29). Finally, that the sellers often find it expedient to claim to be the manufacturers of the stones has also served to make this belief widespread. Nevertheless, all this is just the result of a clever deception invented by interested parties to promote the idea that the stones are not archeologically significant, so they can be sold freely. Faced with my insistence that scientific studies be realized on the subject of the stones, so as to put an end to illegal commerce in them, the deception had to take another tack: it was arranged that the campesinos produce a few stones, in the presence of those who are neophytes in the process, so that they would bear witness to the "fact" that all of the Engraved Stones of Ica are of recent manufacture.

Everything appears to have been thought of. The type of stone used by gliptolithic man can be found, although it is scarce, in the zone of Ocucaje, so the peasants use it for their demonstrations; it can be carved with any hard object. But since this stone is scarce, they have also been obliged to use gliptoliths. They rub out the engravings and then the gliptolith can be re-engraved in a demonstration before unsuspecting witnesses. Other times they use common river rocks, abundant in river beds, which are extraordinarily hard. To make incisions on them, steel knives are necessary. But in both types of stone the work of the campesinos reveals lack of skill, extreme simplicity, and shallow incisions. Moreover, any laboratory analysis will show that these false engraved stones lack the film of oxidation - the layer of age - that covers the engravings of the authentic specimens. But the clever deception goes even farther: beside gliptolithic designs and symbols, the modern artisans add their initials, dates, drawings of modern thing, and sometimes phrases that pretend to allude to the figures. The result is unusual juxtaposition, such as a dinosaur next to a bus or a bottle.

By these means, the peasants of Ocucaje engrave a few stones which they present as evidence that all of the authentic gliptoliths are of recent manufacture. Thus they manage to ridicule the idea that these might be records left by a people that lived in the remote past, and make it possible at the same time to sell them freely in the marketplace. The photographs of the - only stone with which Mundial illustrated its article and Correo illustrated the interview with the Director of the Regional Museum of Ica - in both cases, as we have seen, meant to show that the stones were made by the peasants of Ocucaje, show only a stone that has clearly been falsified in order to fool the non-specialist. The artist has tried to imitate the gliptolithic symbolism, but without an understanding of the system of expression used by gliptolithic man, the result is meaningless; what was evidently meant to be the head of a man comes out as a combination animal and human skeleton (Figs. 34 - 35).

In January 1975 the Lima daily La Prensa published a statement by Marino T. Carcelen, an exporter of Engraved Stones of Ica. The article says that, in the judgment of Sr. Carcelen, the Engraved Stones of Ica are merely artisanry, that he himself had seen them made, and in order to dispel any doubt about the modernity of the stones he exports, he has them signed by Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana. But the article points out a contradiction which sheds doubt on the utility of the signature as a means of proving recent manufacture. "Nevertheless, one must observe that the symbol used as a signature, and which appears on all the stones shown to us, gives the impression at times of having been inscribed with another instrument or at a different time from the engraving itself, since the strokes and color are slightly different, in some stones at least" (30). The article adds that Marino T. Carcelen stated that he had been exporting stones since 1973, with the authorization of the National Institute of Culture (31). This statement is accompanied by a photograph of a document authorizing Sr. Carcelen to export engraved stones.

I do not believe that the peasants who openly sell engraved stones of Ocucaje are the same ones who found the deposits used by gliptolithic humanity to preserve the stones. Those who know where the deposits are, who remove the stones and take them to the village, have two immediate goals: to maintain the fiction that they are the product of local artisanry, and to maintain the secret of the location of the deposits. Nor do I believe that these two groups of peasants are the only ones with a stake in the continued, unquestioned sale of stones. They must be merely the pawns of a larger organization whose leaders have devised this whole charade worthy of a mafia to which, poisoned by greed, it does not matter that they are destroying not only the archeological patrimony of Peru, but the cultural patrimony of the whole world. This is not my imagination. There are unquestionable signs. The reporters who wrote the article in Mundial did not go directly to Ocucaje, first they talked to someone in the city of Ica who have them the names of the supposed artisans whom they should interview, as the article says. Who is this person? The fact that the magazine published photos of a single faked stone shows that they did not find thousands of stones whose origin could be attributed to the supposed artisans; if they had found them they would surely have photographed them. In the report published in Correo which contains the opinions of Adolfo Bemudez Jenkis, Director of the Museo Regional of Ica, photos of the same stone were used. Who has provided the same photo to two different newspapers whose articles have the same purpose? By whose orders? Finally, the words chosen by Enrique Egoaguirre, Prefect of the Department of Ica, are revealing. After indicating, as regards Basilio Uchuya and Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana, that "we took their statements and that's all", he adds, "[we did this] despite the fact that there are people interested in the case. People who have even called me from Lima to say to me, 'Why don't you do this or that?’" To whom is the Prefect referring? To answer these questions would not only lead us to those who are so interested in the undisturbed freedom to sell authentic archeological treasures, but would also lead us to the deposits from which the stones continue to be extracted. Thus could the mystery of Ocucaje truly be solved.

THE SECRET OF THE INCAS

Surprisingly, the Incas, who did not invent the wheel, had a rather advanced system of socio-political organization. The history of the Incas is well-known, so I want here merely to point out that the basis of the Inca empire, agriculture, was organized in such a manner as to provide for any possible contingency. Methods of irrigation and cultivation complemented this system of production.

By studying some of the scientific and technological methods recorded on stone and other materials by gliptolithic humanity, it is possible that the Incas may have gotten information which helped further the designs of the empire. Since I believe that the Pre-Inca cultures also had access to the gliptolithic deposits, I cannot be sure that the Incas knew of these deposits by independent discovery or by information passed down from previous societies. Neither am I in a position to state whether gliptolithic humanity buried the stones along with objects made of other materials, or whether the stones had their own separate deposits. In either case, the wise men of the empire - the amautas - must have played an important role in the reading and study of the testimonials left by gliptolithic humanity, especially the stones. But in the end, the amautas belonged to an incipiently scientific and technological civilization, and they necessarily had a limited conceptual framework; they could take from the stones only what was within the range of their understanding. Most of the stones, then, could not be deciphered. However, since the information they could interpret was put to use in the organization of the empire, it is possible that only the highest ranking members of the governing elite - the Inca himself, his immediate descendants and the first amautas - would have had access to the deposits, so as to keep their location a secret. Amazed by the nature of the information, the members of the governing elite asked themselves who were the men who had created the engraved stones. The figure of the gliptolithic man that can be seen in many stones began to be identified as the image of an exceptional being, of superior intelligence, who represented what in many cases they could not understand and in other cases revealed that he was an extremely powerful being. They saw him in the stones fighting with gigantic monsters, easily dominating and killing them. They saw him in enormous birds, flying. They saw him alongside the stars. They saw him sailing on the ocean. They saw him on land, riding animals they had never seen. The nature of the knowledge left by this being prevented them from thinking of him as a god; it was a knowledge based on the things of this world, knowledge for a better life. Who better than they to take advantage of this knowledge, at least that part of it which they could understand. They arrived at the conclusion that this was a man. But they understood that it was not just any man; it was a man who had known and conquered many things that they hadn't known or conquered. It was, then, an extremely powerful man, who must have lived in this same region many thousands of years ago. In sum - reasoned the governing elite - this was a man who had departed and whose descendants - equally powerful men - might return at any moment.

But the governing elite never forgot that the coexistence of this man with the monstrous, unknown animals seen in some stones could conjure up for simpler minds the image of a divine being, capable of inspiring respect and terror. And so they decided to use this image to reinforce the power of the Inca over his subjects. The stones were put on display before the people. The images were accompanied by the idea that this was a god who had come from the sea and had lived in these lands and that one day he would return, coming again from the sea. His name was Wiracocha (32). And all this was accompanied by another idea: that the Inca was the descendant of this god.

To reinforce this idea, the Inca began to wear ornaments on his head that looked like the symbolic elements used to identify gliptolithic men in the stones: a band with feathers (since these looked like leaves). The respect for and fear of the god Wiracocha were extended to the Inca. Thus the principle of submission to authority had an element od divine ordinance.

It is possible that many of the legends of the Quechua people, which weave together stories of hideous monsters and man, nay have had their origin in this time. They recount deeds inspired by the admiration and fear on the Inca people, for this strange being whom they did not completely understand, but whom they believed was a superior being - a god - in the remote past. I think that all this happened if not with the first Inca then with one of the first. From that time and for all the time the Incas remained in power, the god Wiracocha and the strange mix of hope and fear with which his return was awaited was inscribed in the heart of the people.

The goal of gliptolithic humanity - to develop thought capacity to increase and conserve knowledge - was, of course, quite far removed from the goal of the Inca empire. Certainly in the stones, especially that relating to social norms, to forms of labor organization, and to territorial limits which assured good access to natural and human resources. But their goal was different: to make use of the mass of people for the benefit of a privileged minority made up of the Inca, the nobility, the priests, and the intellectual elite at the service of power. But this privilege was not limited to the Cusco elite. When the Incas expanded their empire and conquered the rest of the kingdoms and nationalities existent in the territory of Peru, the regional elites kept their privileges so that they could act as intermediaries of power, to help dominate the majority and use their labor for the good of the Cusco elite. The region of the Inca Pachacutec saw most of the expansion of the empire and was the period of the highest levels of organization and the greatest development of the empire.

The Indian chronicler Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Llaraqui wrote in the sixteenth century that at the time of the Inca Pachacutec many carved stones were found in the kingdom of Chincha, in Chinchayunga, which were called manco (33).

Today it is believed that manco or manku is a corruption of the Aymara word malku, which in the region of Collao was used to mean chieftain or lord of vassals. I infer then that manco or manku meant a person who held command or power. In reference to engraved stones, it would have meant that the stones spoke of the existence of a being of extraordinary power (powerful man, for the Inca and his governing elite; powerful god, for the rest of the people), and would at the same time have lent an aura of power to the possessor of the stones, the Inca. I would also like to point out the relationship between the Quechua word capa or kapa, meaning "outstretched hand" (a word that with slight orthographic alteration makes up the name of the first Inca, Manco Capac) and one of the characteristics of the gliptolithic symbolism: generally a man is depicted with his hands outstretched, especially in important representations. In "Chinchayunga" the Indian chronicler was no doubt referring to the low country of the central coast of Peru, where Ica is located.

There is a well-known Quechua legend which has as protagonists the Inca Pachacutec and a young woman called Achirana, daughter of a landowner in the zone of Tate, the high country of the valley of Ica. The legend is known as "La Achirana del Inca" and relates that on one of the Inca's visits to this valley he met the girl and fell hopelessly in love with her. Knowing that the lands owned by her father did not reach to the waters of the Ica River, he ordered a huge canal to be dug to connect the river with these much-higher lands in Tate, and by this means the landholder was able to get water. This canal, which still exists and makes up one of the branches of the Ica River is called Achirana. I am convinced that this legend deliberately obscures a truth. The love of Pachacutec for Achirana was not the reason why this branch of the Ica River was created. Like all coastal rivers in Peru, the Ica River is treacherous in the summer because of heavy mountain rains, and many a time it overflows its banks and floods large areas causing extensive damage, especially where the river bed is shallow in the plains of La Banda, Ocucaje, Callango, Chiquerillo, Tomaluz, Ullujaya, Montegrande. As Inca, Pachacutec knew where the deposits of gliptoliths lay - obviously in that flat zone, where Ocucaje is - and he feared that periodic inundations would erode the deposits and destroy the stones. To avert this danger, at least in part, he ordered a canal to be dug which would divert some of the river's waters at a spot many kilometers above the danger zone. Not only do I not believe that the reason for the canal was that given in the legend, but I doubt there was ever any love between Pachacutec and Achirana, this was only a story put together by the Incas and his advisors to hide the real reason for the canal. I base this disbelief on the fact that in neither history, tradition, or legend is there any suggestion of Pachacutec's descendants in the region of Ica. I also base my opinion on the fact that this region, so flat as to make the river overflow easily, was covered until many years after the arrival of the Spaniards with immense forests of huarango, a tree with a heavy trunk and spiny branches. In other words, this whole flat region, that begins about three kilometers to the south of the city of Ica and extends to the southwest for more or less sixty kilometers, was not cultivated and was, in fact, impenetrable. The presence of this forest no doubt owes to the desire of the Inca - Pachacutec or one of the earlier Incas - to protect the region from wanderers who might stumble upon the deposits of gliptoliths. The disappearance of these forests took centuries. Once the vice-regal capital was established in Peru, thousands of these trees were cut, and the wood was put to multiple uses in other parts of Ica province. But even so, the forests were far from being exhausted. In the nineteenth century they provided most of the railroad ties and fuel for the line from Ica to Pisco, sane seventy kilometers to the north of the city of Ica; they also provided the stakes for vineyards and raw material for the coal industry. It was precisely the cutting of the forest that, toward the end of the nineteenth century, permitted the region to be seen for what it is, an archeological paradise. The total disappearance of these forests to clear land for crops is a quite recent phenomenon.

It is clear that the Inca elite hid the truth about the Engraved Stones from the people. They kept to themselves the fact that the engravers of the stones had simply been more highly evolved in a cognitive sense, that the stones contained valuable information about science and technology and not about the things of the gods. Making use of the depiction of the strange men's coexistence with frightening animals, the elite made of him something to be feared, a supernatural being who would return, and from whom the Inca was descended. Thus arose what I consider the greatest myth to dominate the minds of the people of ancient Peru. Since the deception about the meaning of the stones was used to reinforce the power of the Inca over his people, it was crucial that the people not find the deposits of gliptolithic stones, lest they discover the deception and the Inca lose his power over them. So, the Inca Pachacutec and his advisors had good reason to keep secret the real motive behind the excavation of the huge canal, and they invented a non-existent motive: the Inca's love for Achirana. As happens in every myth, real facts, deeds, and circumstances were molded into a fabulous form. The existence of the dry Lands of Tate, the existence of the young girl Achirana and her beauty, the existence of her father the chieftain of Tate, the existence of the Ica River, and the existence of the canal that was dug are all facts. Thus, "La Achirana del Inca" is a regional myth born of the need to protect a national myth: the great myth of the powerful god Wiracocha.

GLIPTOLITHIC MEDICINE

In many of the engraved stones or gliptoliths in my possession and in other examples that I have been able to see in private collections, it is observed that the gliptolithic humility has left testimony of a vast and deep knowledge of medical science. The information that is revealed through the figures and symbols in the engravings deals with different aspects of this science, not the least of which is surgery. I have in my possession series of engravings stones that attest to the fact that the gliptolithic humanity was able to solve problems in this area that still baffle our present culture. Groups of gliptoliths that constitute series reveal information about techniques used to anesthetize, about difficult and abnormal births, about organ transplants (cerebral hemispheres, heart, spleen, liver, kidney and stomach), about facial surgery, etc.

Given this vast information about medicine, and especially about gliptolithic medicine, the study of which would require extensive treatment, I will limit myself in this book to showing what the gliptolithic humanity shows us about anaesthetizing techniques, about the transplant of cerebral hemispheres and the heart, and about the menstrual cycle of the woman. The information revealed as to this latter subject is not contained in stone engravings but rather on a golden "turn" inlayed with precious stones. Objects of this type are erroneously attributed to the Inca and Pre-Inca civilizations, and it is also erroneously asserted that they were used for ceremonial purposes as well as for surgical operations. As has been mentioned before, the gliptolithic humanity used different materials to leave testimony to their achievements. In addition I will reveal the existence of an anti-rejection hormone and the double transplant of the kidney with the adrenal gland. This double transplant and the use of the anti-rejection hormone constituted procedures that were used in the phase previous to the transplant of organs, with the purpose of preparing the organism of the receptor of the transplant to not reject the new organ.

I would like to issue a warning once more that in the gliptolithic writings not all the figures look exactly like that which they represent: they are symbols and thus are sometimes very different from the physical likeness of the model. With respect to the figurformation about this topic is contained in a series made up of various gliptoliths that I possess, from which I will show only two that illustrate, like all those in the series, two methods of anaesthetization. Given the innumerable gliptoliths that remain to be studied it is possible that the gliptolithic humanity would have known other methods.

