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When I was in Peru in 1965, the closest view of the 820 foot-high three-armed trident on the cliffside in the Bay of Pisco was from a mile out at sea. On our journey in 1968, Hans Neuner and I planned to go ashore, free at least part of an arm from the sand and take photographs. After an unsuccessful attempt to reach the three-armed trident by land in a rented car that kept on bogging down in the sand dunes, we persuaded a fisherman to take us into the bay. For a good two hours we swung along in a light breeze until the fisherman explained that he could go no nearer the coast because his boat would be in danger of being ripped apart by the sharp underwater reefs. So we had no choice but to get into the water and wade and swim the remaining fifty yards to the shore with all our clothes on, including our shoes—because of the stinging fish. We pushed our tools, measuring tapes and cameras ahead of us, wrapped in plastic containers. When we reached the first coastal cliffs, we took off our wet things and tramped through the hot sand to the cliff face. Unfortunately well-disposed gods do not lend supernatural powers to curious idealists. After a few hours of hard work we had to admit that it was beyond our powers to free even a single bit of the the trident are about 12 ft 6 ins wide. They consist of snow-white phosphorescent blocks that are as hard as granite. Before they were covered with sand, i.e. as long as the early inhabitants kept them clean, these dazzling, brilliant signals to the 'gods' must have 'shouted' to heaven. There are some archaeologists who think that the trident on the cliffs of the Bay of Pisco was a landmark intended for shipping. The fact that the trident lies in a bay and cannot be seen from all sides by passing ships is against this theory. Another argument against it is that a landmark of this size would have been excessively large for coastal shipping, and the existence of deep sea shipping in remote antiquity is doubtful, to say the least. But the main thing against it is that the makers constructed their trident facing heavenwards. We might also ask why, if navigational marks were needed for some kind of shipping, the ancients did not make use of the two islands which lie far out at sea on the line of an extension of the central arm of the trident. They provided natural aids to orientation which would have been visible from afar to any ship regardless of the direction from which it approached the bay. So why a navigational mark that seafarers coming from either north or south could not see at all? And why one that points heavenwards? I may mention in passing—to clinch matters —that apart from a sandy desert there is absolutely nothing that could have attracted seafarers and that the waters with their sharp reefs must have been an unsuitable anchorage even in Another fact supports my theory about this signal that faces heavenwards. Only 100 miles away as the crow flies lies the plain of Nazca with its mysterious ground markings, which were only discovered in the 1930's. Since then archaeologists have been racking their brains over the geometrical system of lines, animal drawings and neatly arranged bits of stone which extend over an area some 30 miles long between Palpa in the north and Nazca in the south. To me they look just like an airport lay-out. 8 - Ancient Sites That Deserve Investigation trident from the hard layer of sand. Nevertheless, we took some accurate measurements that were worth our while. The individual arms of prehistoric times.