The Temples of Tihuanacu

Tihuanacu is where the great myths of the ancient world come together as one. Tihuanacu, at the southern end of Lake Titicaca in the Bolivian Andes Mountains, is home to what is reputed by many to be the oldest massive stone temple on earth. Older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt, and older than the underwater city off the coast of India carbon dated to 7,500 BCE, it was determined to have been built between 10,000 BCE and 15,000 BCE, long before the reign of man.[1] Mesoamerican and Andean Indian legends claim Tihuanacu and Lake Titicaca are the birthplace of god and humankind, and hence, what Western culture refers to as ‘the Garden of Eden.’ In addition to being the starting place of humankind, it is also known as his resting place in death. The word Tihuanacu, in the Inca language means the “Place of the Dead.”[2] In ancient Sumerian, TI.AN.NA.KU means ‘creation place of An.” Could it be that both Paradise and Hell of Mesopotamia and Egyptian mythology were the same as the “Place of the Dead”?

Mesoamerican and Andean Indian claims are consistent with ancient Mediterranean and Mesopotamian legend and myth. Together, the celestial and geological events they describe are matched by a single place on Earth, in a very specific ancient time. Tihuanacu represents the common source for these basic creation myths from around the world. It places them in the context of a common timeline that is consistent with the archeological, geological, geographical, and astronomical learning of the last century. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythologies left fifty clues as to where the Garden of Eden would be found, all pointing to Tihuanacu. In addition to the clues extracted from multiple myths, six ancient historians recorded that the ancestors of Noah came from across an ocean in the west.[3] Biblical scholars however, frequently focus on a single clue that The Garden of Eden was to be found at the source of four rivers, thus placing it at the source of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, ignoring all the other requirements.[4] There are however, dozens of ancient clues, repeated numerous times in ancient legend, which repudiate the theory as to why the Garden of Eden should be at the source of the Tigris and Euphrates. Only when all clues are considered, does the true location of the Garden of Eden become obvious.

It was The Lost Book of Enoch which started this investigation, suggesting that the ancient Biblical patriarch Enoch, also widely recognized as one of the seven antediluvian sages of Sumerian lore and one of the Egyptian Shemsu-Hor, initially travelled to a geography found only at Tihuanacu prior to the Great Deluge. In the research effort to validate this seemingly incredible conclusion, it was even more surprising to discover that ancient Sumerian and Egyptian myths and legends also pointed to Tihuanacu as the Garden of Eden and the Underworld. Delving even further, the creation mythologies of Sumer and the origins of the ‘Eye of Ra’ may have been founded on the temple carvings at Tihuanacu. Finally, when one analyzes the pre-Deluge flood myths, that pattern of flooding in the required timeframe is found only at Tihuanacu. Taken together, the clues provided to the reader by these myths and legends should leave no doubt that Tihuanacu should be considered the ‘cradle of Western Civilization.’

Arthur Posnansky, an Austrian archeologist and engineer who dedicated most his life to studying Tihuanacu came to a similar conclusion and published his findings in 1945. Augustus Le Plongeon, another engineer who dedicated his life to studying the Maya of Central America, came to a similar conclusion.[5] Both were field archeologists, spending decades at their locations. Both were scoffed at by academics that never spent a day in the field, but managed to have the works of these two researchers removed from academia because they challenged the classical Judeo-Christian interpretation of history. Their work remains obfuscated because at a time when Arthur Posnansky and a panel of German professors estimated the age of the temples to be 17,000 years old, many archeologists were not accepting that man even existed yet, much less ‘had arrived’ in the Americas. History has not yet been able to remove that stigma from the works of Posnansky and Le Plongeon. Mainstream archeologists have since ‘confirmed’ the presence of man in the Andes Mountains long prior to 10,000 BCE, and there are digs that demonstrate the presence of man in South America as far back as 45,000 BCE.[6] Posnansky claimed to have found a fossilized human skull in the pre-glacial strata of a dig at Tihuanacu, which puts the origins of culture at Tihuanacu even further back in time.[7] While most archeologists prefer to avoid the controversy altogether, there is constant stream of discoveries that point to the validity of Posnansky’s claim. The ruins of Caral have been widely ‘accepted’ as the oldest city in the Americas dated to 2,600 BCE. A gold and turquoise beaded necklace dated at 3,000 BCE was unearthed not far from Tihuanacu, suggesting the prior existence of a sophisticated culture and continental trade routes through the Andes.[8] Similarly, an ancient form of writing known as ‘quipu’ has been unearthed and dated to 3,000 BCE. Computerized analysis of the quipu consisting of colored knots of wool and cotton suggest the writing method had a capability to document sophisticated numerical transactions, government records and every word in the oldest Quechua language.