ANAESTHETIC BY ACCUPUNCTURE In a gliptolith approximately one meter in diameter, of a dark color, with figures that have been engraved using the deep scoring technique, the figures of a woman and two men can be seen (Fig. 36). The predominance of the stomach, the swelling of the breasts and the figure of a child across the lower part of the abdomen indicate that the engraving refers to a woman pregnant with a mature fetus. The transverse position of the fetus and the cutting instrument that one of the men holds over the woman's stomach signify, respectively, that the woman is undergoing a caesarean operation and that the man is a surgeon. The other man's involvement in the surgical operation is revealed, by his action of touching the patient with outstretched hands, signifying that he is also a surgeon. The leaf - a symbol of life - that this surgeon holds in his mouth, and the other leaf that symbolizes the cutting instrument, indicate that the fetus is alive. The leaf that appears above the woman's head indicates that she too is alive. If it is observed that this leaf as well as the band that surrounds the woman's head are filled with diamond shaped figures, we find that this is a symbol of animal life, just as it is indicated in the gliptolithic key. This symbol, applied to a human being, could easily be misinterpreted. However, if we reflect on the characteristics of animal life we find that the animal, unlike the man, is not conscious of many things because it is not able to understand them. This symbol is thus used in regard to the woman to symbolize a temporary state of unconsciousness, and this leads me to affirm that this state is the result of the fact that she is anaesthetized for the caesarean operation. The three needles in the woman's mouth are the instruments with which the anaesthetization has been achieved, and suggest the use of acupuncture. That they are in the woman's mouth is a symbol that the needles have worked on nervous centers found in the cavity of the mouth to anaesthetize her. The presence of needles in the mouth of one of the surgeons simply indicates that he is the one who has anaesthetized her. Observe that this surgeon carries two half-leaves on his head. It is to be remembered that these constitute the first group of the symbolic complex that when carried on the head refer to the scientific and reflective man, and that these two half-leaves are also the symbol of an unknown mechanism that permitted this man to stimulate his powers of knowledge and also to convert solar and cosmic energy directly into electronic energy in order to use it for the running of instruments and appliances. It will also be observed that the surgeon to whom I am referring also has the lines that symbolize the leaf on his arms. This indicates that the surgeon, through the use of the unknown mechanism represented by the half-leaves on the head, is obtaining electronic energy by conversion of solar and cosmic energy, which he is transmitting to the arms to apply to the use of the cutting instrument. This instrument must consequently be an electric scalpel. The squares that fill the cutting instrument are a symbol of human life - as I have mentioned in the key to the gliptoliths - which in this case indicates that this instrument is to play an important role in saving a human life. Finally, the arrow that is observed signaling the lower abdomen of the woman signifies that the incision will be made from this point down, that is, following the technique of the middle infraumbilical lapesarean operation.

Whatever I have described is the first stage of a cesarean operation represented on six gliptoliths. I have omitted the other stages because it was my only interest to show the different ways used to anaesthetize (34).

ANESTHETIC BY GAS

The representation of the caesarean operation has been found in another series of gliptoliths made up of five stones of a dark color. Like the previous series, the figures and symbols have been engraved using the deep scoring method, but one of the elements that makes this a particularly interesting description of a caesarean is the method used to anaesthetize the patient. This method can be seen in a gliptolith approximately eighty centimeters in diameter in the presence of an undulating figure that touches the mouth of the patient (Fig. 37). Observe that the undulating figure has a segment full of rhomboids shapes, symbols of animal life, which in this case signifies (as was explained in the previous section) that the woman is in an unconscious state. This means that she has been anaesthetized. Observe, also, that in the other segment of the undulating figure a figure of small circles has been drawn that looks like small bubbles. We are dealing here with a symbol that signifies a gaseous liquid, from which I deduce that the anesthetic used was a gas, although I ignore its nature. In this gliptolith, as in the previous one, the surgeon uses an electric scalpel. However, the electronic energy that is used to power this instrument that reaches it through contact with the surgeons hands (according to the symbols inscribed on the surgeons arms), has not been obtained through the use of the unknown mechanism represented symbolically by the two half-leaves; the surgeon does not have this symbol. The figure of what seems to be an eel - a fish that is characterized by its ability to let off powerful electric charges - touching the head of the surgeon, I interpret as an external source of electronic energy: from this source cones the energy to power the scalpel. The scene represents an advanced stage of the caesarean operation, for the infant is being extracted from the abdominal cavity. The small human figure that appears below does not signify another infant that has been extracted. Observe the peculiarities of this figure: it has eleven pyramids on its body. I should be remembered that according to the key to the symbols of the gliptoliths the pyramid is a symbol of a complex mechanism for the attraction, accumulation and distribution of energy. The idea of energy that these pyramids on this small human figure suggest may be interpreted as biological human energy. The number of pyramids signifies simply the amount of time that the infant has been accumulating biological energy in the mother's womb, that is, the gestation period. And since there are eleven pyramids, the gestation period has been eleven months (Fig. 36). Thus we are informed that the caesarean operation represented in the gliptolith has taken place to extract a hypermature fetus that has exceeded the normal period of gestation.

ORGAN TRANSPLANT

When the life of a man is in danger because of the malfunctioning of one or more internal organs, then the science of medicine is faced with the problem of bringing the organ back to its normal function. When all resources that may be used to restore the deficient organ had been attempted, contemporary medicine has discovered no recourse but to replace the defective organ. The replacement or transplant of organs (biological therapy), is a recent development in medical science. Only as late as three decades ago were transplant methods beginning to be used. Transplants of the kidney, the heart, liver and lung are made, but the failures that have occurred in the blood and the tissues of the receptor with the donor, and by recurring to certain substances that repress the immunological reactions of the receptor's organism to the presence of a foreign organ. Up to now it has only been able to extend the period before the inevitable rejection of the organ. The transplant in which the rejection has been most success fully postponed is the kidney. The medical literature speaks of several thousands of people that live with transplanted livers and cites the case of some who have lived as long as fifteen years after the transplant.

PREVIOUS PHASE: ANTI-REJECTION HORMONE

Based on the reading and interpretation of certain gliptoliths I can affirm that the scientists of the gliptolithic culture solved the problem of the rejection of transplanted organs. In some cases the problem was solved using the blood of a pregnant woman and in others by the additional transplant of the kidneys and the adrenal glands. Both methods were used before the transplant of the organ. The receptor of the organ transplant received the blood of the pregnant woman and the organ to be transplanted was irrigated with the blood of the same woman before the operation took place. This information appears in the figures and symbols of two gliptoliths, in one of which the blood transfusion can be seen and in the other the irrigation of the organ. In the first case the information is contained in a dark colored gliptolith approximately ninety centimeters in diameter and in which the figures and symbols are engraved using the deep scoring technique. On one of its surfaces a pregnant woman may be seen having blood extracted out of her forearm, at the height of the blood vessels, through an instrument that is connected to what seems to be a container in the shape of a ball (Fig. 38). The presence of small circles inside the container representing bubbles seems to indicate that the blood deposited there was receiving a gas under pressure that is probably oxygen, through the action of a special instrument represented symbolically by a pear-shaped figure situated at the mouth of the ball. The oxygen would be used for the purpose of enriching the blood to be used in the transfusion with this gas, and the pressure would be used for the purpose of facilitating the circulation of the blood. On the other surface of this gliptolith the receiver of the blood transfusion can be observed, judging by the arrow which I understand to indicate the direction of the blood flow (Fig. 39). He is receiving the blood in the forearm at the height of the major vessels. Observe that the receiver of the blood has traced at the level of the ear a segment of parallel lines, which is a symbol of vegetable life (as has been established in the section dealing with the key to the gliptolithic symbols). This I interpret to mean that the individual receiving the blood exists at this point with a minimum of biological potential, that is, he is a vegetable. This idea is further emphasized in the bundle of lines that come out of his mouth, as I understand these to signify that the individual is losing biological energy. In contrast the woman has at the level of the ears a segment full of rhombs-like figures (Fig. 38). These are the symbols of animal life. In relation to vegetable life, animal life has much more biological energy. Consequently, in this case the rhombs-like figures signify the contribution of vital energy that comes from the blood of the pregnant woman. This idea is further emphasized by the leaf - a symbol of life - that is in the lower left of the scene in which the receiving individual is pictured (Fig. 39). The position of the leaf signals that the vital energy cones from the blood of the woman in the previous scene.

The irrigation of the organ with blood from the pregnant woman, before being transplanted can be seen in a gliptolith that is dark of about one meter at its widest diameter, whose pictures and symbols have been made by means of a deep drawn line with cut downs of the bottom in order to have pictures and symbols surpassed (Fig. 40). This gliptoliths is part of a series which informs about heart transplant. I only own eight of them. On the gliptoliths there is, as a most noticeable picture, a representation of an anatomical heart connected by two cannulas to a woman's abdomen. The woman's prominent breast reveals us a pregnant woman. The tubes are connected to the heart at the principle blood vessels of this organ: the coronary artery and the veinous gap. The lower extremes of the two tubes seem to me to be connected to the two principle abdominal blood vessels: the aortal artery and the main vein. It seems, then, that a circuit has been established between the heart and the circulatory system of the pregnant woman, for the purpose of irrigating the heart with blood. The use of the woman's blood is only possible if the heart is functioning. Therefore, the heart that we see on the stone must have been extracted from another individual. That it appears with its major veins cut (aortal artery, pulmonary artery, and pulmonary veins) signifies that it is going to be transplanted to another individual. For this purpose it is maintained irrigated by the blood of the woman. Under the arms of one of the surgeons a figure in the shape of a suction instrument can be seen attached to the woman's abdomen. This figure suggests the idea that blood is being extracted from her to be stored. The rhombs shapes on the suction instrument are a symbol of animal life, as has been mentioned. Given that animal life has an energy potential much greater than vegetable life, I think these rhombs indicate that the blood that is being transferred is arterial and not veinous, for it is known that arterial blood contains a high percentage of oxygen and nutritive substances as compared to veinous blood. The use to which this blood is put will be revealed later when the transplant of organs is discussed.

I have stated than the blood of the pregnant woman was used in the phase prior to a transplant with the purpose of avoiding the rejection of the transplanted organ. The lecture and interpretation of the gliptoliths at hand has led me to this conclusion, which surprises me given that contemporary medicine prohibits the donation of blood by pregnant women of embryo. But it is not unscientific to think that with the information presented on these gliptoliths that I have just presented gliptolithic medicine is indicating that an active substance exists in the blood of pregnant women that prevents the rejection of the transplanted organ. I deduce this from the fact that the body of the pregnant woman tolerates the presence of an individual - the fetus - which is the product of a different genetic code from hers that has been transmitted in the chromosomes of the nucleus of the spermatozoids. This tolerance to foreign objects manifests itself from the moment that this strange element enters her body in the form of the spermatozoids. It is known that the body of the women periodically produces an ovule that is deposited in the fallopian tube. If the ovule does not come into contact with the spermatozoid, then it is eliminated days later along with the uterine mucus membrane. The phenomenon of the elimination of this mucus membrane produces a hemorrhage called menstruation. On the other hand, if the ovule unites with the spermatozoid it is fertilized and thus the egg is formed that will attach itself to the uterine mucus membrane to initiate the embryo gestation period. It is also known that when the ovule exist from the ovary, progesterone, the hormone that allows the egg to be admitted and not rejected by the woman's organism, is produced in the intrauterine mucus membrane. The ovary produces progesterone only in the initial phase of the gestation period; afterwards the placenta produces the hormone until the gestation period is over. But the progesterone, both from the ovary or from the placenta, fulfills its function through the blood stream. This leads me to think that it is possible that the scientists of the gliptolithic humanity may have indicated, through the gliptoliths described, that in the blood of a pregnant woman there exists an active substance that prevents a transplanted organ been the methods which gliptolithic medicine used to apply this active substance or unknown hormone to prevent the rejection of the transplanted organ, but rather that they are gross symbols that suggest that this hormone contained in the blood of a pregnant woman had indeed been isolated a was applied artificially to the receiver of the transplant as well as to the organ being transplanted. However, it is still possible that through the simply transfusion and irrigation described the sane goal may have been achieved. And, although it is not expressed in the symbolism, it is not unthinkable that this active substance or unknown anti-rejection hormone may have also been used to prevent abortion.

To avoid the rejection of the transplanted organ, gliptolithic medicine also had access to another method: that of previously transplanting the kidney and its adrenal glands, belonging to the donor of the organ to be transplanted. But, judging by the information on the gliptoliths, this method was mainly used when it was the cerebral hemispheres that were to be transplanted and also when cognitive codes were to be transplanted. Based on the information that has been set down in a gliptolith about the transplant of cognitive codes and on experiments that have been performed by neurophysiologists on animals, I deduce that the cognitive codes would be molecular structures of nucleic acids and proteins, that would constitute the physical basis of knowledge (For transplants of cognitive codes see Chapter VII).

The transplant of the kidney with the adrenal gland (the adrenal gland-kidney complex), appears graphically represented in the first six gliptoliths of a series of eleven that have information concerning the transplant of cerebral hemispheres. All the gliptoliths of this series are dark in color, with a diameter varying between one meter and eighty centimeters and with figures and symbols engraved using the deep score method. In one of them the transplant of the adrenal gland-kidney complex can be seen taking place (Fig. 41). From the other gliptoliths it can be deduces that the individual receiving the transplant is going to have his cerebral hemispheres removed to receive a transplant of a new brain, and is receiving this initial transplant of the adrenal gland-kidney complex from the same donor of the new cerebral hemispheres. The figure appearing above the receiver of the transplant and connected by its most narrow part to the adrenal gland-kidney complex suggests it is an instrument used to keep the organ complex irrigated until the moment of transplant. A group of small squares - a symbol of human life or reflective capacity, as was mentioned when elucidating the key to the gliptolithic symbols - is inscribed on a section between the adrenal gland-kidney complex and the narrowest extreme of the container of blood. This indicates that this is an instrument made by man to connect the container to the artero-veinous system of the adrenal gland-kidney complex; an instrument that will have to be removed when the artero-veinous system of the complex is connected to the corresponding arteries of the individual receiving the transplant. Observe the figure that appears below the receiver of the transplant, connected to him at the height of the "arteria radial" on his arm. Symbolically this represents an artificial kidney, obviously with the purpose of supplying for a brief period the functions of a normal kidney that has been extracted to be replaced by the other.

Contemporary medicine has confirmed that the outside surface of the adrenal gland is essential to life because it excretes hormones that fulfill extremely important functions. One of its hormones stimulates all the cells of the human organism and others neutralize toxins. Since this function of stimulating the cells simply assures that they function normally, it is of my understanding that such a natural phenomenon of the organs not being rejected by men's own body might be possible thanks to this hormone's function. This would explain the fact that gliptolithic surgery had considered as indispensable the brain hemispheres transplant from one human being to another; transplanting previously the kidney with its corresponding suprarenal gland from the same human being to whom the cerebral hemispheres had been extracted. Besides, the fact that gliptolithic surgery had considered this previous transplant only when transplanting cerebral hemispheres, it is also explained by the well known fact that the tissue of the nervous system is the most sensible and thus most prone to be rejected in the case of a transplant. But there are other well known facts from contemporary medicine that could justify the additional transplant of the kidney with its suprarenal gland: namely, the increase in volume of this gland during the beginning of the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. I deduce that this increase in volume indicates that the suprarenal gland increases its level of secretion of the hormone that stimulates the cells of an organism, with the purpose of not only enhancing the acceptance of foreign cells (the spermatozoid and its corresponding genetic code), but also during pregnancy of enhancing the acceptance of a foreign organism, the fetus, a product of two different genetic codes. The inclusion of the kidney in this transplanted is justified not only by the fact that it is the organ in charge of eliminating the final products of the metabolic process, (toxics and waste materials), but also because of all the organs that are transplanted today, the kidney is the one that responds most favorably. This fact, and the fact that the suprarenal gland excretes antitoxic hormones, permits us to understand why gliptolithic medicine considered these two organs as an inseparable complex: they both complement each other in their respective functions.

Some of the biggest challenges facing contemporary medicine come from autoimmunological illnesses such as glomerulo-nefritis, rheumatic arthritis, rheumatism, sclerodermia, etc. It is well know that when a foreign object (an antigen) enters into an organism, the organism defends itself by producing contrary elements (antibodies). This is called an immunological reaction and the body reacts in this way to a multitude of antigens. But for reasons as yet unknown to contemporary medicine there are cases in which an organ, acting as a foreign element within the organism, produces antigens and thus forcing the organism to produce respective antibodies to protect itself. It is said then that the person who has such an organ is suffering from an autoimmunological illness. The antibodies produced by the organism act against the organ to nullify the source of the antigens. This struggle between antigens and antibodies will continue until the organ is left non-functioning, and if it is an essential organ it will put in danger the life of this person. If it is taken into account that the outside surface of the suprarenal gland excretes hormones that stimulate the cells of the whole organism, and that this stimulus simply makes sure that the cells are working normally, I think that the cause of immunological illnesses could well be the malfunctioning of the adrenal gland-kidney complex. If this deduction is correct, then the therapy for autoimmunological illnesses would be the transplant of the adrenal gland-kidney complex, along with the possibility that new hormones nay be discovered in this complex that have the same results.

