book exerpt #2: The Mystery of the Carvings

(this material is an exerpt from the book "The Message of the Stones", by Dr. Javier Cabrera)

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 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.