The approximate dating of the construction of Tihuanacu is critical, because the dating of the travels of Enoch is tied to these ruins. Enoch was the Biblical patriarch who was the great-grandfather of Noah, and left several records of his travels and his lord’s teachings before leaving his family to live with his lord. Enoch’s place in history – according to a careful reading of the content of The Lost Book of Enoch – is before the sinking of Atlantis and the Great Deluge. Geologists and astrophysicists have made very credible arguments with substantial research that validates the Egyptian historians’ record of the sinking of Atlantis circa 9,650 BCE.[9] With multiple ancient historians equating the catastrophe at Atlantis with the Great Deluge, and with Enoch being the great-grandfather of Noah, Enoch had to have walked the earth prior to the sinking of Atlantis, and visited the house of his god prior to 9,650 BCE. When presented as separate discussions, the dating of the Great Deluge at 9,650 BCE and the dating of the ruins at Tihuanacu as antediluvian both seem to be anomalies, and easy to disregard. If, however the two events are part of a larger historical pattern preserved by the ancients in their stone carvings and cuneiform tablets, the burden of proof for an alternative date shifts to the traditionalist academics and Biblical scholars. That larger pattern is defined here-in.

This chapter provides background to the reader who may be unfamiliar with the Tihuanacu temples and the Lake Titicaca region. Chapter II will demonstrate that the House of Enoch’s lord was in Tihuanacu, and define the relationship with Atlantis. Chapter III will demonstrate that the same House visited by Enoch was the House of the Sumerian lord Enlil, successor to the lord Enki. Chapter IV will demonstrate the ancient Egyptians travelled to and traded with this kingdom which became known as ‘the Underworld.’ Chapter V will explain aspects of The Lost Book of Enoch that demonstrate that the lords of Tihuanacu – as visited by Enoch – had an understanding of the world that was at least 26,000 years old. It further explains how the dating of Atlantis and the Deluge of 9,650 BCE are consistent with The Lost Book of Enoch.[10] Chapter VI describes how a celestial force of nature known to the Sumerians as Mammu-Tiâmat, was ultimately responsible for the destruction of Atlantis, and was also indirectly responsible for the ‘second’ creation of man.[11] Chapter VII explains why the current theories of dating pre-history based on Zecharia Sitchin’s popular theories have insurmountable issues and should not be accepted as viable. Chapter VIII will review the temple carvings found at Tihuanacu and show how they map to the cosmology and pantheons of the Egyptians and Sumerians, and are inextricably linked to the creation myths of Egypt and Sumer. Chapters IX and X will show that the multiple floodings described in the earliest creation mythologies of the Egyptians and Sumerians correspond to actual flood events at Tihuanacu, at the time the Egyptian historians said they occurred. Chapter XI demonstrates multiple similarities between the Mayan Creation mythology and those of the Sumerians and Egyptians. Chapter XII recaps and summarizes the ancient clues to the location of the Underworld. The initial research was halted at this point, and a year of reflection suggested that certain questions remained unanswered. These remaining chapters address the questions. Chapter XIII compares Enoch’s calendar to the calendar system at Tihuanacu. Chapter XIV investigates further the meanings of the carvings to demonstrate that they document the observations of Enoch, and align with critical celestial markers of time. Chapter XV investigates the appearance of lesser known solar gods, who seem to be short lived, and represent death and destruction more than fertility and life. These lesser known gods are markers for the Western sunrise. Chapter XVI reviews the First Three Ages of Man and identifies astronomical events other than Tiâmat which impacted the mythology of those ages.

If there were no temple ruins at Tihuanacu, Enoch’s writings would still point to that exact location in the Andes Mountains as ‘the’ location of the house of god. There are however, ruins exactly where they should be according to The Lost Book of Enoch and the Egyptian Book of the Dead – temples that were built prior to the time of Enoch. The ruins at Tihuanacu match Enoch’s descriptions, as well as those of the Egyptians and Sumerians. There, Enoch met his lord, who remains unnamed in his book, but shall be demonstrated to be the Sumerian lord and deity “Enlil” and the Egyptian lord Atum. Over the millennia, scribes renamed Enlil as Yahweh of the Hebrews, and there is no doubt Yahweh matches the Sumerian legend of Enlil, although there are a number of writers who support the theory that Enlil’s half-brother Enki (also known as Ea in Acadian) became the god of the Hebrews.[12] There are some translations that make Enki both father and brother of Enlil, with Ninhursag as mother of both.[13] This complicated Sumerian pantheon may contribute to an understanding as to why Enoch is considered ‘apocryphal’ (non-canonical, of hidden origin) by Judeo-Christian scholars. Ea/Enki is the Sumerian deity held responsible for the creation of man (at the request of Enlil) and held responsible for the salvation of man by telling Noah to build the ark (in defiance on Enlil), and thus held by many to become the original foundation for Yahweh. Enoch’s lord is Enlil, and Noah’s lord is Ea/Enki. The historical decision to select one or the other as the primary god of the Hebrews is not within the scope of this analysis.

Just as Homer’s the Iliad helped Heinrich Schliemann discover the ancient city of Troy, The Lost Book of Enoch points its readers to the Garden of Eden, to Hades, and to the house of ‘god’ as being located in the Lake Titicaca basin. Just as convincing, the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead provides numerous clues and a secretive map suggesting the home of the gods was “in the West” at Tihuanacu. (See Chapter IV, Exhibit III) Posnansky believed that Tihuanacu would come to be accepted as the cradle of civilization, but he and his colleagues were forced by the academic and publishing titans of his era to retract his findings because they were viewed as ‘inconceivable.’ To the contrary, the passage of time has shown that Posnansky’s original findings only help us make sense of the inconsistencies and gaps in history scholars have been unwilling to address for centuries. There is much more to be learned about the world by studying the ancients of the Andes. There are over 100,000 archeological sites in Peru, and only “2,500 of them have been mapped in some way.”[14] More evidence is forthcoming.[15]