TRANSPLANT OF THE CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES Contemporary medicine has not yet been able to transplant a human brain. The experiments in this field have been limited to animals. It has been possible to isolate a monkey brain and maintain it alive for a relatively long period of time. There have also been attempts to transplant monkey's heads, but with discouraging results. Until recently, the major problem was to figure out how the nervous fiber, after being cut, could regenerate itself and recuperate its regular function. It is true that there have been cases where human nerves have been sutured, especially in accident injuries, but the sutures have been made to join nerves from the same organism, and even in this area the techniques employed have not been effective in other cases. A recent experience offers hope for the future: in rats given, special treatment before and after the rupture of the spinal chord, it has been proved - after the union of the segments of the spinal cord from the same animal - the regeneration of the nerve fiber (axon) and the recovery of the nerve impulse. The experiment was done by five investigators from the University of Michigan, U.S.A. Earl R. Feringa, Gary G. Gurden, William Strodel, William Chandler and James Knake. The rats used in these experiments were female albinos crossed among brothers for mare than sixty-two generations, and were immunized through the application of an antigen of the spinal medulla from rats of the same blood. Access to the writings which contain information about this experiment (35) was made available to me through the kindness of Dr. Jorge Voto Bernales, eminent Peruvian neurologist, under whom I had the honor of studying at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and the pleasure of working with in the Seguro Social of Peru.

The importance of the experiment described above seems to me to be in that such regeneration has been achieved in the spinal medulla - something which has never before been achieved - due to the fact that the spinal medulla is composed of numerous nervous fibers. In addition, the importance of the experiment lies in the treatment given the rats, for this allows us to suppose that we are on the way to developing a technique that would permit a control of the factors that determine the possibility of cutting and regenerating nervous fibers. There is something that strikes me as particular about this experiment: the use of female rats. The researchers do not indicate their motives for having made this choice of specimens. What has been already mentioned about the knowledge that contemporary medicine already has about the suprarenal gland growing in size at the beginning of the menstrual cycle and during pregnancy should be remembered. Also recall that I have attributed this phenomenon to the increase in the excretion of the hormone that stimulates the cells of the organism so that it may tolerate the reception of a foreign element, the spermatozoid, and then the fetus. I believe that the success of this experiment must be due to the fact that the female rats, due to their great fecundity and short period of gestation, must have a high level of this hormone in their blood, for, if due to this hormone the female can tolerate foreign tissue, then more so will she be able to regenerate her own cells, in this case the nervous fibers that are nothing but the extension of a part (citoplasma) of the nerve cells.

Despite the great advances of contemporary neurosurgery, the day when a complete brain can be transplanted is far off. For this there must exist infallible techniques to avoid rejection of the transplant and to assure the regeneration of the nervous fiber, and it is also necessary to have a complex system of apparatus, probably electronic, not only to facilitate the transplant operation, but also so that this system nay assure control over all the biological functions of the individual whose brain must be extracted so that another may be implanted. This complex system will temporarily replace the human brain that is to be replaced and the human brain that will replace it gliptolithic surgery and such a complex system of apparatus and they used it in all the surgical operations that are seen on the gliptoliths. With this apparatus it was possible to avoid all the risks that the patient to be operated on was subject to, such as a cessation of the breathing functions, a cessation of the heart, different types of shocks, etc. We are dealing with a system represented through symbols inscribed on the instruments, on the operating table, on the body of the patient and on the surgeons and organs. Gliptolithic surgery informs us about this complex system of apparatus only to the extent that it refers to the type of instruments used and to the general functions they perform, and not their physical nature.

Before going on to describe the technique used by the gliptolithic surgeons to transplant cerebral hemispheres, I think it opportune to go over some of the basic aspects of the anatomy of the nervous system. It consists of two well distinguished parts: cerebrum or brain - enclosed in the bony box known as cranium - and the spinal chord enclosed in the vertebral canal or foramen of the backbone. The cerebrum or abrain is composed of several parts; two cerebral hemispheres (left and right), the thalamus, cerebellum, the pons, cerebral peduncles and the racheos bulb. The cerebrum has two lateral egg-shaped and symmetrical masses called hemispheres. They are covered by the cerebral cortex composed of gray matter. It is in the cerebral cortex where the sensory organs are converted into conscious sensations, and it is also here where the centers that initiate and control voluntary movements are found. All this makes it possible to affirm that it is in the cerebral cortex where the functions take place that allow an individual to acquire and retain knowledge. It is constituted by cells that are particular in that they do not regenerate. The deeper layers of the cerebral hemispheres, also called the white matter, is constituted by nerve fibers (extensions of the nervous cells), through which the nervous impulses come and go to the cerebral cortex, and from the cortex of one hemisphere to the cortex of another. The two symmetrical ovals that make up the cerebral hemispheres are united in the middle by a strong bridge of nervous fibers (white substance). This bridge is called the corpus callosum and under it the thalamus is located. This section, and the others that constitute the rest of the brain - the cerebellum, protruberance, peduncles and the bulb - contain the centers that command the functioning of the organs of an individual, that is, the vegetative life. Under the bulb - at the lowermost extreme of the brain - and at the level of the occipital orifice, begins the spinal chord. From all the elements I have just described the cranial pairs grow, consisting of twelve pairs of nerves that are distributed principally through various organs and tissues in the head and the neck.

To transplant this complex of the nervous system that is lodged in the cranial cavity, that is the brain, is the object of the research that has been made recently in the area of experimental neurosurgery. This presupposes the necessity of cutting the spinal medulla close the racheous bulb and then achieving the regeneration of the nerve fiber at the place of the cut after the transplant has been finished. But it also presupposes - and this makes the operation extremely difficult - cutting and regenerating the fibers of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves. It is possible that these complications nay have led to an attempt to transplant a whole head instead of just a brain, a method that has been named cephalotransplant and that has been attempted in monkeys, with discouraging results as I have already mentioned. I think that a more advance stage - one that contemporary neurosurgery has not yet attempted - is the transplant of the cerebral hemispheres, that implies cutting the bridge that unites then, the corpus callosum, which being made up of nervous fibers may be able to regenerate itself (remember the experiment with the rats that demonstrates that nervous fiber can regenerate itself). It also implies the cutting and suturing of the main arterial and veinous blood lines that irrigate the cerebral hemispheres with blood. The cutting of the corpus callosun should not interfere with the thalamus, for here are very important nervous functions. Contemporary surgery has one type of operation in which one of the cerebral hemispheres is removed. To do this an incision is made at the level of the corpus callosum without affecting the thalamus. This operation is made in order to improve the mental capacity of retarded children, to reestablish movement for people who have, experienced partial paralysis due to cerebral hemorrhages, etc. In many cases it has been successful.

The brain transplant referred to in the gliptoliths in my possession is of the cerebral hemispheres. The fact that the cerebral cortex is part of the cerebral hemispheres and that in it are located the cognitive functions of the brain, and knowing that the gliptolithic humanity has as a goal of its existence the development of the reflexive capacity to increase and conserve knowledge, it is not surprising that they attempted to transplant the hemispheres of the brain. The information as to this type of transplant is contained in a series of eleven gliptoliths. Transplanted into another person's head. The operating table, represented symbolically, (1 in Fig. 42A), has parallel and oblique lines inscribed upon it whose direction will change in future scenes solely for the purpose of indicating that the scene corresponds to another individual. On top of the table appear, connected to the individual in different parts of the body, some segments with rhomb-shaped sections, symbols of animal life, which in this case suggests those biological functions that occur in the human organism without the control of the individual (vegetable functions). These segments with rhomb-shaped figures represent symbolically elements of that complex system of electronic apparati - to with I have previously referred - that are serving in this case to stimulate and maintain uninterrupted these vegetative functions: stimulus and control of respiration, the diffusion of nutritive elements, stimulus and control of the cardiovascular system, stimulus and control of the digestive and glandular system (5, 6, 7 and 8, respectively, in Fig. 42A). The triangular figure full of rhomb shapes at the foot of the patient is a symbol of biological animal energy and therefore of unconsciousness, that indicates here that the patient cannot feel anything and is perfectly still. The signs engraved on the clothes of the patient and the surgeon indicate the intensity of the electronic energy that this complex system of apparati needs to stimulate and maintain the vegetative functions during the operation. Thus, it the signs are squares, this indicates the highest intensity of energy; if they are rhomb-shaped this signifies a little less intensity; if they are parallel lines, this signifies a much lower level of energy (3 and 15 in Fig. 42A). If the patient is not wearing clothes (pants), this indicates that the minimum of energy needed to keep him alive is being used.

In another scene on the same gliptolith the moment at which the surgeon extracts the cerebral hemispheres from the same individual can be seen (9 in Fig. 42B). Observe the direction of the parallel lines on the operating table; it is the same as the previous scene, indicating that we are dealing with the same individual, but now in a state of deep relaxation judging by the looseness of his upper limbs.

The third and last scene on this gliptolith shows the cerebral hemispheres which have already been extracted (2 in Fig. 42C), which are being irrigated, probably with blood from a pregnant woman, in order to stimulate and keep the nervous cells alive and to stimulate the regeneration of the fibers. The apparatus used for irrigation is connected to the arterial and veinous vessels that lead to the hemispheres. The rhomb-like figures that fill the base of the irrigating apparatus signify that it is being run by electronic energy of medium intensity. This stage of the operation is of vital importance, because the nervous cells cannot maintain themselves in a normal state for more than three minutes without oxygen and glucose, fundamental elements for their metabolism that are provided through the circulatory system. In this phase of the operation, the complex system of electronic apparati has been directed towards stimulating and controlling preferably the cardiovascular system of the individual, as can be deduced from the segment full of rhomb-like figures that can be seen under his neck (11 in Fig. 42C). This procedure is due to the fact that the patient is in a critical situation having had his cerebral hemispheres extracted. The absence of clothing (14 in Fig. 42C) reiterates that this is a critical situation since it reveals that a minimum of electronic energy is being used to keep him alive. Observe the direction of the parallel lines inscribed on the operating table: it expresses that the patient is the same person as in the two previous scenes.

The following gliptolith has only one scene that represents the moment when the surgeon finishes suturing the wound of the individual from whom the cerebral hemispheres have been extracted to be transplanted (2 in Fig. 43). The rhomb-like figures that fill the base of the apparatus that is used to suture indicate that this apparatus is run by medium intensity electric energy. The segments full of squares that can be observed under the face and the neck of the patient (5 in Fig. 43), signify that the maximum level of electronic energy is being used to activate and maintain all the biological functions of the individual, since he has been deprived of the essential centers of cerebral activity, and thus of consciousness (as can also be seen by the symbol that appears at the foot of the patient) (6 in Fig. 43) The direction of the lines on the operating table indicate that this is the same patient as in the previous scenes. The leaf - a symbol of life - that appears under the operating table (1 in Fig. 43), signifies that the individual is living by artificial means.

The rest of the gliptoliths of this series show scenes of the more advanced phases of the same transplant and refer to the individual who is going to receive the cerebral hemispheres. One of these gliptoliths shows the instant in which the cerebral hemispheres are extracted from this individual (1 in Fig. 44). The change in direction of the lines on the operating table indicates that this is a different individual from the one appearing in the previous scenes. In this phase of the operation the danger of heart failure is symbolized by the segment of rhomb-like figures under the neck (4 in Fig. 44) that signifies that the complex system of electronic apparati has concentrated its actions on the stimulation and control of the individual's cardiovascular system. The rhomb-like figures on the clothes (pants) of the individual (5 in Fig. 44) indicate the use of a medium intensity electronic energy in this phase. The triangular segment full of rhomb-like figures (2 in Fig. 44) that can be observed under the eye, signifies that the individual is ignorant of the operation not because he is anaesthetized but rather because his cerebral hemispheres have been removed.

Another gliptolith shows the next scene: the continuation of the irrigation of the cerebral hemispheres that were extracted from the first individual and that are now to be transplanted (Fig. 45) this scene shows a surgeon irrigating the hemispheres, using an apparatus already described in a previous scene (5 in Fig. 45).

The next gliptolith of the series has two scenes. In the first there is a particularly interesting feature: the direction in which the parallel lines on the operating table are pointing (2 in Fig. 46A) is the same as in the scenes that show the individual from whom the cerebral hemispheres were extracted to be transplanted into another. This could lead one to believe that the individual in this scene is not going to receive the transplant. However, the direction of the parallel lines indicates that it is the cerebral hemispheres in this scene that belong to the previous individual, that have just been transplanted into the second individual (1 in Fig. 46A). With the particular use of the symbols on the table I understand that the surgeons of the gliptolithic culture are attempting to express that the man is where his cerebral hemispheres are. The symbolic presence of the first individual in this scene is reiterated by the leaf that can be seen in the lower part (4 in Fig. 46A). In this case the leaf, - symbol of human life - signifies life capable of reflection, and its particular position signifies that this reflective life has arrived in the cerebral hemispheres of the first individual to be united with the biological life of the second individual. The leaf that is engraved on the upper part of the scene (5 in Fig. 46A) signifies that the body is alive, and the segments full of rhomb-like figures under the face and the neck indicate that the biological functions of this body are being stimulated and controlled by the aforementioned complex system of electronic apparati.

The other side of the gliptolith that I have just described will confirm beyond a doubt that the transplant has been of the cerebral hemispheres. It is to be observed that this is the only gliptolith of the whole sequence that I have described that shows the irrigating apparatus with two channels, which indicates that both hemispheres, not just one, are being irrigated.

The last gliptolith of this series indicates that the operation has come to an end. Two surgeons can be seen finishing the suture of the wound of the individual that has received the cerebral hemispheres (7 in Fig. 47). The instrument used to suture has two branches that are attached to the surgeon's foreheads. Since the surgeons have two half-leaves on their heads - a symbol of the apparati that allows the gliptolithic humanity to capture and convert solar (photonic) energy and cosmic (corpuscular) energy into electronic energy - it is understood that the suture apparatus is activated by electronic energy. The presence of the leaf symbol in the arms of one of the surgeons indicates that the branch of the suturing instrument that he is holding in his hand is the one that used electronic energy and that the other one is only a ground wire. The rhomb-like figures on the circular section of the instrument reveal that the electronic energy that is used is of medium intensity. The rhomb-like figures connected to different parts of the patient should also be pointed out. They are, once more, the symbol of the fact that the biological functions of the patient are being stimulated and controlled by the complex system of electronic apparati. The rhomb-like figures indicate that the electronic energy is of medium intensity.

It is possible that the electronic energy used through the operation may have come from the apparatus symbolized by the half-leaves that the surgeons wear on their heads, and that the surgeons may have projected this energy through themselves to the instruments and the apparati of the complex system that I have indicated is electronic. In this case, the surgeons, by determining the intensity of the electronic power, must have acted as regulators (relay) of the energy flow. This is confirmed by the presence of rhomb-like figures on the bands that the surgeons wear on their heads, as well as on the instruments and apparati that symbolically represent the stimulus and maintenance of the biological functions of the individual through the complex system of electronic apparati.

REJUVENATION THROUGH TRANSPLANT OF THE CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES Despite the fact that contemporary experimental neurosurgery has not been able to design an infallible technique that can be used in transplanting the brain of human beings, moral questions still exist that must be addressed if this type of surgery is to be contemplated. It is feared that egotism to preserve life or power might lead some men to attempt to perpetuate themselves by means of this transplant of their brain into a young body. This is why contemporary scientists indicate the limits of the use of this transplant: they affirm that it would only be justified in saving lives. It is understood that the brain would be transplanted in the body of a man who maintained normal bodily functions but whose brain had deteriorated to a level where it could not be recuperated. It is also understood that the brain to be transplanted would be in perfect conditions and would come from a person whose body suffered from mortal illness or accident. According to the information contained in many gliptoliths I can confirm that the transplant of the cerebral hemispheres was one of the recourses to which the gliptolithic humanity turned to reach the goals of its existence: to develop its reflexive capacity (cognitive energy) to increase and conserve knowledge. The object was to conserve in the body of a young individual the formidable amount of knowledge contained in the brain of an elderly person. By extracting the cerebral hemispheres of a young man, all those other parts of the brain that control the organic and glandular functioning remained. The cerebral hemispheres that contained this enormous amount of knowledge, on being transplanted, continued functioning, but now commanded by the functions of the young man’s body. I deduce that in this way the cells of the two hemispheres were rejuvenated and thus the organism was able to recuperate its cellular harmony.

It would not be surprising that those men that enjoyed extraordinary longevity of whom the traditions that come out of a distant past speak were simply the result of this technique employed by the gliptolithic humanity. This would explain the cases in which, according to legend, the same man appeared before other people with different physical appearance. And the references in legends to men that were able to change themselves into monsters, beasts, tree, mountains and different objects would be nothing but an exaggeration of this change in physical appearance, made up by generations whose imagination was stimulated by the distant past when the gliptolithic humanity existed. It is to be supposed that the use of a series of young bodies to conserve the knowledge locked into the cerebral hemispheres continued in a chain that was only broken by the fortuitous death of the individual whose brain was transplanted. As concerns the use to which the extracted cerebral hemispheres of the young subject whose body is used, the gliptoliths do not offer very clear information. Based on information from another series of gliptoliths that represent the transplant not of cerebral hemispheres but rather of the knowledge itself (cognitive keys), it seems possible that the cognitive keys of the hemispheres of this young man could have been transplanted into an individual of lower cognitive ranking. As concerns the fate of the body of the old individual I only know what is observed in one of the gliptoliths that I have just described: it is maintained alive artificially.

