Page Content (OCR)
Naturally I have also asked myself whether there might not be conventional explanations for the ‘ruins' above Sacsayhuaman. Earthquakes? They could hardly have caused the damage which leaves so much order recognisable among the disorder. To add a double question mark after all the questions, the dressed granite blocks show signs of vitrification of the kind that only appears as the result of tremendously high temperatures. Freaks of nature? The granite blocks have accurately cut grooves and they have mottises as if they had been torn loose from the block next to them. Neither the city archaeologist at Cuzco nor his colleagues in the museums of Lima could give me a satisfactory explanation of the structures we had examined. 'Pre-Inca,' they said, 'or perhaps the Tiahuanaco culture. Of course, there is nothing shameful about admitting one's ignorance. The fact remains that no one knows anything definite about the blocks we saw above Sacsayhuaman. Only one thing is certain. This great complex was built by a method unknown to us by beings unknown to us at an unknown date. It is also certain that it existed and had already been destroyed again before the famous Inca I had studied many books on the subject and learnt extraordinary things about Tiahuanaco in the process, but everything in them was surpassed by what I saw with my own eyes. I had also read a lot about the remarkable 'water conduits' that were discovered at Tiahuanaco. During my last journey to There I stood in Tiahuanaco, 15,000 ft above sea level, for the second time. I had paid too little attention to the 'water conduits' during my first brief visit, but this time I wanted to rectify the omission. I found the first remarkable example of these half-pipes set in the wall of a reconstructed temple. It had been put there arbitrarily. Where it sat in the wall the half-pipe was quite pointless, except perhaps in a decorative sense, as if it was aimed at the tourists. When I was able to examine the 'water conduits’ in other places, I found that what I had read about them was true. They had a completely modern shape with smooth cross-sections, polished inner and out could be excavated or reconstructed if systematic research was carried out on the site. Volcanic eruptions? There have been none for miles around. Movements of the earth's crust? The last violent movement is supposed to have taken place about 200,000 years ago. fortress of the Sun God was built. This applies equally to Tiahuanaco on the Bolivian plateau. the Bolivian plateau I singled them out for special study.