There are three temples built during three periods at Tihuanacu, but according to Posnansky, all were built in the same ancient timeframe, which is earlier than 10,000 BCE.[16] He noted that after each temple was destroyed, its stones were used by subsequent temple builders.[17] When they were originally built, the location was an island created by a geologic uplift of the region where previously there was a single paleo-lake. Egyptian myth would later refer to this island as Trampling Island. The oldest temple is known as Puma Punku, and little remains of it except a number of massive, intricately tooled stones, the cutting of which reportedly cannot be reproduced with current technology. At some point in time, the original temple was cataclysmically destroyed, and most of the stone re-used for the newer temples, and ultimately moved in pieces to nearby cities for post-Columbian construction and railroad beds. Posnansky writes the locals were breaking up and stealing the massive stones even as his dig at the ruins was unearthing them.

When Puma Punku – the first temple -was built, the temple site was situated on a broad island plain in the Andes Mountains situated between two of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, which at one time formed a single massive lake. The two lakes were connected by two rivers, and the Temple resided on the plain between rivers to the east and west, with lakes to the north and south, thus making it an island. Water flowed from underneath the temple, feeding the river along the eastern ridge. The lakes were fed by mountain stream, glacial melt run-off, and massive monsoons, which ceased about 8,000 BCE.[18] At the time the temple flourished, the shores of Lake Titicaca would have reached very close to the temple instead of the miles that separate lake and temple site today. Trees were common in the Titicaca basin up until 2,000 BCE.[19] Prior to 10,000 BCE, the lake level was 25 meters higher than today. Today, the lake is 29 meters lower than the temple site. If the water rose by 25 meters, the shores of the lake would be two football fields away from the temple. By 6,000 BCE, the lake level had dropped 145 meters[20] lower than peak levels, and at this lower level, underwater roads, caves and artifacts were discovered in 2004 by a Japanese diving team.[21] The discovery of ruins at that depth constitutes one of many proofs that dispute the outrageous claims that Tihuanacu was built in the current era.

Puma Punku is translated to mean ‘lion’s door’ or ‘lions gate’, and Posnansky documents the discovery of a small door at the temple that he contended was designed for the lion of the Andes, the puma. The early inhabitants of the Andes considered the puma to be their symbol of the earth, making Puma Punku the temple of the earth god. In what will first be viewed as coincidence, but shown to be part of a larger pattern of coincidence, the first temple of Egyptian creation mythology (location of which has never been designated) was home to Ptah. In Sumerian creation mythology, the first temple was the home of Enki. Enki was referred to as ‘Lord of the Earth’[22] and Ptah was referred to as the ‘Earth-maker’ in the Edfu Texts. In all three scenarios, the temple of the earth god was destroyed by a flood and subsequently rebuilt by ‘giants.’ In all three sets of legends (Egyptian, Sumerian and Andean), Puma Punku was built shortly after the coming of the first sun which ended the long reign of darkness – which will be shown to correlate to the departure of a massive dust cloud that enveloped the earth for centuries, as testified to by ice core data. The departure of this cloud corresponds to the timeframe initially defined by Posnansky for the destruction of Puma Punku (the beginning of the 11^th Millennium BCE),[23] thus providing another framework justifying Posnansky’s timing, and corresponds to the creation date of the Turin Papyrus.[24]

The massive lakes to the north and south of Tihuanacu have gone through a series of cataclysmic changes since 45,000 BCE. These changes are critical to understanding the Egyptian origins of the myth of the “god who opens (pth) the water”[25] that destroyed the first temple -Puma Punku. They also testify to significant changes in the geography of South America, without which the reader cannot understand how the transoceanic trade routes had changed over the millennia.

Late Pleistocene glaciation in the Altiplano of the Central Andes was far more extensive than previously recognized, with all of the northern Altiplano being covered by a glacial icecap. Large paleo lakes existed in the Altiplano, but their relationship with glacial episodes is unclear. One Altiplano paleo lake filled the basin to the 4,100±m contour drained catastrophically through the Achocalla Valley of Bolivia approximately 45,000-40,000 years B.P. The catastrophic floodwaters flowed north and south upon reaching the lowlands of eastern Bolivia, scouring much of lowland Amazônia and depositing the Belterra Clay. Asymmetric ripple marks on the Amazon Cone record the passing of the floodwaters into the Atlantic Ocean. The Belterra Clay dammed the eastern outlet of the Amazon drainage to an elevation of 260±m, resulting in the formation of a great freshwater lake, Lake Amazonas Lake Amazonas accumulated vast quantities of fine-grained sediments through deposition in basin-wide “birds’ foot” deltas before it began draining eastward about 13,500 years B.P.[26]