In contemporary culture, the transplant of the body would cause certain problems of a familiar and social nature. A man with a brain transplant would be the same man only from a physical point of view. From this point of view, his family and his social group would expect him to think and act as he did before. But in truth he would be thinking and acting according to the new brain, that is with the other personality, that is now the only one he has. This would create a rupture in his life relationships. In the gliptolithic humanity, after a transplant of the cerebral hemispheres, there occurred no such rupture, simply because the family as it is now known did not exist, and social levels were determined by cognitive rank. The men of the gliptolithic humanity were oriented towards intellectual activity. Man achieved his highest goals through the insatiable desire to develop his capacity for reflection (cognitive energy) to increase his knowledge. This desire permitted him to permanently achieve spiritual well being. In his relations with the opposite sex, the sexual appetite was the result of the need to procreate, and the son was integrated as a member into society. This was the family. Aside from her sex, a woman was seen no differently from a man. She had the same rights and liberties and, as a member of the gliptolithic society, her existence was oriented towards the same goals as that of the man. That the difference in sex did not imply differences in liberties and rights I deduce from the fact that in the figures of the men as well as the women the sexual organs are not drawn in.

HEART TRANSPLANT

The first heart transplant in contemporary society was performed by the famous heart surgeon Christian Barnard in 1967. Since then this type of heart transplant has been performed in many medical centers all over the world. But the problem continues to be the rejection of the transplanted heart. Aside from the recent case of the transplant of a complete heart next to another heart, performed also by Christian Barnard, the so called heart transplants that are performed are not of the whole organ. Only the ventricles and the front face of the auricles are transplanted, so that the receiver of the transplant still retains part of his own heart and the main blood vessels and arteries that correspond to it. The problem of the rejection of the heart has never permitted the individual to live more than two years.

Gliptolithic surgery performed transplants of the entire heart solving the problem of rejection, as has been mentioned, by using blood transfusions from a pregnant woman to the individual who was to receive the organ and at the same tine irrigating the heart to be transplanted with the blood of the same woman. It is noteworthy that in all the organ transplants represented in the gliptoliths there is not one reference to the methods employed to unite severed blood vessels. It is well known that a fundamental part of contemporary surgical technique for the transplanting of organs is the skill with which blood vessels are united. It is possible that gliptolithic surgery united the vessels by means of reabsorbable tubes, one of the methods used by contemporary surgery. That is to say: each extreme of the tube is inserted in the orifices of the severed vessel; thus the tube acted as an internal bridge that allowed the two extremes of the vessel to be united. After a certain amount of time, undoubtedly specified, the vessel would be united through the regeneration of the cells, and the tube would be diluted into the blood stream. It is also noteworthy that the complicated system of electrical apparati was not limited to controlling the biological functions of the patient - as in contemporary surgery - but rather that it stimulated and maintained these functions exactly as they might have been stimulated and maintained by the centers that command these functions in the human organism.

Part of what I write in this chapter about gliptolithic surgery I had the chance to talk about in the IV Congress of the Western Hemisphere, organized by the International College of Surgeons, that took place in Panama. I had the honor of giving a paper at this Congress by invitation of the then President of the International College of Surgeons, Dr. Esteban D. Roca, eminent Peruvian neurosurgeon, of whom I had the honor of being a student at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and of being a colleague of his in his medical practice in the Peruvian Seguro Social (Social Security Service).

The scenes that inform us about different phases of the transplant of the heart appear in a series of ten gliptoliths, dark in color, the majority of which are approximately one meter in diameter. The figures and symbols are engraved using the deep scoring technique and a certain relief in the background to give emphasis to the figures (See Figs. 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56 and 57).

THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE OF A WOMAN SYMBOLIZED ON A TUMI

In different parts of the world, trepanated cranea of ancient man have been found, that have led us to suppose that these men fed themselves on brains or that perhaps the trepanation was performed for ritual or shamanistic reasons or to cure various mental illnesses. But, since in the graves of ancient Peru, in addition to trepanated cranea, metal cutting instruments such as the tumi, scalpels, chisels, separators and pincers have been found, (made of the metal called champi: an alloy of gold, silver and copper), this would lead us to suspect that the Incas and the Pre-Incan civilizations had advanced knowledge of surgical techniques, anatomy and neurophysiology, that allowed them to trepanate the cranium to intervene in the brain.

When I spoke of other materials used by the gliptolithic humanity to leave messages I mentioned gold. I mentioned that this metal was used initially in the form of tablets, and afterwards in the form of different objects, and that one of these was the tumis of gold with inlays of precious stones. I also mentioned that these tumis, made of the hard metal called champi, were made by the gliptolithic humanity, and I would like to add that all the instruments made of this metal, (scalpels, chisels, separators, pincers, etc.), belonged to this humanity.

Through excavations performed in Inca and Pre-Inca tombs - and especially in the tombs of the Paracas culture - cranea with holes have been found, and some have been found with gold and silver plates covering the holes or with fragments of squash gourds. Many of the cranea reveal that the process of bone healing has taken place and that the individual has survived the trepanation.

Contemporary surgery trepanates the cranium with the purpose of diagnosing and treating illnesses in the bones of the cranium or of the organs contained in the cranial cavity. To obtain these objectives there is an extremely advanced body of knowledge dealing with the structure and functions of the brain, of the membranes that cover it, of the liquid contained in the cranial cavity and of the bones that make up the cranium. There are also advanced surgical techniques that are facilitated by the use of specialized instruments, among which the electric saw to perform the trepanation and mechanical and electric instruments to manipulate organs and cut and suture blood vessels are indispensable. To this must be added the use of anesthetics that are scarcely toxic and that permit an extension of the length of the operation so necessary for operations of the brain.

The Inca and Pre-Inca cultures were very far from obtaining even mediocre scientific and technological process in general, and even less in this specialized field of neurosurgery. Consequently, the trepanations that occurred, if they had some surgical significance, were never more than simply operations of the bone, possibly to repair damage done to the cranial cavity. To affirm that these openings in the cranea were made to provide access to the brain tissues would thus be absurd. It is well known that contemporary humanity, (of which these civilizations were a part more than three thousand years ago), has only in this century acquired the necessary knowledge to investigate the brain tissue scientifically. It is most probable that the trepanations trade by Inca and Pre-Inca civilizations were performed to cure bone fractures that resulted from warfare or accident, or for shamanistic purposes to cure unknown ailments (migraine headaches, mental diseases, etc.), based in the curious idea that the cause of these illnesses was the lodging of evil spirits within the cranial cavity.

The tumis made of gold and champi, inlayed with precious stones, were made by the gliptolithic humanity with the purpose of leaving surgical information on them. They do not contain scenes of surgical operations.

On the gold turns with inlayed precious stones, the upper part - consisting in some cases of a human figure and in others of simply a head, but in both cases with ornaments and filigree - contains the information inscribed in figures and symbols. The lower part has the shape of a cutting instrument. As this cutting instrument appears as a symbol of one of the surgical instruments used in the surgical scenes found on the gliptoliths (Fig. 44), in the tumi it reappears in order to indicate that the information on this instrument is of a surgical nature. The tumi is not, then, one of the surgical instruments that the gliptolithic humanity used, it would not be a very good instrument to use because of the ornaments and filigree. The obsidian tumis were made by the Inca and Pre-Inca civilizations, but simply as replicas of the gold and champi tumis of the gliptolithic humanity, which they must have found by having access to the deposits of gliptolithic materials. The obsidian tumis do not, however, have the ornaments or the human figures; they are made simply as replicas of the cutting instrument, protected on the upper part by a wooden handle tied to it with chord. This makes me think that the tumis made by the Inca and Pre-Inca civilizations were cutting instruments, unlike the tumis that the gliptolithic civilization made. It is possible that these are the instruments with which the simply trepanations to which I have referred were performed. The tumis of the gliptolithic humanity must have ended as much of the testimony left by the gliptolithic culture has: the Inca and Pre-Inca civilizations could not imagine what these instruments contained scientific information. But, since the tumis signified the presence of earlier being that these civilizations could not see, they thought these beings were gods. This is why I am inclined to think that the aforementioned trepanations must have been, in some cases, ceremonial practices to honor those gods, and in others methods to cure illness through the divine intervention that the turn symbolized.

That the golden tumis with precious stone inlays contain information symbolically inscribed on them is something that modern archaeology has never suspected. This is because the different pieces that exist are spread out in the hands of collectors and museums all over the world. They are collected mainly as artistic objects. Just like the gliptoliths, these tumis form series. Unfortunately, the ignorance as to what they signify and the fact that they are so dispersed limits access to these series, which when studied together could facilitate their interpretation and allow us to benefit from the knowledge they possess.

By the study that I have made of one golden tumi with precious stone inlays, I have been able to obtain the information left by the gliptolithic culture on it regarding the menstrual cycle of the woman. So that the description and interpretation of the symbols and figures may be more easily understood, I will briefly refer to the menstrual cycle of the woman.

During a certain period, in one of the ovaries of a woman, an ovum natures. Initially, the ovi are ready to begin their process of maturation. Each one is housed inside a protective cover known as the Graaf follicle. Inside the follicle the ovum is surrounded by a liquid which is known as the follicular liquid. But it is only one ovum which will nature during the fourteen days. The maturation of the ovum is activated by folliculine, a hormone that is secreted during this time period by the cells of the Graaf follicle. The mature ovum separates from its follicle and is picked up by the Eustachian tube. At this point, and for approximately six days, if the ovum finds the spermatozoid, it will be fertilized. The follicle that once protected the ovum will be transformed into what is known as the yellow substance and will produce progesterone, a hormone that encourages the growth of the uterine membrane so that it may receive the fertilized ovum and proceed with the gestation. But, if the mature ovum does not encounter a spermatozoid, then several days afterwards it will destroy itself. The destroyed ovum will then be eliminated with the uterine membrane; the elimination of the uterine membrane occurs twenty-eight days after the process of maturation of the ovum has begun. The elimination of the uterine membrane causes the menstrual hemorrhage. After this period of twenty-eight days a new process of maturation of a new ovum begins. This process, that occurs periodically in the ovary, to cause the maturation of an ovum so that it may be fertilized or eliminated, is known as the menstrual cycle of the woman. The menstrual hemorrhage occurs normally at the end of the twenty-eight days of the process and normally lasts five days. The fertilization of the ovum may occur from the middle of the cycle to six days afterwards. However, if the spermatozoid was deposited no more than two days before the middle of the cycle, it can remain alive until the moment that the nature ovum separates from the follicle and can fertilize it.

The tumi to which I am referring describes with figures and symbols the menstrual cycle of the woman. On the forehead of the human figure there is a semicircular helmet that is nothing more than the representation of a microscopic view of the tissue of the ovary (5 in Fig. 58). The eight small circles that appear on it represent eight Graaf follicles, just as they appear in the microscope (6 in Fig. 58). The point that can be seen in each one of these is an ovum that is about to begin the process of maturation (remember that only one of the ovi is going to mature), and the zone surrounding it is the follicular liquid. The ring of tiny balls that surround the ovum is the set of cells that lines the walls of the follicle, that, as is known, secrete folliculine during the first fourteen days of the cycle to activate the maturation of the ovum. Surrounding the upper part of the helmet there is a zig­zagging filament (4 in Fig. 58). If the vertices of the filament are observed, those facing upwards as well as those facing downward, we will see that the filament forms pyramids, fourteen with their vertices pointing upwards and fourteen pointing downward. Since in gliptolithic symbology the pyramid is a captor, accumulator and distributor of energy, we can conclude that the twenty-eight pyramids symbolically express the different levels of energy that the ovary during the menstrual cycle that is twenty-eight days long. Furthermore, the fact that fourteen pyramids have been presented pointing upwards and fourteen downward, can only indicate that at the end of the first fourteen days of the menstrual cycle the ovum has finished its process of maturation and is ready to be fertilized by the spermatozoid, and that if it is not fertilized, another fourteen days will pass before the process of maturation will begin anew. Above the filament of pyramids there is a ring of ten circular filaments, whose centers are arranged inward in pairs as if they were looking at each other (2 in Fig. 38). Each one of these filaments with curved ends is the schematic representation of the shape which the fetus adopts in the uterine cavity. Since they are ten in number, it indicates that if the ovum was fertilized the period of gestation would last for ten months of twenty-eight days each (36). Above the whole helmet a border made up of thirty-three little balls (1 in Fig. 58). This indicates that after the menstrual cycle of twenty-eight days there will be a period of five days maximum of flow of blood which, as is known, is normal. Finally another symbol inserted on both sides of the face can be seen. This is the expanded figure of the ovum in its Graaf follicle, ready to begin the process of maturation. Their size, in relation to the ovi that appear in the upper part of the tumi, and the fact that there are two of them, allows me to deduce that the ovaries of this woman are capable of producing ovi, that is, they are functioning normally (this capacity does not mean that both, ovaries produce ovi for the same menstrual cycle; it is well known that only one does it, whichever of the two). As concerns the rectangular precious stones that can be seen on the forehead, the neck and the trunk of the woman, I think they are extragliptolithic elements, added by the Inca or Pre-Inca civilizations as a consequence of the fact that they could not understand the tumis of their predecessors’ remote gliptolithic humanity.

The menstrual cycle of the woman is a normal process that can nevertheless be disturbed through the advent of benign or malign tumors in the ovaries. In these cases, therapy requires surgery. The turn whose symbols inform us about the menstrual cycle of the woman is part of a series of tumis dealing with the surgical pathologies of the ovaries as a consequence of the presence of tumors. My studies of this series will be released in another publication.

PLANETS INHABITED BY MAN THE GLIPTOLITHIC WORLD

I possess a series of gliptoliths that have engraved upon them seas and continents of the hemispheres of a planet. In each gliptolith a hemisphere is represented. These gliptoliths are approximately seventy centimeters in diameter, dark in color and engraved with the deep scoring technique in relief.

The engravings represent observations of a planet from a great height, etched on these stone documents to show a peculiar set of continents that do not correspond to the shape of the continents on our planet (Figs. 59 and 60).

On the surface of the first hemisphere four major masses can be seen, and on the second, three. All these masses are suggestive of solid surfaces or continents, differentiated from the zones that lie between the masses and that obviously represent seas. It can be estimated that the continental masses make up approximately 80 percent of the surface of the hemispheres while the remaining 20 percent is made up of seas. It is thus understood that there are four parts of land to every one of water. There are no symbols representing water in its solid state (ice), and therefore there seem to be no icecaps on these hemispheres. Around the group of continents and seas a large belt of undulating lines can be seen. If the relative scarcity of water in relation to the continental masses is considered, it is understood that an intense evaporation of the seas has taken place and that the belt of undulating lines is simply a representation of the accumulation of water vapor in the atmosphere. If, on the other hand, some canals of undulating lines are observed connected to the atmosphere and stretching over the seas (2 in Figs. 59 and 60), it can be deduced that these canals indicate that the evaporation continues and that the vapor keeps ascending into the atmosphere where it accumulates.

Given the gigantic proportions of the covering of water vapor in the atmosphere it seems plausible to deduce that the planet that is being shown was passing through a stage of intense thermic energy. As is obvious, a huge cap of vapor presupposes the concentration of a large amount of energy in it. According to what I have found in the system of symbols used in the gliptolithic massages, the energy to which I have referred is represented in this stone by the undulating lines that can be observed in the atmosphere. The network of canals that are connected to the atmosphere and that stretch out over the seas acquire additional significance when this is realized: part of the energy that exists in the atmosphere in being channeled toward the continents through the canals. Finally, if it is observed that the pyramids - symbols of a system for capturing, accumulating and distributing energy - have their bases oriented towards the atmosphere and their vertices pointing towards the continents (3 in Figs. 59 and 60), it is certain that they are indicating that part of the energy of the atmosphere is being captured in a complex technological system, for specified uses.

All this signifies that the planet represented by these two hemispheres is in critical condition because of the progressive accumulation of the aforementioned calorific energy. These critical circumstances suggest that a cataclysmic event is imminent.

Having discussed the general situation of the planet represented on these two stones, I will explain the symbols that appear in each major block of each of the hemispheres.

FIRST HEMISPHERE

Block A. This block (Fig. 61) presents a mass divided into fifteen compartments, among which two can be seen that contain natural vegetation {represented by parallel lines), and one with animals raised by man (represented by small rhomb-like figures enclosed in a circle). There is no sign of human life. There are pyramids, symbols of the use of energy in this part of the continent; these appear between two electrical power stations (represented by stars), that are in the middle part of the block.

