Sunday, July 28, 2013

The Advanced Marvels of Tiahuanaco and Other Sites – Part II

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

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