Following the collapse of the original paleo lake, came Lake Minchin, and then Lake Tauca with an estimated age from 11,000 to 16,000 BCE or from 12,900 to 24,100 BCE years, depending on the source. During this antediluvian timeframe, a geologic uplift event created separation between the Northern (Titicaca) and Southern (Coipasa/Poopó) Lake basins. Where there had been one large inland sea there were now two massive paleo-lakes, and the future home of Tihuanacu emerged between them. Then came turmoil caused not only by glacial melt at the end of the ice age, but also massive monsoon storms that ceased after the Great Deluge. In a series of floods over several thousand years, waters from the northern Titicaca basin flooded into the southern basin creating new paleo lakes that were given different names: Lake Coipasa, which has been radiocarbon dated from 9,500 to 11,400 BCE, followed by Poopó Lake and Uru Lake.[27] It can be speculated that the demise of Lake Coipasa was a result of those cataclysms that ended what the Incas called ‘The First Age of Man.’ It was then that the ancients of Titicaca began a rebuilding their agricultural infrastructure in the southern lake basin with a massive series of canals documented by the Sumerians and Egyptians in their oldest myths.[28] This massive man-made system of canals would have co-existed with a large lake on the Bolivian Plano between 9,000 to 3,000 BCE.[29] Reinforcing the idea of the need for irrigation, there is some evidence that circa 9,000 BCE, the monsoons ended,[30] and circa 7,000 BCE, the lake again drained into the Amazon in a major mudslide in the same region that collapsed to form Lake Amazonas thirty-six thousand years earlier.[31] When Tihuanacu was built, water levels were high, and there was a direct river route from Lake Titicaca to the Atlantic Ocean via the Amazon. Under a series of geological changes, with water levels dropping and volcanic uplifts north of Titicaca at Quimsachata, the original water routes to the Atlantic were lost somewhere around 3,000 to 4,000 BCE, leaving the Sumerians and Egyptians with little more than legends.

A few thousand years after the temples were built, destroyed and rebuilt, the Quimsachata Volcano (slightly north of Lake Titicaca) exploded twice (circa 9,650 BCE and 4,400 BCE).[32] The volcano actually vented in three locations, and had two major explosions a few thousand years apart. If one studies the map of the region, one sees a series of lakes strung like beads on a chain from Lake Titicaca to the Urubamba River, which would represent an original northern drainage route from Lake Titicaca and the source of the Amazon River. The Urubamba had to exist as a drainage route for Titicaca because the massive amounts of water needed to cut and erode the gorges of the Urubamba could only come from Titicaca. When Quimsachata erupted, it further lifted the region between Lake Titicaca and Cuzco, and ultimately closed off the river between the Amazon and Lake Titicaca.[33] This uplifted region is the volcanic region that Enoch described as the place just north of the house of god that later came to be known as “Hell” or Hades. Here too, the Egyptians believed the souls of the ‘damned’ would be dropped off the barge, to suffer for their sins, after having received judgment at the pre-Inca megalithic site at Ollantaytambo (as explained in Chapter IV).

South of the Temple were the Lakes of the Bolivian Plano: Lake Poopó and further south, Lake Uru. The geologic disruptions and uplift that caused or accompanied the volcanoes to the north of Titicaca probably caused those lake areas in the south to sink even further (relative to Titicaca.) The southern Lake level ‘dropped’ 800 feet and Lake Poopó dropped 275 feet relative to Lake Titicaca, as can be clearly seen on the eroded side walls of the ancient lake basin, (which can also suggest the northern end of the basin “rose” due to geologic uplift.)

Sadly, much of the original stonework of all three temples has been repurposed by subsequent generations, leaving the world with little but imagination to assess the glory they must have represented. While their vertical structures have been decimated, their base foundations remain intact. As can be seen in commonly available satellite photographs of the area, the Puma Punku Temple site is approximately 200 meters (656 feet) by 180 meters (590 feet), and the temple foundation is 167 by 117 meters. By comparison, the Greek Parthenon is 70×40 meters. The entire Acropolis, the hill on which the Parthenon stands is 7.4 acres, while the Puma Punku Temple site is 8.9 acres. Solomon’s Temple was a mere 27 meters by 9 meters. The Great Roman Temple at Baalbek is 90 meters by 60 meters. Only the Great Pyramid of Cheops is larger, and measures 230 meters by 230 meters. The largest cut stone at Baalbek is estimated to be 1,000 ton of soft limestone. The largest stones of what remains at Puma Punku are up to 130 metric tons of intricately cut red sandstone, red granite, gray diorite, and andesite.

The other two, newer temples at Tihuanacu did not use the same stone technology as Puma Punku, and used smaller stones, suggesting they were built under a different architectural guidance – but they still had the gold inlay, underground waterworks and other advanced stone working techniques. All three temples are pre-Inca by thousands of years, although the Inca did use the Tihuanacu location and the seldom mentioned contemporary stonework at Ollantaytambo. The main building of the Kalasasaya Temple is 140 meters (460 feet) by 130 meters (426 feet). The Acapana Temple is 110 meters (360feet) by 220 meters (721 feet), or six acres. The site that encompasses the multiple Kalasasaya Temple buildings and the Acapana Temple is 380 meters (1246 feet) by 260 meters (852 feet), or 24 acres. By comparison, The Egyptian Temple complex at Karnak is approximately 16 acres. Whoever built the Temples at Tihuanacu did it on a much grander scale than seen in the Middle East.

What is known from the remaining stones is that the temple walls were plated with gold, using small drilled holes in the stone allowing the molten gold to act as a ‘nail’ attaching the plating to the wall. (See Figure 8.) Where the temple did not require gold plated walls, polished stone is believed to have been used. The varied construction techniques provide pathways for insights. There were two forms of bronze clamps used at Tihuanacu, with the older clamps being hammered bronze, and the newer clamps being poured bronze.