Block B. This block (Fig. 62) is divided into nine compartments, the majority of which correspond to desert zones. There are two compartments filled with natural vegetation (symbolized by parallel lines on the ground) and two compartments filled with animals raised by man (represented by the rhomb-like figures enclosed in circles). Notable in this block is an anthropomorphic figure (5 in Fig. 62). The absence of symbols on his head that indicate cognitive capacity, and the presence of parallel lines on the body, a symbol of cognitive capacity that is given and controlled by another, reveal that this is a robot. In this block the existence of a robot must be interpreted to signify the existence of intellectual activity performed by a group of robots. The ground is crossed longitudinally by a canal, a symbol of the movement of energy that is being liberated from the atmosphere. This liberated energy is being controlled permanently by the robots, as is indicated symbolically by the contact that the nose of the robot makes with the canal. There are pyramids - symbols of the use of energy - on this part of the continent very close to the zone controlled by the robots. It is obvious that in this block there is an attitude of hope attributed to the robots for the critical situation of the energy that is being produced on the planet.

Block C. In this block (Fig. 63) the singular presence of the cognitive and scientific individual (6 in Fig. 63) with the symbol for cognitive thought on his head can be seen. The size of this figure indicates that there is a formidable concentration of cognitive and scientific men that lived in this vast region that constituted the Megapolis (37). The Megapolis is represented in the block by the square around the head of the human figure, isolating it in this way from the other compartments of the block. Around the Megapolis there are extensive zones of vegetation cultivated by man (represented by the parallel lines inside a cube), which suggests the existence of agriculture and the enrichment of the atmosphere with oxygen. There are no symbols for the existence of animal life. There are three electric power stations (represented by stars) some distance from the Megapolis. The block is divided into thirteen compartments and has, as a symbol for the fact that energy is being liberated from the atmosphere, a long canal similar to the one in Block B, being connected, however, to the network of canals that stretches out over the sea of the hemisphere.

Block D. The territory in this block (Fig. 64) is divided into ten compartments. Unfortunately, many of the symbols of those closets to the edge of the gliptolith have been erased. Nevertheless, it can be observed that this is a territory with abundant natural and cultivated vegetation, judging by the zones of parallel lines that are free and the parallel lines enclosed in squares respectively. In addition, there are symbols that reveal zones populated by animals raised by man, and specifically, the head and neck of an animal can be seen, the "alticamellus" (38). Two energy stations can be clearly distinguished, symbolized by stars, one of which is very close to a mountainous region and is connected to two canals that conduct energy from the atmosphere. The dominant figure in the gliptolith is that of an anthropomorphic figure (7 in Fig. 64). Judging by the absence of symbols on its head it can be deduced to be a humanoid (notharctus with a minimum intellectual capacity, with which he cannot yet realize that the reason for his existence is to increase and conserve knowledge). By the size of this anthropomorphic figure it can be deduced that this is a group of humanoids.

SECOND HEMISPHERE

Block E. This represents the largest of all the blocks. Its central section is so narrow that the block seems to be made up of two sub-blocks unified by a bridge. For this reason we will divide it into two sections: sub-block E' and sub-block E".

Sub-block E’. This is formed by eight compartments (Fig. 65). In one of these there appears a house (8 in Fig. 65). The rhomb-shape figures that can be seen in the window are a symbol of animal life, and the parallel lines and vertices of the roof are symbols of cognitive codes used for training of technical knowledge. All this indicates that this is the house where the notharctus receive the minimum of intellectual capacity and are raised to the level of humanoids, which allows them to carry on menial tasks and very specific technical tasks. In this block a mountain system can be seen close to an energy station (represented by a star). Two large pyramids can be seen, symbol of a technological energy complex. Close to the figure of the house there is a tree between two pyramids, a symbol for the fact that industrial factories exist here. The alticamellus can also be seen, as in Block D, whose complete body signifies - as distinct from Block C where only the head appeared- the rearing of these animals. The flat circle full of rhomb-shaped figures that appears in one of the lower compartments symbolizes the rearing of animals. In this whole block the impression is of intense human farming and ranching activity.

Sub-block E". In this block there are five compartments (Fig. 66), in one of which an anthropomorphic figure can be seen (9 in Fig. 66). The vertical parallel lines that cover him below the head signify that it has acquired a minimum of technical knowledge, characteristic of a humanoid (remember the same lines appearing on the roof of the house of Sub-block E’). However, the presence of two leaves in between which this figure stands - the first of which appears without nervation - expresses that this humanoid is being elevated to a higher cognitive rank of a technological type. This therefore is no longer a humanoid, but rather an anthropomorphic being that is being led to the level of cognizance immediately superior to his own, that can be no other than a technological man, conscious therefore of the reason for his existence. The nearby figure of a bird allows us to infer the existence of installations for aerial transport. The trees and the rhomb-shaped figures inside a circle allow us to infer the existence of zones of vegetable farming and animal raising. Two sources of water are found (represented by small spaces enclosed by a winding line) and an energy station (represented by the figure of a star).

Block F. This block contains nine compartments (Fig. 67). In the superior part of the block, symbols that refer to a flying apparatus (bird) can be seen, probably used for the transport of animal feed, as well as a symbol of land transportation (the alticamellus, that is found between two trees) to transport vegetable products. Associated to these symbols are the figures of two leaves that represent nutritive elements for human life. We are dealing, then, in this superior part of the block, with a symbolic complex that reveals the activity of transporting food for human consumption. In one of the compartments there is an anthropomorphic figure (10 in Fig. 67), that ports on his head a symbol of high intellectual and cognitive rank. Observe the two pyramids - symbols of the technological complex used to capturing, accumulate and distribute energy - that appear above the anthropomorphic figure. This, in addition to the fact that the figure seems to be wielding some sort of instrument, should be understood to mean that this individual is in charge of a complex energy system, which requires high intellectual capacity. We have here, then a different type of man from the simply technological man: a reflective technological man. Close to the two pyramids there is a chain of small pyramids. Above this chain there is a star, symbol of the existence of an energy station. Under the chain of pyramids there are two concentric circles, symbol of a spacecraft. Its proximity to the chain of pyramids implies the presence in the zone of a "spaceport" (space center). In the section immediately below the intellectual technological man appears the symbol for vegetable life controlled by man (parallel lines enclosed in a circle). The whole section below the previous one has symbols of wild animals (represented by rhomb-like figures that fill up the whole section). Two large new pyramids that touch the above mentioned compartments indicate that the agriculture and animal raising involved is to be used in industry of some kind.

Block G. This is the smallest block of all (Fig. 68). It consists of four compartments, in one of which the figure of a notharctus can be seen in its natural state (12 in Fig. 68), that is, without the minimum of intellectual ability. The notharctus touches a leaf full of small squares, a symbol, in this case, of intellectual capacity and human rank. This can be interpreted to mean that the notharctus is approaching the intellectual capacity necessary to become a human. The symbol that appears in the next compartment and that consists of two concentric circles (11 in Fig. 68) represents a spacecraft, whose trajectory is the semicircular line that partially surrounds the spacecraft and then begins to undulate. I think the spacecraft is related to the symbol of intellectual and cognitive capacity that the notharctus is touching. These are the gliptolithic men who arrived from the cosmos to the planet with the purpose of transferring to the notharctus a cognitive ability that would make him human. The figure of a house that can be seen in another contiguous block (13 in Fig. 68), that has parallel lines that can be interpreted as signifying learning or knowledge in general, is a symbol that is also related to the cognitive energy which the notharctus is getting close to achieving. The fact that it is a house without doors or windows should be interpreted to signify that the actions of the life of the notharctus will be completely different from the moment at which he is elevated to the cognitive rank by the gliptolithic men, and that consequently the new acts of his life will be governed by human knowledge. Thus he will forever leave his condition as a primate. In the upper compartment there are two large pyramids associated with a symbol whose significance I have mentioned when I dealt with the leaf as a symbol of life. I refer to a type of tree whose branches are associated with a central axis. This symbol indicates, as has been mentioned before, the presence of a group of men. Associated with the group of pyramids that indicate the presence of energy in general, it indicates definitively that human knowledge has been established on the planet. The figure in the shape of a cloud that appears above the notharctus I understand as signaling that the knowledge given the notharctus comes from the cosmos. Finally, the drawing of the star that appears in the compartment below the notharctus and that as has been mentioned is the symbol of an energy station, would seem to indicate that the cognitive energy come from the cosmos will be centered in this continental block of the planet.

TYPES OF MAN IN THE GLIPTOLITHIC HUMANITY

The information provided by the hemispheres of the planet represented in the two gliptoliths that have been described and interpreted, reveals the existence of a planet inhabited by man and a critical situation which that planet was experiencing.

The representation of the characteristics of the surface of the planet presupposes the fact that the men that inhabited it dominated space, for were it otherwise they would not have been able to view the group of continents which they have drawn in such detail on the two gliptoliths. Some symbols confirm that these men had dominated space flight. These are symbols referring to spacecraft, "space-ports", the arrival of the gliptolithic men from the cosmos and the representation of the continental blocks and seas and the atmosphere.

These gliptoliths indicate that human knowledge came from the cosmos, brought by the gliptolithic men with the purpose of giving it to beings biologically more fit for it than they were. The notharctus was the animal chosen for the reception of this knowledge, and startup with it a hierarchy of intelligent creatures was created, in which each creature received a cognitive level in accordance with its function on the planet. The gliptolithic men were thus eminently knowledgeable men that needed men to survive in this planetary habitat that were elevated to certain cognitive levels in order to allow them to perform menial, technical or scientific tasks. According to the information on the two gliptoliths whose symbols have just been analyzed, the following hierarchy of intelligent human beings existed upon this planet, in order from the beings of highest cognitive abilities.

1. Gliptolithic Man. The men who came from the cosmos carrying with them knowledge. As will be seen in this chapter, this is the Energyman and is therefore capable of allowing his cognitive energy to transcend his body without his body dying. This is done to project himself as cognitive energy to any part of the cosmos and to acquire knowledge of the universe. In these and other gliptoliths he is found symbolically represented with the same characteristics as the intelligent and scientific man.

2. Reflective and Scientific Man. This is the man that lived in the Megapolis. He took on functions that required a high reflective capacity. He directed the execution of planned activities of the Gliptolithic men for the best development of life on the planet. He carried out scientific work on different aspects of human knowledge, for example, high level surgery and cosmic observation (astronomy).

3. Reflective Technological Man. This is the man who had a higher level of knowledge than the Technological Man. He had as his responsibility the control and operation of all technological operations. He carried out such tasks as piloting spacecraft, assisting in operations of high level surgery, directing the functioning of industry and systems for the distribution and use of energy resources.

4. Technological Man. This is the man at the raid level of command of technological abilities. He assisted the intelligent and scientific man and transmitted the orders directly to the immediate executor of the actions.

5. Humanoid. This was the notharctus elevated to a middle level of intelligence. He performed menial and technical tasks. He was not conscious of the reason for his existence.

Under the humanoid was the notharctus in his natural state, who had not received the minimum rank of human intellect. His intellectual status was that of an animal, but not that of any animal, because in the zoological hierarchy it was he that had the optimum qualities to be elevated to the first level of human intellect. Finally, there was the robot, a cybernetic system used exclusively for mechanical work that was dangerous to human beings.

I understand that for the gliptolithic men to be able to raise the notharctus to the cognitive level of a humanoid it was necessary for them first to prepare it organically for the increase in knowledge and then pass on to it the required knowledge. Based on other messages left by the gliptolithic humanity, it is my impression that they achieved this by altering genetically the organism of the notharctus, which I assume resulted in the elimination of the tail and the consequent abandoning of tree-life. The transmission of knowledge was also done genetically, intervening in the molecular makeup of the notharctus' brain. In both cases the gliptolithic men used complex neurophysical techniques. Through the transplant of new cognitive codes the rest of the types of men on the cognitive hierarchy were able to exist.

The individuals on this planet, being generated from a common biological source - the notharctus - all had similar physiological characteristics. And being born of another common factor among these men - the knowledge - it should then be understood that these men were only different in the level of intellectual achievement they had reached. Therefore, the individual differences based on other factors such as exist in contemporary culture did not exist. What is now known as personality did not exist; what existed was the collective personality, that is, the union of all individuals that were on the same intellectual level in the hierarchy. Thus it is understood that the civilization on this planet had as its goal to reach higher levels of knowledge, and it is to be supposed that all the acts of the lives of these men ware devoted to increasing and conserving knowledge.

THE EARTH IN A PRECATACLYSMIC SITUATION

This civilization was conveniently organized. In the large concentrations of people which I have called Megapoli the intelligent and scientific men were found, and they assigned to the continents and their respective compartments specific functions. Agricultural, technical and industrial labor was left to the charge of other men, each doing the type of work for which he had been trained. A rational distribution has been observed in the use of the continents, and it has been seen that certain zones are not cultivated, possibly to allow for the regeneration of the fertility of the soil, while other zones are used for agriculture, animal breeding and industry. All this, and the fact that people appear to be gathered in areas of large concentration, make it certain that the intention of these two stone is to point to the coordinated use of the natural resources of the planet to achieve an equilibrium in its metabolism. I say that there is only the intention of pointing to such a balance because I believe that if such a harmony had been achieved by the gliptolithic humanity it is evident that it did not exist on earth if one takes into account the situation of progressive heating that the planet was experiencing according to the symbols on the stones. It is to be remembered that there are no polar ice-caps drawn on the maps of the continents, and that the mass of water is very small in comparison to the size of the continents. This would indicate a lack of harmony in the metabolic system of the planet. By this situation I see that something abnormal must have occurred between the time when the natural resources of the planet were distributed harmoniously and the tine depicted on the stones. This must have been same departure from the main pursuit of the evolution of the human race, which, as I have previously stated, was the development of the intellect in order to increase and conserve knowledge.

The critical situation of the planet's metabolism according to the symbols on the two stones consists of the saturation of the atmosphere with large amounts of water vapor. If the proportion of water to continental mass shown on the stones is compared to that which exists on earth today, it will be noted that the ancient planet had one part of water to every four parts of continental mass while our present day earth has four parts of water to every one part of continental mass. We can thus see that the planet represented in the stones was at that time a closed thermic system. It received thermic energy from sun, but it could not radiate it back out because of the enormous cap of vapor (a sort of black body formed by the clouds) that surrounded the planet. This thermic disequilibrium should have led to a critical point at which the water vapor precipitated in the form of an unending rain that released a correspondingly large amount of mechanical energy that resulted in the beginning of the shift of the enormous continental masses; that is, a cataclysm of monstrous proportions.

If one accepts that fact, confirmed by contemporary science, that the continents on our planet are moving at a speed of six centimeters per year, it is not strange to think that the planet, presented in a precataclysmic state on the stones, represents the earth and that the cataclysm that was imminent finally occurred, causing the continents to shift violently, so that the six centimeters we observe today are only the residual movement of a much more violent shift earlier in history. This theory becomes more plausible when we compare the distribution of the continents and seas of the planet represented on the gliptoliths with their distribution on the earth today. Further, if we shift Europe and the northern part of Africa towards the west, and the continent of Asia to the east we can see how the theory becomes more plausible. By doing this we can reconstruct 90 percent of the planet represented on the two stones (see the diagram that reconstructs the ancient position of the continents on earth).

Contemporary culture has received, through written tradition (Myths, legends, historical, etc. universally referred to), an image of what the past of our culture was like, (though it may be incomplete and disarticulated). Thus, the people of the earth spoke of a cataclysm in the remote past. For some people the cause of the cataclysm was the rain of giant asteroids from the sky, for others the fall of supposed satellites that the earth had. For still others the cataclysm consisted of a universal flood. The science of geology itself speaks of a cataclysm as a result of the rising up of the mountains and of volcanic eruptions all over the globe, (the Andes, the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Himalayas, etc.), called the revolution of the mountains, which apparently occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period (70 million years ago), in the Mesozoic age.

All this confirms that the precataclysmic situation symbolically represented in the two gliptoliths corresponds to the period before the cataclysm that occurred on earth in the distant past.

HOW THE CONTEMPORARY CONTINENTS CAME TO BE

The fact that this cataclysm occurred that caused the continents to shift allows me to reconstruct the paths of the different continents as they shifted. In addition it permits me to reconstruct the situation under which the continental masses were formed. All this develops from the location of the continents in the distant past, as drawn on two gliptoliths.

It is necessary to keep in mind that the earth was inhabited by man even before the great cataclysm occurred, as is attested to in the hemispheres of the gliptoliths.

ANCIENT AMERICA Contemporary geology has confirmed that at the end of the Cretaceous period the continent of America was divided into two parts, North and South, with no union between the two. Paleontology has confirmed this fact by revealing that fossils found on both these land masses are similar only from the beginning of the Tertiary period (some 63 million years ago), a little after the tine at which geologists confirm the formation of a bridge between the two continental masses. The animal fossils found, (the remains of the prehistoric armadillo and the giant saber tooth tiger), had as a common habitat North and South America as a result of the formation of a bridge between the two continents that in its turn resulted from the terrestrial cataclysm. If the shape of the ancient continent of America that is postulated by geologists to have existed is compared to the shape found on the gliptolith, it will be found that this shape corresponds to blocks A and C of the first hemispheres (Fig. 59), block A being North America and block C being South America. This geographic coincidence leads us to reaffirm the existence of man (gliptolithic man) in the distant past. Findings of human bones associated with those of extinct animals also confirm this possibility. The English colonel James Churchward found sacred tablets in a temple in Tibet which he was able to decipher. These tablets told the story of the ancient world with maps of the terrestrial hemispheres as they appeared at that time. Here the American continent was also divided into two distinct blocks, North and South. At the beginning of this century, the English archaeologist William Niven found petroglyphs in Yucatan, Mexico, that once more show a divided American continent, thus verifying Churchward's find in India.

