If the inscriptions here are similar to the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, I might be able to make them out. Hieroglyphs, inscribed on the Rosetta Stone which Napoleon brought back from an expedition to Egypt, had not been in use for almost two thousand years and become indecipherable. It was only in the first half of the nineteenth century that French linguist Champollion managed the difficult task thanks to the Rosetta Stone.
From a low crouch I take some video footage and Polaroid shots of the gate, then sketch some of the more weathered sections into a notepad. If I have the time, it would be an interesting challenge to try and decipher the glyphs myself. Civilization does not always appear to have progressed in orderly stages from past to present, and perhaps the reason for this is hidden somewhere in the text.
Just as the ability to read and write hieroglyphs was lost, so too was the know-how of constructing pyramids. Much about how the ancient Egyptians were able to build such large structures remains a mystery. We know that π was used for the pyramids built in Egypt between 3000 and 2000 B.C. and in South America. However, our histories tell us that the number was not discovered until much later. And how do ever make sense of the fact that structures based on accurate observations of the heavens were erected well before the advent of modern science?
Temporally speaking, it sometimes seems as though the flow of civilization carelessly blends past and future.
Why were the Nazca Lines drawn if they could only be seen from high above?
Why do accurate maps of Antarctica exist from ancient times if the ice-covered continent was only discovered in 1820?
How did the ancient Indio of South America build a furnace that may have reached temperatures of 2000 degrees centigrade and gauge heavenly orbits so accurately?
If it’s true that Copernicus came across the heliocentric theory in a text from antiquity rather than invent it, then who was the author, from which exact period?
Why were the reed boats used on the Lago Titicaca identical in both design and method of construction to the vessels that sailed down the ancient Nile?
Why do ancient world maps have accurate longitude markings when the chronometers necessary for this weren’t invented until the eighteenth century?
Why does the ancient Hindu sacred text Mahabharata contain a description that obviously appears to depict a nuclear explosion?
Why do the sacred Brahman Vedas, compiled between 1500 and 1200 B.C., clearly note the efficacy of vaccination?
There is ample evidence that a civilization of unclear provenance existed, and the impression is that it emerged without following discrete stages of development.
There are many books already published around this theme, all and one attempting to answer the questions through invoking a lost civilization. They assert that a continent such as Mu in the Pacific or Atlantis in the Atlantic nurtured an advanced civilization but, due to some calamitous event, sank into the ocean, taking most of their knowledge with them.
Myths do not appear out of the blue but form around a nucleus of memory shared by a people. An analysis of the myths of the world reveals that almost all of them describe a flood. It seems certain from this that there was in fact massive flooding on a global scale over 10,000 years ago. Thus the authors postulate that an advanced civilization in the Pacific or Atlantic was lost to a flood and that its landless survivors scattered around the world and taught other peoples their ways. As time passed, however, and the first generation died off, the memory of the civilization grew increasingly dim, with fewer and fewer numbers in each following generation to carry it forward. From our perspective, civilization gradually regressed.
There is something about the names “Mu” and “Atlantis” that excites people.
The arguments are logical, but they are far from gaining mainstream academic acceptance. No submerged metropolis has ever been excavated, and it does not seem likely that a civilization able to calculate π with any accuracy flourished over 10,000 years ago. That being said, the idea of an environmental shift causing a mass flood at around that time seems plausible, whether looked at from the analysis of prevailing world myths or from geophysical theory. The idea of an ancient civilization is perhaps just a romantic notion, but there is credence to the idea of an ancient cataclysm.
A natural disaster, caused by anomalies on a global scale like fluctuations in the geomagnetic field or changes in orbital paths, can be predicted by observing the heavens. That is why the ancient Egyptians and Indio of South America went to such obsessive lengths in hoisting and positioning huge stones in a way that faithfully reflected celestial motion. If it could help them predict disaster, no effort was too grueling.
If their reasons for constructing huge stone structures are recorded somewhere in writing, I would like to look for that text. The ability to read it would of course have long since been lost; it would be a daunting task for us moderns, but when it comes to codes, the tougher the merrier.
I kneel and embrace the rock with both arms, sliding my palms along the textured contours of its surface. To feel it with my whole body, I lovingly run my fingers over the etchings and put my ear to inanimate matter, listening for ancient words.
Burn paper and words are reduced to ash. Indeed, during the Spanish conquest, huge numbers of invaluable cultural relics were burned: books on astronomy, pictures, copied tomes, hieroglyphic texts. But it was not so easy to erase the words of these ancient sites, carved as they are in stone and rock. If something had to be communicated to future generations at any cost, the only choice was to give meaning to a layout of stones and to carve words into them.
Kalasasaya is a wide open space surrounded by double walls. Gigantic rectangular columns line the outer enclosure, and these too are thought to have functioned as precision observatories.
How surprised the Spanish must have been to discover the ruins here. Even today, the local Indio hold to the legend that Tiwanaku simply appeared out of the blue, a long time before the emergence of the Aztecs. Maybe it is just my prejudice, but I find it hard to imagine that the ancestors of the Indio idling in the streets today built this great site.
The ruins haven’t been dated definitively. A historian argues that they’re 500 years old; an archeologist pushes it back to 2,400 years. Yet another, a scientist, claims that the ruins have stood for 17,000 years. Any agreement seems far off.
My heart laden with queries, I decide to climb the Akapana pyramid. It is stepped, and its four sides, each around 200 meters in length, are set down precisely according to the cardinal points of the compass. Unfortunately, only the base maintains its original grandeur, the upper stones having been plundered by the Spanish and resembling a mere hill.
Reaching the top, I look out across the surrounding area. The Lago Titicaca used to be 30 meters higher than it is now; its curving edge must have been close by to the north. The view would have been quite different then. In my imagination the lake fills up, accompanied by tall lush grass, leaving Tiwanaku an island. Deep waterways meander between the mountains and reflect the sky, a blue snake writhing.
The impact of climbing Akapana is fundamentally unlike the euphoria I experienced at Giza and Teotihuacan. A simpler and purer feeling that I have known this land before assails me. It resembles déjà vu but is more intense. It does not weaken with each blink; the longer I look, the stronger the familiarity and the impression that I have lived here in the past. As I close my eyes and relish my nostalgia, I catch a faint scent of citrus on the air. Nothing brings back old memories like the sense of smell. My excessive false remembrance must have brought it in tow.