The older walls at Puma Punku were built with hammered bronze clamps used to hold stones together, which is a technique used in the Cuzco region at Ollantaytambo (which does lend for dating the ‘Stairway to Judgment’ at Ollantaytambo to a similar timeline as Puma Punku.)

“Many scholars believe the straps were melted locally, and then poured into the grooves in the stones, because microscopic marks embedded in the straps can be seen to imitate corollary marks found in the stone. But…if the straps had been poured in situ, then the surface of each strap would be expected to be slightly convex, due to influence of surface tension experienced in the casting process. Secondly, the straps themselves would have adopted a cast line caused by the crack between the stone blocks, but the stones do not feature such a mark. A closer look at one of the blocks shows a discoulored outer layer of stone. It is as though the surface of the stone has been somehow ‘softened’ and later hardened, permitting the introduction of the ready-formed copper strip. This would explain away the flat-topped nature of the straps and the absence of the inter-block cast line.“[34]

The stonework of the temple was seemingly “molded” in place with organic compound of local plants of undetermined type. (Molded stone would make ‘hammered’ bronze claps more feasible.) Stone-molding technology was not unique to Tihuanacu, and was later used by ancient cultures in northern Europe and Egypt.[35] By example, “a sample of the casing from the ascending passage of Kheops great pyramid, given by the French Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer in 1982 to J. Davidovits…is characterised by the presence of organic fibers and air bubbles that do not exist in normal situation” and it is noted that “Kheops stone may hold 15% of artificial geopolymeric cement.”[36] It seems that in Egypt, the instructions for creating this stone have always been available in hieroglyphs on a massive rock known as the Famine Stele, but no one has been able to translate the key ingredients.[37] While Puma Punku may not be the only culture to use this lost art, it certainly was the earliest culture known to-date to use it extensively.

Discovery of this molding technology by the builders of Tihuanacu would have been fairly simple – merely watching birds was all that was required. The English adventurer and explorer Percy Fawcett discovered this in the 1920’s.

“All through the Peruvian and Bolivian Montaña is to be found a small bird like a kingfisher, which makes its nest in neat round holes in the rocky escarpments above the river. These holes can plainly be seen, but are not usually accessible, and strangely enough they are found only where the birds are present. I once expressed surprise that they were lucky enough to find nesting-holes conveniently placed for them, and so neatly hollowed out as though with a drill.

‘They make the holes themselves.’ The words were spoken by a man who had spent a quarter of a century in the forests. ‘I’ve seen how they do it, many a time. I’ve watched, I have, and seen the birds come to the cliff with leaves of some sort in their beaks, and cling to the rock like woodpeckers to a tree while they rubbed the leaves in a circular motion over the surface. Then they would fly off, and come back with more leaves, and carry on with the rubbing process. After three or four repetitions they dropped the leaves and started pecking at the place with their sharp beaks, and – here’s the marvelous part – they would soon open out a round hole in the stone. Then off they’d go again, and go through the rubbing process with leaves several times before continuing to peck. It took several days, but finally they had opened out holes deep enough to contain their nests. I’ve climbed up and taken a look at them, and, believe me, a man couldn’t drill a neater hole!’

‘Do you mean to say that the bird’s beak can penetrate solid rock?’ ‘A woodpecker’s beak penetrates solid wood, doesn’t it?… No, I don’t think the bird can get through solid rock. I believe, as everyone who has watched them believes, that those birds know of a leaf with juice that can soften up rock till it’s like wet clay.”[38]

The key point would be that while the amazingly closely fitted stonework cannot yet be reproduced, it can be explained as a process created with locally available organic products.[39]

The newer walls not only used interlocking cut rock, but the polished cut stone work was held together with a nickel-bronze alloy clamp (9% copper, 2% arsenic, 1.7% nickel, .8% silicon and .3% iron), which was poured into the stone in the latter temples.[40] Bronze is a 12% tin and copper alloy. Copper was locally collected, and was actually available as surface copper at Corcoran Bolivia.[41] Tin was mined 90 miles away in the Cordilleras Mountains, with the original mine being discovered in 1940s when the glaciers retreated.[42] This tin mine discovered was “pre-glacial,” suggesting the latest possible dating for this was between 13,000 BCE and 11,000 BCE before its entrance was covered with ice. This argument was not available to Posnansky when he published his work, but it does provide another argument in defense of Posnansky’s timing because it suggests the tin used in the clamps was mined prior to 11,000 BCE, before the mine was covered with glacial ice. (See Appendix V for Ice Age Dating.) As for the nickel content of the bronze, anything under 1% nickel could be considered an impurity, making it feasible this level of nickel was not inadvertent. Use of nickel ores in the making of bronze at Tihuanacu has be traced back as far as the Wari peoples, who may have sourced the nickel from ancient mines south of La Paz, Bolivia.[43] (It is a significant coincidence that the only archeological find with a bronze alloy with this level of nickel is from 10,000 BCE, near the ancient Chinese pyramids of Hahnzhong/Shaanxi.[44])

A few Sumerian nickel bronzes included nickel up to 3.3% and date back as far as 3,500 BCE, but use of nickel in the Middle East was rare, and the source of nickel very limited.[45] A Sumerian Copper Committee collected extensive data to determine the source the rarely used nickel in Sumerian clamps, but was never able to reach a conclusion, and their findings remain unavailable.[46] Because an extensive search could not close the debate about the source of nickel in Bronze Age artifacts, it seems only appropriate to look at unconventional sources. The copper mined along Lake Michigan, North America as far back as 5,000 BCE which found its way to Europe prior to and during the Bronze Age had significant nickel. Metallurgical testing has verified the source of copper for some Middle Eastern artifacts as the Lake Michigan mines.