Quechua (South American Indian) legends speak of the existence of the navel of the world, that is, the center of a mysterious and ancient culture that must have lived in the Cusco area of Peru. It is to be remembered that in this area there are huge stone constructions such as Machu Picchu, Sacsayhuaman, Ollantaytambo, etc., whose technology is surprising to contemporary scientists because it is as yet unknown to them. In relation to a descendant of the Incas, the history of Peru has a name, Tupac Amaru, that was given to a man who lead a rebellion in Cusco at the end of the eighteenth century against the Spaniards. This same name was given centuries earlier to another descendant of the Incas. It is thus possible that this name may come from even further back in time, from a remote past, because if the significance of the two words that make up the name is examined a correspondence is found with situations that occurred long before the age of the Incas. In Quechua, the name means "hunter of serpents", "amaru" being the name for serpent. Initially one might think of the serpent that is known today. But it is worth remembering here what was said in Chapter I of this book about the biological cycle of the dinosaur: these were seen to have passed from a larvaic stage in which they appeared much like serpents. A dinosaur of the lambeosaurius species, described by paleontologists, has the same morphological characteristics as those of a monster described in the Quechua legend that has been transmitted orally for centuries, and that refers to the fact that this monster terrorized the "first human beings". The legend says that this was a horrible monster, with the head of a llama, the body of a Batrachia, the fins of a fish, and the tail of a reptile that lived on the depths of a lake (39). Paleontologists reconstruction of the Lambeosaurius from fossils is not only similar to the morphology of the monster described in the legend, but also reveals that its habitat is that of lakes, where it fed on decomposed organic material. Since the hunter indicated by the word "Tupac" can be no other than a man, the legend signifies in the final instance that both man and dinosaur coexisted in South America. And, although scientists have always discounted such a coexistence without just reason, the findings of the Colombian anthropologist Homero Henao Marin have demonstrated that this coexistence was a fact, as I have mentioned in Chapter I.

ATLANTIS AND MU DID NOT SINK

Through the affirmations of the Greek philosopher Plato it has come to be known that there once existed a continent called Atlantis that sank into the Atlantic ocean after the occurrence of a cataclysm. The map of the terrestrial hemispheres found by James Churchward on the sacred tablets in Tibet show an unknown continent on each side of the ancient continent that was to become present day America. One of these continents was in the Atlantic, and the other in the Pacific, and they were, respectively, the continents of Atlantis and the continent of Mu. The legends and traditions of the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands speak of the fact that these islands were part of a large continent that was destroyed by a cataclysm. These continents are also present in the petroglyphs that William Niven in Yucatan. The testimony of Plato, Churchward and Niven coincide with that which appears on the first hemisphere of the gliptolith that I have described. In this hemisphere block B corresponds to the continent of Mu and block D to the continent of Atlantis (Fig. 59). Despite the fact that it is believed that these two continents disappeared, based on the imaginary shift that I have devised of the contemporary continental masses to demonstrate that their ancient position is that which is shown on the gliptoliths, I think that the continents of Mu and Atlantis shifted without disappearing, in opposite directions towards the other hemisphere, and that they collided with the other continents that already existed there. Thus, the continent of Mu came to form a large part of the continent of Asia and the Pacific Islands (Easter, Tahiti, Samoa, Lele, Hawaii, etc.), while Atlantis came to form part of Europe and the Northern part of Africa and the Atlantic Islands, such as the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands.

Geologists have found that the geological caps that make up the Ural Mountains (dividing European Russia from Asian Russia), are not uniform. This allows us to speculate as to the possibility that here is where the collision between the two continental masses might have taken place, confirming that Europe and Asia are parts of Atlantis and Mu respectively.

THE CONTINENT OF LEMURIA

Research in the nineteenth century by Ernst Haeckel indicate that in some distant past there existed a continent called Lemuria, which he places between the archipelago of Malaysia (the eastern extreme of Asia) and the island of Madagascar (on the Western coast of Africa). The name of Lemuria comes from the fact that according to Haeckel the continent was inhabited by lemures (notharctus) that were very intelligent. This led Haeckel to believe that the continent was the cradle of the humanity.

These considerations are confirmed by the second gliptolithic hemisphere (Fig. 60), since in what I have called block G there appears a figure of a notharctus (12 in Fig. 60). This allows me to deduce that this block corresponds to the continent of Lemuria. Due to the shift of the continents, Lemuria must have moved south, being displaced by the continent of Mu. Lemuria came to form part of what is now India.

There are references from ancient time - corroborated by the findings in recent decades by explorers and mountain climbers - of the existence of a large anthropomorphic being in the region of the Himalayas called the Yeti or "abominable snowman". This enigmatic being who has revealed itself only in the form of footprints, could be a descendant of one of the humanoids of the gliptolithic humanity, possibly in a regressive stage, returning to the level of an animal, that is, to the level of the notharctus from which the humanoid was originally created. By contrast, the existence in this region of men dedicated entirely to meditation would indicate the survival of that constant practice of the gliptolithic humanity: to develop the reflective capacity to increase and store knowledge. The gliptolithic humanity having disappeared, the constant meditation to which some men in this region devote themselves is another example of the incomplete legacy of the gliptolithic humanity. It is not impossible, however, that some of these men may have reached very high levels of cognitive and intellectual ability.

AUSTRALIA AND ANCIENT AFRICA

Due to the shift of the continents, block E descended (E’ in Fig. 60) to form, in its northern part, southeastern Europe, and in its southern part, Anterior Asia. Added to this decent, that bridge of territory that united block E’ with block E" was fractured, so that E', in its decent, was united with block F (F in Fig. 60). Block F, in its turn connected itself in the north to a section that had come loose from Atlantis to form the south of Africa (remember that a large part of Atlantis went to form Europe, as I have mentioned). The notable differences between the north and the south of the African continent have always been an enigma, even to the extent that they seem to be two distinct continents. In the north there are remains of advanced ancient civilizations; these do not exist in the south. Between the two extremes there are also ethnic differences and differences in the flora, fauna, and the geological makeup of the soil. From a geological point of view, it has been found that the geological caps of the Atlas mountains are not uniform, as if in this spot two continental masses had collided. Block E", (Block E" in Fig. 60), separated from block E', came to be Australia (geologists have proved that this continent has been isolated from the rest of the world since the end of the Mesozoic era). The territorial bridge, broken in many segments, was dispersed and formed islands, some of which, like Madagascar, ended up near the coast of Africa, in the Indian Ocean, (this explains why the structure of the geological layers of soil on this island is so different from that of Africa). Other islands, such as the Malaysian archipelago also followed the same pattern, but became more scattered.

Geologists have been surprised to find similar geological structures of subsoils very far apart. This is the case of the carbon subsoil (corresponding to the fifth period, some 345 million years ago, during the Paleozoic age) that make up the earth's crust in southeastern Europe and the island of Sumatra (that is part of the Malaysia archipelago in southeast Asia). The distance between these two areas confirms the theory of the shift of the continents from their original position as revealed in the second gliptolithic hemisphere. The carbon subsoil found in the southeast of Europe evidently was part of the northern half of block E', and that of Sumatra is one of the islands that resulted from disintegration of the land bridge between block E’ and block E".

Classic archaeology has not been able to explain the finding of instruments that reveal very advanced scientific and technical knowledge in the distant past. Such is the case, for example, of certain synthetic fibers that are similar to those made today and that have been found in Chinese burial grounds. Russian archaeologists have found magnifying glasses in Egypt, the grinding of which can only be achieved with cerium oxide, a chemical that can only be produced through electrolysis, a fairly recent discovery. Similar lenses have been found in Iraq and in Australia. In the museum of Bhagdad among the rare objects, one can find extremely ancient electrical batteries in working order. Perhaps the most astounding find, however, is that of an atomic power battery found in Gabon, Africa, that ceased to function more that one hundred million years ago.

THE ROCKS WERE SOFTENED

Just as these two gliptoliths reveal information about an organized system of life that was attained by man on Earth, I have also said that they reveal the existence of a precataclysmic situation which the planet faced in this distant past. The intense and increasing heat which created this precataclysmic situation must have also caused the rocky surface of the planet to soften. Throughout my research I have found testimony to this specific softening of the Earth's crust.

In the rock ground of the ruins of Quenco (Cusco, Peru) there are remains of the "intihuatana" or solar clock whose invention is erroneously attributed to the Incas. This clock kept track of the years and the seasons. It was made up of a central column - an equinoctal column - and four pairs of lateral columns - solistical columns. Only fragments of the solistical columns remain, as well as the stone table on which the central or equinoctal column stood (Fig. 69). Its destruction is evidence of a cataclysm more than the effects of the Spanish conquest or the tyranny of time. FIGURE 69: The remains of the INTIHUATANA solar clock in Quenco. Observe the stone fragments of the solistical columns and the stone table

Seventy kilometers northeast of Line, Peru, in a place called Huandoval, there is a large round stone - much like the round stones of Ica that the gliptolithic humanity used to make their stone etchings - that has human footprints on it (Fig. 71). In many of the gliptoliths the etched drawings are sometimes erased in certain parts as if, after being drawn, these stones had acquired a different shape. This can only be explained if it is hypothesized that the stones were softened after being drawn on, and then collided among themselves. The precataclysmic situation that softened, the Earth's crust and the following cataclysm were the cause of this characteristic in the gliptoliths (See the back of the surgeon in the gliptolith of Fig. 57).

In the Plaza de Armas of Cusco, Peru, in front of the headquarters of the university of San Antonio Abad, there is a large stone in which the huge footprint of an animal may be seen (Fig. 72). This footprint could only be from one of those colossal and presently extinct animals known as dinosaurs. This stone demonstrates that dinosaurs existed in the region of Peru and that this footprint, like the others mentioned, could only have been left when the rock was softened due to intense heat.

In Texas, in the United States, there is a rock floor where the footprints of dinosaurs can be seen, making up the floor of a walkway (Fig. 73). These reveal that the intense heat that softened the rock was a phenomenon that occurred throughout the planet.

Taking the above facts into consideration, the following conclusion is reached: if man and animal left their footprints fortuitously on the stone when it was softened by heat and humidity, intelligent man, that saw this special condition of the rock, undoubtedly, took advantage of it to leave intelligible messages etched in it. This allows me to affirm that the Engraved Stones of Ica or gliptoliths were etched during this precataclysmic period in order to send messages to the future to safeguard against the loss of all the knowledge that had been accumulated in the cataclysm that would take place.

OUR PLANET IS HEADED FOR ANOTHER CATACLYSM

I have previously mentioned that the precataclysmic situation that the Earth suffered was due to an increase in the level of heat due to the fact that solar energy, after arriving on the planet, could not escape because the atmosphere was saturated with water vapor and impurities that blocked the outward radiation. I have also mentioned that this situation is incompatible with what is revealed on both gliptoliths: a harmonic distribution of the use of the resources of the planet for a better life in the gliptolithic humanity. I have also said that this precataclysmic situation did not occur at the same tine as the harmonic distribution of the resources of the planet, since the cataclysm implies an anarchic use of the planets resources. I have also mentioned that a possible cause for this critical situation might have been that the humans that became part of the gliptolithic humanity might have estranged themselves from the final reason for their existence: the increase and conservation of knowledge.

These two incompatible situations that are observed on the gliptoliths can only mean that the gliptolithic men have left us a double message: on one side the model of a rational use of natural resources for the planet to equilibrate its metabolism, and on the other, a view of how the planet can be led to a situation of crisis as a consequence of atmospheric contamination. It is understood that the abandoning of knowledge and the embracing of egotistic ideals were the cause of the misuse of natural resources of the planet in the remote past.

This is an alarming message if it is realized that contemporary humanity is leading the planet towards acute atmospheric contamination, through which the critical situation would be repeated. There are phenomenon occurring today that confirm this statement. As a result of the industrialization of the globe and the production and release of gasses and coloidal particles, these are being spread throughout the atmosphere and are being accumulated in the upper limits of the atmosphere. The existence of a science without social function, and the use of technologies that do not take into account human life or the metabolism of the planet, are producing waste that alter the water cycles of the rivers, lakes and seas. The unplanned growth of urban centers, both for factories and agricultural production, which is motivated by competition between the nations of the world for markets, is systematically destroying agricultural land and forests, necessary for the conservation of our natural habitat.

The phenomena previously described are forming a barrier (opaque body) in the atmosphere, that will impede the dispersion of solar energy that the planet receives and thus will result in an increase in temperature. If this process continues unchecked, a thermic situation like that which the planet suffered in the remote past will once more occur.

The presence of immense blocks of ice (icebergs) in zones where they were not known to exist before has led scientists to believe that a new ice-age is upon us. What is actually happening is that with the increase in global temperature the polar ice-caps are beginning to melt, setting loose these huge blocks of ice, and also masses of cold water, that lead to changes in climate in the areas where they end up. However, this phenomenon is only the beginning of the total melting of all the ice on the planet, as happened on Earth before, judging by the representation of the two hemispheres on the gliptoliths (remember that these did not contain ice-caps). Therefore, since it seems evident that the Earth will once more experience the progressive increase in temperature, after the ice meltdown there will be an evaporation of the waters. But this will have to follow from an initial period of cold climate as the polar caps dissolve.

It is important to remember that the technicians in the United Nations proposed a model of the world to solve the problem of contamination of the atmosphere, that was made up of the following stages: a) construction, in determined zones of the planet, of huge cities for the human population; b) rationally distribute land for agricultural production; c) a planned distribution of industrial centers; d) to make sure that part of the surface of the planet is uninhabited by man to preserve the natural habitat.

This model - which has not received much attention excepting a few press commentaries - has many elements in common with the model of the gliptolithic planet, in which, as I have mentioned, the population was concentrated in Megapoli, certain zones were reserved for industry and agriculture, and certain zones of the planet were left uninhabited.

The definitive message that the two gliptoliths thus leave the men of the future is that man must not alter the natural mechanisms that structure the life and the metabolism of the planet, which are necessary to conserve the habitat and knowledge of the human race.

THE PLANET OF THE GLIPTOLITHIC MEN

Seas and continental relief levels of what seem to be the hemispheres of a planet are drawn on another series of two gliptoliths. In these gliptoliths, as in others I have previously described, the engravings represent a view of the planet from a great height. In each gliptolith a hemisphere is represented. These gliptoliths are each approximately seventy centimeters in diameter, dark in color, and engraved with the deep scoring technique with relief (Figs. 74 and 75).

On the surface of the first hemisphere four continental blocks can be seen, and on the second, six. The blocks are suggestive of solid surfaces or continents, differentiated from the zones that lie between the blocks and that represent seas. The continental surfaces of both hemispheres cover approximately 80 percent and the seas 20 percent of the surface area.

Around the group of continents and seas there is a narrow belt which represents the atmosphere. The narrowness of this belt indicates that this planet is not undergoing a process of intense heat accumulation as in the planet illustrated in the previous stones. The absence of canals that flow to the seas carrying the energy from the evaporation of the atmosphere, as well as the absence of canals of liberated energy that cross the continents (both present in the previous series of gliptoliths), indicate that the planet is in a state of thermic equilibrium.

This is the general situation of the planet represented on the two stones. What follows is an interpretation of the symbols that appear in the hemispheres.

FIRST HEMISPHERE

Each block of this hemisphere (Fig. 74) has an equal number of compartments - seven compartments - that are distributed in an ordered fashion. It is noteworthy that very few symbols have been used, and that direct representations such as those of vegetables, animals and men abound. One figure is placed in each compartment. In each block there is a representation of a human figure. In the group of blocks there are symbols for hydraulic fountains and superior animals: fish, reptiles (dinosaurs), birds, ruminating mammals (goats). There are also compartments for vegetable crops. There are pyramids - symbols of a technological complex for capturing, accumulating and distributing energy - outside the continental blocks and in contact with the belt that represents the atmosphere. There is also the symbol of the concentration of large populations in one area (Megapoli).

In block A the figure of a man can be seen (Figs. 74 and 76) that, according to the symbol on his head, has had his cerebral capacity doubled, possibly to allow him to perform works that require an extraordinary intellectual capacity. This must be a type of the cognitive and reflective man. In block B we see the reflective and scientific man (Figs. 74 and 77). In block C we see the technological man (Figs. 74 and 78), and in block D we see the representation of what I believe to be a variant of the technological man (Figs. 74 and 79). By the symbols on his head, (rhomb-shaped figures that are the symbol of animal life), this must be a technological man whose work involves sane breeding of livestock.