Understanding the significance of the North American nickel to the European Bronze Age is important only because it demonstrates that as least as far back as 3,000 BCE, Mediterranean and Northern European sailors were reaching Lake Superior via the Mississippi River, providing proof they were crossing the Atlantic in the time of the Pharaohs. The discovery of pre-Columbian artifacts of European origin in the Wisconsin-Minnesota-Iowa region has always ended in doubt about the authenticity of the artifact because as a unique discovery, there was no corroboration of any specific finding. Taken together, these artifacts should demonstrate a pattern of European maritime travelers sailing up the Mississippi River. The discovery of the Uluburun Wreck off the Turkish coast, with the find dated to 1,300 BCE, teaches us that ancient shipping was capable of moving 10-ton loads of ingots. (To be clear, the Uluburun Wreck was carrying copper metallurgically determined to have been mined in Cyprus, but it is the oldest discovery of the transport of mined metal by ocean vessel, and demonstrated the maritime tonnage capability of the ancients. A stone glyph from the mining site in Michigan shows a ship comparable to the Uluburun Wreck.) Equally significant, the find on Uluburun included 40 tin ingots, with very little lead, of as of yet unknown origin. The discovery of North American copper in Bronze Age artifacts demonstrates that trans-oceanic travel was occurring for the metals trade after Atlantis, and long before Columbus, but that this trade was a well-kept secret.[47] The European Bronze Age received hundreds of tons of bronze from the Americas, and even today, knowledge of this trade is a well-kept secret. The reasons for being kept secret were the same then as they are now- the source of mineral wealth was a source of power. Chapter IV on the Egyptian Underworld will clarify this point, when it demonstrates that Egyptian tomb etchings clearly mark the Underworld as a land of gold, as does Sumerian myth mark the Underworld as a source of gold and other minerals. (The ‘known source’ of Egyptian gold – or the gold of the mountains, as recorded by the scribes came from eastern Egyptian desert and Nubia, which is the opposite direction of the Underworld, in the west.)

The lesson learned from Tihuanacu and its stonework is that the seemingly inexplicable phenomena that fascinates and challenge the reader, when properly researched, generally provide a pattern of clues that allows the reader to see history differently. The lesson is to be more open minded, and less dismissive of, the seemingly inexplicable revelations of earlier generations. This book will challenge many of the reader’s core beliefs learned in childhood. It is an incredible journey. The reader will be challenged to accept beliefs that the Christian churches have dismissed and persecuted for two thousand years, and that many in contemporary archeology still have difficulty facing. The theory being presented here is only an exploration of history as understood by a number of ancient historians, but generally dismissed by those who insisted on verification where none could be found at the time. Here is that verification.

Footnotes

[1] Arthur Posnansky, in the initial release of his findings, stated the site was dated circa 15,000 BCE. Under considerable pressure from a closed minded archeological academic community, he was required to scale that estimate back to 9,000 BCE or 10,000 BCE. His work however was validated by a panel of prestigious scholars, who maintain that 15,000 BCE was a viable dating. See Zecharia Sitchin, The Lost Realms, Harper Collins, 1990/2007, pages 222-224. See Appendix IV: In Defense of Posnansky’s Dating, for more detail on the validity of these dates, dating methodologies and the panel of judges.

[2] The Oldest City in the World -1932, From New York Herald Tribune Magazine, Mrs. William Brown Meloney, Editor – Section XI, Sunday, July 31, 1932, Digitized by Doug Frizzle September 2010.

[3] See Chapter II for detail.

[4] David Toshio Tsumura, The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2: A Linguistic Investigation (Google eBook), A&C Black, Aug 1, 1989, citing W.G. Lambert, “A New Look at the Background of Genesis,” JTS, 1965, footnote 295.

[5] Le Plongeon was widely rebuked for supposedly claiming that Mayan culture was the birthplace of ancient Egypt. A careful reading of his work shows what he actually argued was that the roots of the Mayan language were the same those in Egypt, and that Mesoamericans represented the same source of Western culture as the Egyptians.

[6] “Two early South American sites have now won broad acceptance among archaeologists, giving impetus to the proponents of the pre-Clovis hypothesis. Monte Verde, near Puerto Montt in S Chile (c. 10,500 B.C.), is a remarkable pre-Clovis site in a moist peat bog with preserved perishable wooden and bone material. A large variety of plant remains were recovered at the site, along with mastodon meat, indicating its inhabitants practiced a hunting-and-gathering economy in a cool temperate rain forest. Pedra Pintada, near Monte Alegre in the lower Amazon (c.9,000–8,200 B.C.), is essentially contemporary with Clovis and represents a previously unknown Paleo-Indian subsistence pattern based on fishing, foraging, and limited hunting in the tropical rain forest. These early sites have shattered the archaeological consensus that the fluted-point hunters were the first Native Americans. While still earlier radiocarbon dates have been reported from some South American sites, including Monte Verde—reaching back to 30,000 B.C.—dates earlier than 12,000 B.C. are currently regarded as unproven by most Americanists.” From Anne Pyburn, Americas, antiquity and prehistory of the Americas and the study of the origins of the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, February 10, 2012. LaViolette reports hearth stones from Pedra Furada, Brazil dated to 45,000 BCE. Dr. Paul A, LaViolette, Earth under Fire: Humanity’s Survival of the Ice Age, Bear and Company, 1997, page 157. Also found at Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2004, Columbia University Press.

[7] Prof. Ing. Arthur Posnansky, F.R.A.I, Tihuanacu: The Cradle of American Man, Volume II, J. J. Augustin, New York, 1945, English Translation by James F. Shearer, page 70, note 69.

[8] See footnote 1322.

[9] There are two massive compilations that are required readings: 1) D.S. Allan & J.B. Dekair, Cataclysm! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9,500 BCE, Bear and Company, 1995 and 1997; and 2) Dr. Paul A, LaViolette, Earth under Fire: Humanity’s Survival of the Ice Age, Bear and Company, 1997. Both works reference dozens of scientific research papers that support their conclusions.

[10] The date of 9,650 BCE for the Great Deluge is arrived at using several dates:

1) The dating of the sinking of Atlantis, as told to Solon, who in turn passed it on to Plato, was 9000 Years; 2) Solon visited Egypt approximately 584-574 BCE; 3) These two figures provide an approximate date of 9,584-95,74 BCE. Because the Egyptian provided date was “rounded” one needs to look for markers of cataclysm circa 9,580 BCE; 4) There was a 200°polar excursion in 9,650 BCE; 5) Using the Inca durations for the first Three Ages of Man, using 9,650 as a starting point to measure back in time aligns with the flooding at Tihuanacu. The intent of using 9,650 BCE as the date of the Great Deluge is not to claim that beyond all doubt, that is ‘the absolute date.’ It is however, a very reasonable estimate. The intent is to suggest that the myths of creation reach back over 13,000 years, and that the sequence of mythical events closely corresponds to the estimated dates of many geological markers. Changing the date by 100 years is less than one percent variance, and the tools used for dating cannot get a more refined accuracy.

[11] Tiâmat was originally referred to as Mammu- Tiâmat. See Tablet 1, Line 4 of Enûma Eliš. David Toshio Tsumura, The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2: A Linguistic Investigation (Google eBook), A&C Black, 1989, page 138.

[12] Donald Alexander Mackenzie, Mythology of the Babylonian People (Google eBook), Bracken Books, 1915, page 31. “Ea, whose name is also rendered Aa, was identified with Ya, Ya’u, or Au, the Jah of the Hebrews. “In Ya-Daganu, ‘Jah is Dagon'”, writes Professor Pinches, “we have the elements reversed, showing a wish to identify Jah with Dagon, rather than Dagon with Jah; whilst another interesting name, Au-Aa, shows an identification of Jah with Aa, two names which have every appearance of being etymologically connected.” Jah’s name “is one of the words for ‘god’ in the Assyro-Babylonian language“. To confirm the origins of the tribe of Israel worshipping El (Enlil), see Parish B. Ladd, Commentaries on Hebrew and Christian Mythology (Google eBook), Truth Seeker Company, 1896 pages 21- 24.

[13] Morris Jastrow Jr., Sumerian Myths of Beginnings, The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Volume 33 (Google eBook), University of Chicago Press, 1917, page 109, note 7.

[14] William Neuman and Ralph Blumenthal, High Tech Defenders of Ancient Treasures Take to the Skies, New York Times, as published in Star Tribune, August 17, 2014, citing Peruvian archeologist Luis James Castillo Butters.

[15] See note 1322. Truth of the matter, the evidence will not be found at Tihuanacu, which is the site of three destructive floods. The evidence is south, buried in the salt flats.

[16] See Appendix IV: In Defense of Posnansky’s Dating .

[17] While Posnansky offers no explanation for the destructions, Chapters VIII and IX will document the massive floods which correlate with his findings.

[18] See Chapter X and note 907.

[19] Terminal Archaic Settlement Pattern and Land Cover Change in the Rio Ilave, Southwestern Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru, Nathan Craig, Mark Aldenderfer, Paul Baker, and Catherine Rigsby Available at: http://works.bepress.com/craig/10

[20] Paul A. Baker, Geoffrey O. Seltzer, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Robert B Dunbar, “A New estimate of the Holocene low stand level of Lake Titicaca, central Andes, and implications for tropical palaeohydrology,” The Holocene, January 2000, 10, pages 21-32.

[21] See Appendix V, Geological Data.

[22] While often viewed in the ‘fish’ motif, before he came to Sumer he was the ‘Lion of the Abzu.’ from Jacob Klein, Yitzhak Sefati, “An experienced scribe who neglects nothing”: ancient Near Eastern studies in honor of Jacob Klein, CDL Press, 2005, page 322.

[23] Graham Hancock, Finger-Prints of the Gods, Random House, 1995, page 89.