SECOND HEMISPHERE

The six continental blocks of this hemisphere (Fig. 75) have a varied number of compartments. There are figures of fish, reptiles (dinosaurs), birds, and in all the blocks except one, the representation of a human figure. Also, in almost all the blocks there are symbols indicating the presence of large concentrations of human population (Megapoli). In this hemisphere, the complexes for the capture, accumulation and distribution of energy, represented by pyramids, appear inside the continents. This placement, and that of the pyramids in the previous hemisphere, reveal a rational use of the resources of the planet.

In a compartment of block E there is a human figure with squares on its body (Figs. 75 and 80), a symbol of cognitive energy. In the compartment below this figure there is a symbol with staggered lines (like steps). This symbol, seen for the first time on the gliptoliths of this type, signifies cosmic energy, judging by the zigzagging form of the symbol. The human figure, placed above the symbol with the staggered lines, can be interpreted to signify that the cognitive energy of the human is projected towards the cosmos. We are dealing here, then, with a new symbol that is used to represent man in his temporary situation as an energy man.

In block J there is a version of the intelligent scientific man whose head is united with a serpent (Figs. 75 and 81). This strange symbolism signifies the double tendency of man: to evolve towards absolute knowledge or to descend progressively until all knowledge that was given him is lost and he becomes one with the animals from whom he was made different by the gliptolithic men.

The three human figures of blocks G, H and I (Figs. 82, 83 and 84 respectively) represent different stages in the cognitive descent of man towards becoming an animal.

The description and interpretation of the symbols engraved on the gliptoliths of this second series show us a planet that is ideal for human life. We must ask: is this planet Earth, or another planet? It might be believed that this is a representation of the planet Earth represented at a time when the gliptolithic men had been able to avert the cataclysm using their advanced technology, which allowed them to bring down the water accumulated in the atmosphere. But, if the cataclysm was really averted, then the possibility of continental drift and break-up taking place is greatly reduced, and therefore the shape and positioning of the continents on these gliptoliths would have to be the same as those in the previous pair of stones. Making the comparison, however, we see that they are not the same; thus, the planet represented in these two gliptoliths is not the Earth.

It could be insisted that this planet was the Earth, arguing that what is shown on these gliptoliths is the situation the Earth would be in after the cataclysm. But this is also not acceptable, because this signifies that the shape and placement of the continents of these two gliptoliths are the ones that exist on Earth today. And this is obviously not the case. This proves, once more, that the planet that is represented here is not the Earth.

Notwithstanding that what has previously been said it could still be argued that the gliptoliths refer to the Earth in a stage prior the precataclysmic stage, even before the critical thermic buildup began. However, the lack of correspondence between the shape and location of the continents of the two sets of gliptoliths makes this an invalid argument.

Thus, there is no doubt that we are dealing here with a planet different from Earth. The conditions on this planet that make it ideal for human life have been seen, as well as the implementation of technology for the rational use of resources on this planet. I believe that this planet is the planet from whence the gliptolithic men came, and the one they decided to return to when the cataclysm was imminent.

A RETURN OF THE GLIPTOLITHIC MEN TO THEIR PLANET

I do not believe that this representation of the planet of the gliptolithic men was made by them after their return to that planet. Gliptolithic men did not need to travel the cosmos to look for a suitable habitat, make engravings on the stones, return to Earth, leave them there and return to their preferred planet. Because of the imminent cataclysm the gliptolithic men used their occasional state of energy-men to communicate with their old habitat which permitted them go survive and conserve the knowledge they had obtained. In their energy-man state they projected their powerful cognitive energy into the cosmos and made contact without the necessity of their body traveling or dying. Faced with the danger of having to remain in the critical thermal situation that existed of Earth, they abandoned our planet, possibly taking some men with them, who, on a human scale were closer to their cognitive level, and others they needed to perform menial and technical tasks. But before they left they engraved the gliptoliths. The powerful cognitive energy that they projected at times permitted them to know the status of their old planet. And thus they engraved these two gliptoliths with the shape and location of the continents on their ancient planet and communicated with symbols the harmonious development of life there. At this very same time they engraved the other two gliptoliths representing the precataclysmic situation on Earth. Since the increase in heat on the planet that softened the rocks was a gradual process that finally reached a critical point, it is logical to conclude that all the rocks left behind by the gliptolithic men with the purpose of sending messages into the future - must have been engraved during this precataclysmic period. They knew that after the cataclysm the Earth would go through a stage of intense glaciation before returning to its previous equilibrium. In this frozen stage the rocks would once more regain their hardness.

If the types of men that existed on the representation of the planet described by the gliptolithic men are remembered, then the cause of the precataclysmic situation can be found. In the symbolism of this planet we have seen what I have considered to be a variation of the intelligent and scientific man, symbolized by having his head united with a serpent. I have mentioned that this represents the double tendency of man: to evolve towards knowledge or to descend towards his previous state as an animal, out of which he was lifted by the gliptolithic men. We have also seen on this planet the different stages of this cognitive descent of man, represented by three human figures, each one with a progressively inferior cognitive level. Finally, we have also observed the sublime state that the gliptolithic men had achieved, the state of energy-man, in the highest block of the hemisphere where all these types of men appear. All these figures point to the fact that on this planet human beings were conscious of the fact that the reason for their existence was the accumulation and expansion of knowledge, but that they were also conscious of the fact that to lose sight of this objective was to run the risk of falling into a regressive state of animal-like existence that is incompatible with the real nature of man.

The objective of an animal's life is to survive organically, and to achieve it he uses his instinct. If man adopts the psychic conditions of an animal, then he lives only to satisfy his present organic needs. In this egotistical state, man becomes the enemy of man, since he destroys himself and unknowingly his planetary habitat. The symbolic representation of the human types that correspond to the life of the planet indicate that the cause of all the ways which man has at his disposal to destroy his habitat and himself come from his separation from the original reason for his existence: knowledge. It is thus understood that the precataclysmic situation that the Earth experienced in the remote past must have been due to his separation from the original goal of accumulation and furtherance of knowledge. If this is the message that the symbols on the gliptoliths are communicating, then they are also communicating at the same time a way in which to avoid this destruction of the habitat and of the human race: the increase and conservation of knowledge.

THE IMPLANTATION OF KNOWLEDGE

To attain the goal of their existence, - the development of intellectual power (cognitive energy) to increase and preservation of knowledge - the gliptolithic humanity also used the technique of implanting knowledge by inserting molecular sets of nucleic acids and proteins in the cerebral cortex, to make up the physical base of knowledge. In addition, they also modified the organic structure by altering the embriogenetic system that is responsible for the formation and function of the organs of the body. In the first instance cognitive codes that increased the level of knowledge, and therefore the cognitive rank of the individual, were isolated. In the second case, by altering a genetic marker in the organism of the individual, it was possible to make him more predisposed to the understanding and preservation of knowledge. I have found this implantation of knowledge represented symbolically in a gliptolith, and the modification of the organic structure is represented symbolically on a heavy weather cape (Manto de Paracas).

THE IMPLANTATION OF COGNITIVE CODES

The gliptolith that contains this information is symbolic form is approximately seventy-five centimeters at its widest point, dark in color and engraved using the deep scoring method.

The information is presented in a scene that is shown on both sides of the gliptolith. On one side we can see an individual on an operating table (3 in Fig. 85A), having two operations at the same time: the transplant of the suprarenal gland is being performed by one surgeon, and the another surgeon is manipulating some cerebral hemispheres (5 in Fig. 85A) that are touching the cerebral hemispheres of the individual. It is understood that the transplant of the suprarenal gland, as has been mentioned in the chapter on gliptolithic medicine, had the purpose of avoiding the possibility of a rejection of the organ that was subsequently to be transplanted. The present scene could be interpreted to show the transplant of cerebral hemispheres in the cranial cavity of the individual, close to his own brain. However, a distinct part of the scene discounts this possibility: the convolutions of the cerebral hemispheres appear to be continuous in such a way as to seem to be part of one brain mass. This indicates that certain fluid parts of another brain are being transferred into the brain of this individual; that is, knowledge (cognitive codes) are being transferred. I think the scene could well be a symbol that indicates that the implantation of cognitive codes was not performed in the manner shown in the scene, that is, with cerebral hemispheres other than those of the individual, but rather through the artificial implantation of the cognitive codes, previously synthesized by the gliptolithic scientists.

It is interesting to note that under the operating table there is a figure that is square in shape (6 in Fig. 85A), from which two ducts flow out containing small nozzles (7 in Fig. 85A). The ducts are connected, through the wrists of the individual, to the radial arterial-venous system. The square figure would be a part of that system of electronic apparati that I described in dealing with surgical procedures (Chapter V) and whose function was to incorporate, through the circulatory system of the individual, that unknown liquid that, when taken by the bloodstream to the two pairs of cerebral hemispheres, would make it possible to over set the molecular structures of nucleic acids and proteins (cognitive codes) to the cerebral hemispheres of the receptor. This is true, of course, only if the transfer of cognitive codes took place from cerebral hemisphere to cerebral hemisphere. But if another interpretation that I have offered is considered, that the presence of other cerebral hemispheres could well be only a symbol indicating that the cognitive codes to be implanted were previously synthesized, the unknown liquid would have the same function as in the previous case, that is, to introduce the new cognitive codes into the bloodstream so that they could reach the brain. In both cases an electromagnetic field was created that acted on a molecular level to allow the incorporation of the codes. The presence of the electromagnetic field is symbolically represented in this scene by a ring that surrounds the individuals body and the operating table at the level of the feet. It is understood that the operating table was not only an object to hold up the patients but was also part of that complex of electronic apparati that was used by the gliptolithic surgeons for surgical interventions. The electromagnetic field that is created must have had the function of orienting the incorporation of the molecular structures of proteins and nucleic acids into the cerebral hemispheres of the receptor.

That the operation has been successful is expressed in a bunch of lines that emanate from the eye of the patient. This indicates an increase in visual power and is the symbol with which the increase in cognitive ability is indicated.

On the other side of the gliptolith the heads of the two surgeons can be seen (Fig. 85B). The one who is transplanting the suprarenal gland has a small round eye (2 in Fig 85B), while the surgeon dealing with the brain has a large and oval eye (1 in Fig. 85B). This difference is a symbol that establishes differences in cognitive hierarchy, and thus indicates that the surgeon that is manipulating the brain is on a higher cognitive plain than the other surgeon. The bunch of lines that emanate from the eye of the patient indicate that he has acquired through the operation a higher cognitive level than either of the surgeons.

Until recently it was widely believed that knowledge could only be achieved through the complicated process of reflection that the mind goes through, either to understand the information provided by everyday experiences, or to gain information indirectly through references to knowledge that are acquired by man. The process of acquiring knowledge without reflection has not been speculated upon. This is the message that the gliptolith I have just interpreted sends us.

Electrophysiological research by contemporary scientists has revealed that the brain is an extraordinary "square" criss-crossed in all directions by innumerable fulmineous electronic impulses. However, this research has not been able to render precise information about the electric activity of the brain.

The idea that this cerebral activity is accompanied by a chemical activity has recently led to research in this area. It has been found that in the glial cells - that approximately ten in number, cluster around the nerve cells or neurons like satellites - proteins are synthesized at a rate that is not equal to any other cell of a human organ. At the same time that this protein synthetic activity is taking place it has been proven that there is also a high rate of enzymatic activity in the glial cells. (The enzymes are very complex molecules that facilitate chemical reactions to form molecules or to split them) and a high level of ribonucleic acid (more than ten percent of the quantity of ribonucleic acid than is found in the neurons). It is known that this acid regulates the synthesis of proteins and that there are different types of proteins. It is thus thought that the storage and information in the brain of the individual takes place through the production of certain types of proteins that are produced through the transformations that result from the effects of electronic impulses on the ribonucleic acid in the nerve cells. This means that the nerve impulse reaches that reaches the neuron in order to store information as a result of indirect or direct experience is transmitted to the glial cells where the ribonucleic acid through certain structural transformations of its components (nitrogen-based: adonine, sytosine, guanine and uracile; pentose; and ribose; and phosphoric acid), synthesizes a protein in order to store the information in code. It can be said that this protein thus produced is the biochemical structure in which the corresponding knowledge of experience that led to the nervous impulse is registered. All this is a result of research by the Swedish scientist H. Hayden in 1950 in the Institute of Histology at the University of Gutenberg in Switzerland.

Each piece of information requires a different type of protein. Just as man can accumulate different types of information that, when amalgamated, result in a large amount of knowledge (the quantity could be infinite if man were immortal) the ribonucleic and can also synthesize an infinite variety of proteins in which different types of information can be stored.

It has been calculated that an individuals can, during the course of his lifetime, store one thousand trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) pieces of information. This figure, however, is significantly lower than the amount of electrical impulses that flow through the nervous system of a human being in the course of his lifetime. It is calculated that in the waking state, that is conscious, three million impulses are generated per second in the nervous system. Research has demonstrated that the ribonucleic acid of the nerve cells increase considerably from the first three years of life up to forty years, from forty until fifty-five or sixty, the ribonucleic acid-remains constant and thereafter declines fairly rapidly. It has also been proven that the number of functioning nerve cells declines with age and that between the ages of thirty and ninety the volume of the brain is reduced approximately by ten percent.

Experiments performed with platyhelminthic worms called planaries have demonstrated that it is possible to transmit knowledge through biochemical processes. Philogenetically speaking, the planaries are extremely ancient (they existed on earth more than 600 million years ago during the paleozoic age), lacking a circulatory system and an intestine. They do, however, have a bilateral symmetry, a rudimentary and primitive nervous system with a head that governs the body. Planaries when split, can auto-regenerate the other half. The bottom half regenerates the head, and the head regenerates the bottom. When these animals are hungry they practice cannibalism. Certain planaries were trained to perform a specific task. They were taught through the use of lights and electrical charges to move toward the intersection of a T-shaped maze and to always take the same path. These planaries were sectioned and fed to other planaries who had not been trained. The results were surprising. These planaries were able to resolve the problem of the labyrinth in the same way as their predecessors. These experiments were initiated at the University of Texas in the United States of America by R. Thompson and J.V. McConnell, and were continued in the University of Michigan. Planaries ingest food in the same way as amoebas do; therefore they do not destroy the ingested substances. This characteristic permits them to integrate large chains of proteins and cells directly into their tissues. Consequently the planaries used in the experiment were endowed with the same knowledge that had been registered in the proteins of the pieces of the planaries that had been eaten.

In people who have suffered dramatic loss of memory it has been possible to remedy the situation through intravenous administration of ribonucleic acid. The memory of twenty individuals (pre-senile, senile, atherosclerotic) was measured through the application of a series of tests. At the end of two weeks, ribonucleic acid was administered and they were examined with the same tests. All of them improved; those who improved most dramatically were the patients with atherosclerosis followed by the pre-senile group. The atherosclerotic patients also responded well to the oral administration of ribonucleic acid. In this case the dose was much higher and the treatment took place over a longer period of time. This treatment was performed by D. Ewen Cameron of the University of McGill in Canada. A similar experiment was performed in the Heiner-Medin rehabilitation hospital in Budapest. Four five-year old children that paralyzed from polio, and with marked mental retardation, were treated with ribonucleic acid. On the fourth day of treatment, although muscular strength had not improved, the behavior of the children had. They were more active, more sociable, happier, and less taciturn; they even had a better appetite. However, when the treatment was suspended for two days they returned to their previous state. Finally, the intelligence quotient, rigorously determined at the beginning of the treatment, evinced a marked and progressive increase.

GENETIC MODIFICATIONS ON PREHISTORIC TEXTURE: MANTO DE PARACAS

The prehistoric textile: Manto de Paracas, because of the fine material it is made of, the vibrant and lasting colors, and the delicacy of its design and detail, is obviously a work of sophisticated technology. The world does note spare them its astonishment and admiration. They have been found in the graves on the Paracas culture (Pre-Inca civilization). The fact that they were found in these places has caused people to believe that they were made by the men of this culture. It is also widely believed that the figures represented on them are intended to express in a stylized manner, and in some cases fantastically, scenes from the lives of these men. However, it has not been realized that the figures on these capes (Mantos de Paracas) are not merely adornments and do not simply fulfill an aesthetic purpose, but rather that they are symbols that inform us about the genetic makeup of man, on two levels: the micro-physical level, and the macro-physical. The fact that they were found next to objects associated with the primitivism of the inhabitants of the tomb (such as thorns used as sewing needles, obsidian arrowheads, snail shell and bone necklaces, gourds, corn husks, and shards of ceramic pots - surprisingly, next to fine ceramics - etc) reveal an unequal level of technology which is sufficient to dismiss the notion that these prehistoric texture (Manto de Paracas) were made by this Pre-Incan civilization. It is not only the technology that was employed in making them, but also the profound scientific knowledge that is represented on them, that confirm the fact that they were made by an advanced civilization. The Manto de Paracas must have been handed down to the men of the Paracas culture through reproductions made by generations of humans that existed long before this Pre-Incan civilization and that possessed the technology necessary to produce the original prehistoric texture, those that were fabricated by gliptolithic humility with the purpose of transmitting messages.