[24] Edward F. Malkowski, Ancient Egypt 39,000 BCE: The History, Technology, and Philosophy of Civilization X, (Google eBook), Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, May 14, 2010, pages 217- 223, page 244.

[25] Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad, Image of the World and Symbol of the Creator: On the Cosmological and Iconological Values of the Temple of Edfu, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1985, page 81.

[26] K. E. Campbell Jr, Andean ice fields to Amazonian jungles: a radical new view of the late Pleistocene of South America, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90007 USA.

[27] Bowman, Isaiah (1914). “Results of an Expedition to the Central Andes”. Bulletin of the American Geographical Society 46 (3): 161. See also Baker, P. A. et al. (2001). “Tropical climate changes at millennial and orbital timescales on the Bolivian Altiplano”. Nature 409 (6821): pages 698–701.

[28] See Chapter X, Section Re-Defining Tiâmat for more detail.

[29] “Two recently discovered sites north of La Paz provide evidence that a paleo lake may have covered the Altiplano to an elevation of 3960±10 m recently as 5,000 years B.P.” from K. E. Campbell Jr, Andean ice fields to Amazonian jungles: a radical new view of the late Pleistocene of South America, Bol. IG-USP, Publ. espec. no. 8 São Paulo jun. 1991.

[30] Monsoons ending circa 9,000 BCE is consistent with Hapgoods’ documentation that indicates the North Pole shifted from Lake Hudson to its current position, thus shifting Titicaca 30˚ south, and out of the equatorial zone.

[31] K. E. Campbell Jr, Andean ice fields to Amazonian jungles: a radical new view of the late Pleistocene of South America, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90007 USA

[32] Quimsachata, in Spanish, supposedly means ‘The three sisters.’ There are more than one set of ‘three sisters’ in the Andes, with another two sets further down in Chile. Google maps and the USGS satellite system mark only one of the three vents, but all three are documented in Chapter III. Notice the first eruption is timed very close to the sinking of Atlantis, and may have been a part of the cataclysm.

[33] It would also be reasonable to hypothesize that in the rolling of the earth during the Great Deluge, the backwash from Lake Titicaca, or possibly a small tidal wave on the lake provided fill for large portion of the flowage. There is no data available which can confirm this, or deny it.

[34] from the book ‘The lost tomb of Viracocha’, by Maurice Cotterell, see http://www.ancient-mysteries-explained.com/vitrified-rocks.html

[35] Joseph Davidovits, and Francisco Aliaga, Fabrication of stone objects, by geopolymeric synthesis, in the pre-Incan Huanka civilization (Peru) Abstract of a paper presented at the 21st International Symposium for Archaeometry, Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, USA, 1981; The disaggregation of stone materials with organic acids from plant extracts, an ancient and universal technique. Joseph Davidovits, A. Bonett and A.M. Mariotte, Proceedings of the 22nd Symposium on Archaeometry, University of Bradford, Bradford, U.K. March 30th – April 3rd 1982, pages 205 to 212.

[36] http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/pyramids-2-the-evidences

[37] Joseph Davidovits, The Famine Stele: hieroglyphs on pyramids construction, Vth International Congress of Egyptology, Cairo, Egypt, Oct. 29-Nov.3, 1988, Geopolymer Institute

[38] Col. P. H. Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, London: Century, 1988 (1953), pages 75-77.

[39] The objective of this book is to validate a theory that Enoch visited Tihuanacu, not to explain the ancient stone work methods of Tihuanacu. That said, preliminary research narrows down the search for a bird and plant to the Cinclode (bird) and the bromeliad family of plant, which is diverse, yet fairly well constrained to South and Central America. The bromeliads are a source of hydrobromic acid, ‘one of the strongest mineral acids known,’ and very abundant in the region.

[40] Robert Berringer, Ancient Gods and Their Mysteries: Will they Return in 2012 A.D.? page 139.

[41] Prof. Ing. Arthur Posnansky, F.R.A.I, Tihuanacu: The Cradle of American Man, Volume I, J. J. Augustin, New York, 1945, English Translation by James F. Shearer, page 15.

[42] The conclusion from this finding is that the pre-glacial nature of the mine would put the dating of the mine at some date millennia before Tihuanacu was built. Herbie Brennan, Martian Genesis: The Extraterrestrial Origins of the Human Race, Dell Pub., 2000, page 123.

[43] Gordon F. McEwan, Pikillacta: The Wari Empire in Cuzco (Google eBook), University of Iowa Press, May 1, 2009, page 133.

[44] See Appendix IV for more detail.

[45] C. F. Cheng and G. M Schwitter, Nickel in Ancient Bronzes, American Journal of Archeology, Volume 61, No. 4, October 1957 page 351. Robert James Forbes, Metallurgy in Antiquity: A Notebook for Archaeologists and Technologists, Brill Archive, 1964, page 353.

[46] C. F. Cheng and G. M Schwitter, Nickel in Ancient Bronzes, American Journal of Archeology, Volume 61, No. 4, October 1957, page 358.

[47] The Middle-Eastern mining of tin in Lake Superior provides an interesting possibility that sailors in the Mediterranean heard legends of mineral wealth in the West, found by crossing the great ocean, entering the mouth of a large river, sailing to the end where a great lake with mineral wealth would be found. Unknowing, these sailors found the Mississippi River rather than the Amazon River.