The Manto de Paracas that I will analyze provides information about the alteration of a somatic characteristic; the elimination of the thumb order to predispose the individual genetically to attain a greater capacity for knowledge (40). The Manto de Paracas depicts a human figure whose head is surrounded by a blue halo (13 in Fig. 86). The individual is depicted standing on his head so that feet can be seen with five toes (15 in Fig. 86). It is observed that on each foot one of the toes has the shape of the thumb, a characteristic that I have interpreted indicates or emphasizes that the hands of this figure have no thumbs. The blue halo that surrounds the figure's stomach (the same color as the halo around the figure's head), an area in which the form of a fetus can be seen (1 in Fig. 86), reveals that the human figure is a pregnant woman. Above the woman's head there are some long ribbons that lead to spherical objects (5 and 9 in Fig. 86). In the first of these ribbons, four yellow figures can be discerned (the same color as the arm, legs, and feet of the woman). These round figures have dark centers and dark caps, and small white squares. They represent the process of ovulation, that is the process of the forming of the ovule. The first of these round figures (3 in Fig. 86) represents the embryonic cell that is found in the ovary. The following two figures are, respectively, the ovocite of the first order and the ovocite of the second order, evolutionary phases of the ovule. The last of these figures (4 in Fig. 86) is the fully formed ovule ready to mature. The spherical objects at the end of the ribbon (5 in Fig. 86) symbolically represents the vagina. The ribbon on the left contains four round figures with eyes, mouths, and with small bodies. These represent sperm in the process of formation. The first of these figures (6 in Fig. 86) represents the embryonic cell of the sperm in the testicle. The two following figures, respectively, represent the spermatocites of the first and second order, evolutionary forms of the sperm. The fourth figures (7 in Fig. 86) represents the immature sperm ready begin the process of maturation. The prolonged object at the end of this ribbon (9 in Fig. 86) symbolically represents the penis.

On the right-hand side, three figures symbolizing spermatozoids appear. The one that is dark color (8 in Fig. 86) and that is connected to the torso of the woman is the one that has fertilized the ovum, and has formed the egg that can be seen inside the woman's body in the shape of a face (11 in Fig. 86). The notion that this figure is an egg, that is the fusion of the spermatozoid and the ovum, is symbolized in the dark color of the eyes (the color of the sperm) and by the blue around the mouth (the color that is found on the woman). The presence of the other two sperm (12 in Fig. 86) does not mean that they are from the same man that produced the dark sperm. Their presence is a symbol indicating that the fertilization has followed a genetic pre-selection of the fertilizing male in order to implant in the woman the genetic code that would allow the woman to bear a being with hands that lack thumbs. The dark color of the sperm can be observed in dark band in the hands of the woman (2 in Fig. 86) and also on her ankles. The lack of thumbs on the hands of the woman does not indicate that she really has this characteristic. The dark band that she has in her hands, a symbol of the sperm that has fertilized her, indicates that the man that implanted the genetic code that will allow him to bear a being without thumbs. The figure with three kidneys (14 in Fig. 86) - that otherwise appears with the respective cortex, medulla, pelvis and uretere - is the symbol of the genetic modification that has taken three generations to make permanent and that, given that the kidney eliminates cells, if analyzed microscopically would evince a lack of the genetic characteristics in the chromosomes that determine the presence of the thumb.

The hand with five fingers in which the thumb is in the opposite position to the fingers, predisposes the individual to manual labor. It is the hand that most approximates the claw. Since what characterized the gliptolithic humanity was the development of the capacity to increase and conserve knowledge, I think that the information contained in this prehistoric textile (Manto de Paracas) indicates that the gliptolithic humanity had a profound knowledge of genetic codes, responsible for the somatic characteristics of an individual. They could thus modify the desired characteristics. Consequently it is possible that the acquisition of knowledge in this area may have permitted them to alter the genetic characteristics of the notharctus to raise him to the level of a man. As concerns the elimination of the thumb, I think it is simply a symbol that emphasizes the goal of the gliptolithic humanity: to leave behind the condition of the animal, a condition in which one of the dominant characteristics is the clawed hand, the hand, that is, that leads man away from knowledge. Thus, although I do not believe that the elimination of the thumb was the process which the gliptolithic men used to lift the notharctus to the level of man, I cannot discount the possibility that the gliptolithic men (come from the cosmos, and of whose physical appearance approximated that of the intelligent and scientific man created by them) had hands without thumbs and that, perhaps, they genetically eliminated the thumb of the intelligent and scientific man - the highest man in the cognitive hierarchy of man - with the purpose of raising his cognitive level to that of their own.

MAN REFLECTS ON MAN

Millions of years ago men of unimaginable knowledge and incredible age, members of a civilization established on another planet in the cosmos, arrived on earth when life on this planet was still in the early stages of evolution. We know that they came from a planet in the constellation of Pleiades, one of the groupings of stars that is part of the 100,000 million stars that compose our galaxy, the Milky Way. Even for the greatest scientists of our day it would be impossible to imagine how these men picked our planet from among this immense number of celestial bodies. And if it weren't for the Engraved Stones of Ica, which tell us about the velocity with which they were able to move through the cosmos, it would be impossible to accept the fact that they traveled the 20 million light years between Pleiades and earth. These powerful human beings did not arrive on our planet at the end of an aimless adventure. Probably they knew that beyond the Milky Way, infinitely farther, and stretching in all directions, there were and are uncountable galaxies with millions of planets, among them, perhaps, many similar to earth. But they did not go to these other planets; they came to earth, and they created humanity here, all of which makes one think that their expedition had a mission whose focus was our planet. The men created on earth were differentiated one from another by their capacity for, the quality of, and the amount of their knowledge. It should not be thought that the men who came from outer space established this intellectual hierarchy with the egoistical purpose of limiting some men's intellectual range so as to take advantage of them. Instead, the different levels of ability were necessary for the performance of the tasks that sustain life, so that each level in its way served the whole society. To move up to the next level required long periods of reflection on the knowledge one had already attained. Thus it was assured that man, before he moved up in the hierarchy, was thoroughly convinced, by his own experience and the knowledge he possessed, of the importance of the function he had been performing. The people knew they could all arrive eventually at the intellectual level of the men who had created them. The hierarchy and one's position in it not, then, a prize or a punishment; and the ability to move up in the hierarchy was a natural right to be exercised.

Undoubtedly those who came from the cosmos were much more highly evolved even than those men on our planet who attained the highest levels of intellectuality. Proof of this can be found in the fact that the men created on earth, despite their considerable cognitive advances, put not only the planet but also the human race in jeopardy. The pre-cataclysmic circumstances and the cataclysm itself were the results of the inferiority of the men on earth to those who cane from outer space. I think that the men who were made by the ancient gliptolithic men changed the goal of their lives as they began to utilize the high cognitive ranges to the detriment of those who occupied the lower ranges. The motive behind this unnatural use of the cognitive powers was the growing emphasis on material things. If we remember that what the men who came from the cosmos installed in the people they created was the desire to develop intellectual capacity so as to increase and preserve knowledge, then enjoyment of material things represents a regression toward the animal state and, as a result, a change in the purposes and goals of mankind. The idea of material pleasure and the goal of contentment in this life came to be ideals for the rest of mankind, the aspiration of all humanity. The gliptolithic men, the ones who made men on earth, had the cognitive power to oblige the others to follow a more worthy path. But this they did not do. They were true to their cognitive principles, and they respected the decision of the others to do as they wished, because they knew that to oblige them to change their ways was a form of slavery. The gliptolithic men knew that the path chosen would lead men to their destruction, and with it the destruction of the splendid civilization they had forged, but they also knew that this destruction would not be absolute, and that some men would survive. Thinking of these survivors and their descendants, they began to engrave the messages that we now begin to appreciate. The order to carve the stones was the only order they resorted to. They knew that someday, if the human race did not become extinct, men would find these records and decipher the messages they contain. They knew as well that the ancient error, the wrong path chosen, would become clear and the true goal of mankind would be grasped. Once these messages had been engraved, the gliptolithic men returned to their planet.

Millions of years later, the goal in life chosen by the gliptolithic men's creations still persists. Modern man appears to have arrived at the conclusion that the nature of man is evil, that we ought not to trust one another, that man is the enemy of man. We have thus managed to construct a world in which everyone, in his search for happiness, thinks and believes that he can conduct this search at the expense of others. It should not surprise that in such a world phrases like "man is wolf to man" and "the struggle for life" should acquire unprecedented significance. We no longer mean by this man's struggle to dominate nature; we mean, lamentably, man's struggle to dominate other men. On this premise has modern man developed ways to, paradoxically, attain happiness. But he is very far from attaining it. Caught up in the struggle he is convinced is necessary, all he has managed to attain is the probability that he will live longer than his grandparents and great-grandparents. The rest, the higher things of life, reflection and cognitive growth - the source of understanding, solidarity, love - he is far from achieving. Unsure of himself, modem humanity is despondent, egoistical, sullen, violent - though he fears death - he creates it. The support given science today would seem a sign that we are taking the road of reflection and knowledge. But as we know, science and the technology derived from it do not produce the well-being that is sought. Men with power in the material sense use scientific and technological achievements to divide, frighten, and destroy man.

Subjected to an exclusively material life, modern man begins to delegate his reflective and cognitive functions to the machine. Machines think for man and men trust them, and every day we move farther and farther away from the exercise and the development of our cognitive power, every day we lose faith in our intellectual labor. Trusting machines gives access to the most powerful means to find better ways to dominate mankind. But the higher function of thought, so central to human nature, in the hands of the machine subjects man to accept the machine's results, which then dominate him. Since man, in spite of being the most perfect creature on earth, is likely to make mistakes, machines are even more likely to make mistakes. And the smallest error made by a machine can lead man to make a decision that means the destruction of mankind and the planet. This negative view of modern man does not mean that we do not still have the capability to be different, to convert ourselves into cognitive beings. The men who came from the cosmos and the unknown number of generations that followed are eloquent proof that man is capable. The nature of man, in other words, is not the problem. Modern man has been basing his life on mistaken assumptions for a long time - mistakes that go against his nature - as a result of the fact that he is ignorant of the true goal of human existence. The development of the capacity to reflect and increase knowledge is the only way by which man can achieve a superior form of life in which evil and egoism have no place. Modern man has always been a prisoner of fear in the face of the dim horizon of his origin and his past, for which reason he thinks this horizon to be mysterious. At the same time he wants to know that exists beyond his planet, and since alone he cannot do either, he comes to the conclusion that this can only be achieved by supernatural beings. But through the Engraved Stones of Ica. we begin to gain knowledge of that which he has always thought to be an unresolvable enigma: his origin and his past. Also through the Engraved Stones of Ica we see that if we take as the goal of human existence that which was the goal of the humanity that lived on Earth in the remote past, we can learn about what is beyond our planet. The Engraved Stones of Ica tell us that for this it is not necessary to be supernatural, because to liberate oneself from the forces that hold men back on this planet, a human and not a supernatural nature is essential. With time the ongoing cultivation of the reflexion and the increase in knowledge can make of man an entity whose cognitive energy is projected into the cosmos and permits him to do amazing things. The most formidable thing about this projection of cognitive energy, as the Engraved Stones of Ica tell us, is the extraordinary possibility that man has to achieve it without his body perishing. It should not be thought, as some might assume, that in situations like these man has to convert himself into two entities. Man is always only one entity. His cognitive energy, no matter how far into space it is projected, never ceases to be a fluid tied forever to the organic mass, but at the same time it is not a simple mass; it is impregnated with this cognitive energy, like an energy source that projects its fluid if it is completely energized.

If the men who came from the cosmos were intellectually and cognitively much more highly evolved than even the man in the highest range of the intellectual hierarchy they created, still they were not gods, but men. Their extraordinary achievements make them models for man's potential. Now that we know about them and their achievements, perhaps modern man will ask more questions about his origin. Were these the first men in the universe? Or had they, before their arrival, on Earth, been created by and his past, for which reason he thinks this horizon to be mysterious. At the same time he wants to know that exists beyond his planet, and since alone he cannot do either, he comes to the conclusion that this can only be achieved by supernatural beings. But through the Engraved Stones of Ica. we begin to gain knowledge of that which he has always thought to be an unresolvable enigma: his origin and his past. Also through the Engraved Stones of Ica we see that if we take as the goal of human existence that which was the goal of the humanity that lived on Earth in the remote past, we can learn about what is beyond our planet. The Engraved Stones of Ica tell us that for this it is not necessary to be supernatural, because to liberate oneself from the forces that hold men back on this planet, a human and not a supernatural nature is essential. With time the ongoing cultivation of the reflexion and the increase in knowledge can make of man an entity whose cognitive energy is projected into the cosmos and permits him to do amazing things. The most formidable thing about this projection of cognitive energy, as the Engraved Stones of Ica tell us, is the extraordinary possibility that man has to achieve it without his body perishing. It should not be thought, as some might assume, that in situations like these man has to convert himself into two entities. Man is always only one entity. His cognitive energy, no matter how far into space it is projected, never ceases to be a fluid tied forever to the organic mass, but at the same time it is not a simple mass; it is impregnated with this cognitive energy, like an energy source that projects its fluid if it is completely energized. If the men who came from the cosmos were intellectually and cognitively much more highly evolved than even the man in the highest range of the intellectual hierarchy they created, still they were not gods, but men. Their extraordinary achievements make them models for man's potential. Now that we know about them and their achievements, perhaps modern man will ask more questions about his origin. Were these the first men in the universe? Or had they, before their arrival, on Earth, been created by humanity. It does not: surprise, then, that the hidden purpose of the enormous amounts of money devoted to improving the technology of space travel, is to develop the capability to leave the planet and establish a new life on another planet to be populated only by the intellectual elite and the wielders of material power, in case the atmosphere is completely destroyed by an irrational atomic war. If this should happen they would not go far. And since they would carry with them the poisonous egoism that had caused the disaster on earth, their descendants could but reproduce the same conditions in the new habitat which would eventually make life impossible. Thus, these descendants would flee from planet to planet, over the course of millions of years, making of the universe a large and growing trash heap.

The Engraved Stones of Ica, the records of the highest form of existence man has achieved, continue, nonetheless, to be disregarded by archeologists. Despite the fact that fifteen years have passed since the appearance of the stones, officially they are still ignored. It can easily be appreciated how many sacrifices I have had to make to maintain my faith in the scientific value of the stones. The incredulity demonstrated by those who from the beginning had the professional obligation to scientific determine the validity or invalidity of the stones, and the persistence of that incredulity, make me think that they fear that everything classical Archeology has built up about man's past would dissolve into nothingness before the force of the truth in these stone artifacts. Is this incredulity another sign of egoism, as much or more terrible than that which is leading our planet to disaster? Doubt, at first, was a necessary step to arrive at the truth. Later, even though a prestigious archeologist found some specimens that proved that the Engraved Stones of Ica were not of recent manufacture, doubt turned inexplicably to incredulity. And incredulity has persisted despite the fact that laboratory analyses from well-known institutions have demonstrated that the engravings are old, given the patina of oxidation that covers the incisions. What should we think of the efforts to prove that the Engraved Stones of Ica are the work of local artisans? And what should we think when, because of this argument, the stones are allowed to continue leaving Ocucaje and are continued to be sold? It is as if someone wanted all the Engraved Stones of Ica to disappear so that when, someday, there is a search for the deposits left by gliptolithic man, they would be empty. If this were to happen, the only engraved stones on display would be those in the Museum of Javier Cabrera Darquea, which would lend more credence to the idea that I myself had the stones manufactured. But even given this unhappy scenario, the inconceivable work it would take to hide all reference to this humanity who lived in the remote past, would have been in vain, because that ancient humanity left their messages in metal objects, in ceramics, in carved wood, in cloth, in groupings of stone structures, and in the ferrous soil of the Pampa de Nasca. As if that humility had foreseen that the material chosen, for its durability, to tell their story - stone - might not be taken seriously.

The obstacles, the pressure put on me to abandon my investigations, have been innumerable. But my status as a scientist, sensitive to the evidence of a more intelligent human being who inhabited our planet, has permitted me to rise above the obstacles that I have encountered in these ten years. My endurance stems from my conviction that the Engraved Stones of Ica are the legacy not of one group of men to another, but of one humanity to another, our humanity. I an aware that new and larger obstacles still stand in my way, but my commitment to making the messages of the Engraved Stones of Ica available to actual humanity, will carry me through. Messages I have already deciphered through thousands of hours of observation and analysis in the last ten years of ray life await the opportunity to be made known. The messages in his book are meant to introduce actual humanity to the world that existed so long ago. And since the path we are following is so different from theirs, the messages of the gliptolithic world can only be absorbed bit by bit. Undoubtedly there are many more that need to be deciphered. This requires considerable time and thought; But nothing will keep me from continuing to disentangle the legacies of the humanity who lived in the remote past, even if it takes me the rest of my life.