Temple at the bottom of the lake
Tiahuanaco lies high in the mountains, but the ruins of a large port, seashells, images of flying fish and skeletons of fossil marine animals found on its territory indicate that the city was once quite close to the sea or even was on its shore.
And recently, at the bottom of Lake Titicaca, researchers discovered the remains of buildings, a paved road and walls over a kilometer long, made of huge boulders.
According to Professor Ruben Vela of the Tiahuanaco Archaeological Institute, the found ruins are "a coastal temple where important persons were buried." How did the sanctuary end up at the bottom of the lake?
Researchers associate these facts with the era before the onset of mountain building processes that took place 60-70 million years ago. But it is believed that then no people on Earth existed?..
Tiahuanaco got its name after the inhabitants left it forever. What kind of people they were and how they called the city themselves, historians do not know. But the legend says that a messenger came running to the Supreme Inca Maita Kapak, who had stopped to rest among the ancient ruins, with the news from the capital of the Inca empire - Cuzco. The ruler appreciated the diligence of the messenger, comparing him with the swift-footed guanaco - a relative of the lama - and allegedly said: "Tia Huanaco" ("You are fast as a guanaco"). This is how the city got its name.
Age - 250 thousand years?
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The Indians who lived in these parts at the time of the invasion of the Spaniards believed that such a large city could not be built by ordinary people - it was once built by a tribe of giants. Researchers denied the existence of giants, but attributed the city to an incredibly ancient origin. Thus, the archaeologist Dr. Kh. S. Belami believed that the age of Tiahuanaco is 250 thousand years.
The French paleontologist Alcide d'Orbigny (1802-1857) in his work L'Homme Americain ("American Man") expressed the opinion that the owners of Tiahuanaco were residents of a powerful pre-Inca state, who managed to erect many buildings and solve the problem of delivering a huge amount of heavy building material.
Kalasasaya, Akapana, Inti Punku
The city, or rather what remains of it, consists of several main objects. The most well-reconstructed part of the city is Kalasasaya, a structure with a rectangular base measuring 118x18 meters. Kalasasaya is surrounded by a wall with a series of monolithic columns built into it. The courtyard of the building, which occupies about a third of its area, is located below ground level. They entered Kalasasaya through a large stone gate along a monumental staircase with six steps. A covered hall with large portals and windows adjoined the courtyard. At one time, it was decorated with gold items, and gold nails were driven into the walls, on which copper and bronze plates were held.
Initially, Kalasasaya was perceived as a manor, palace or even a fortress, but recently researchers are inclined to think that it was … an astronomical observatory. Some structural elements in the walls are strictly oriented in relation to certain constellations and are arranged in such a way as to facilitate the observation of the Sun at different times of the year.
In the middle of the twentieth century, in the vicinity of Kalasasaya, a sanctuary of about 750 square meters, called the Semi-underground temple, was discovered.
Its base is more than one and a half meters deep in the ground. In 1932, Professor Wendell Bennett found a giant pink stone statue there.
The height of the monolith is just under seven and a half meters. His head is decorated with something like a turban, his hands are folded over his chest. In one of them there is a vessel - "kero", in the other - "pututu", a ritual horn from a shell. There is a wide belt on the belly of the statue.
A little south of Kalasasaya rises the Akapana pyramid. Some researchers consider it to be a man-made structure, others - a hill, which was given a stepped appearance and on top of which, possibly, there was a temple or an altar. Still others believe that there was a military fortress on Akapana.
There is still a small artificial lake.
Further south, already beyond the conventional city line, you can see another terraced building, Puma-Punku (Puma's Gate). It is built of huge stone slabs, some of which weigh more than 100 tons. The slabs are meticulously processed, which testifies to the skill of the ancient stonemasons. At the top of Puma-Punku, the builders placed a sanctuary or altar, and then the whole object was surrounded by a double wall.
One of the most famous and, probably, the most mysterious monuments of Tiahuanaki is Inti-Punku (Gate of the Sun). They are located in the northwestern corner of Kalasasaya and are hewn out of a solid andesite block measuring 3x3.75 meters. The weight of the gate is about 10 tons. Their upper part on the eastern side is decorated with rich relief, in the center of which is the main deity in the form of a human figure with a disproportionately large head surrounded by a halo. It is formed by 24 rays, each of them ends with the head of a jaguar or a puma. Tears flow from the eyes of the idol - apparently, as confirmation that he gave the earth moisture, that is, provided the local fields with harvest, in his hands is a large royal rod with the heads of condors at the top. The large figure is surrounded by 48 smaller figures - these are images of half-humans, half-birds. And above the entrance of the Gate of the Sun, a strip of ornamentation of human faces is visible.
Arthur Poznanski and other researchers
Scientists interpret the content of the relief in different ways. Some believe that the central figure symbolizes the sun god, and half-humans-half-birds are the stars, facing their heavenly sovereign. Others believe that the Tiawanaku calendar is depicted on the Gate of the Sun - solar or lunar. If the Kalasasaya complex is really an observatory, then the calendar fits quite organically into the idea of construction.
Bolivian researcher of Austrian origin, professor, engineer, anthropologist, member of many scientific societies Arthur Poznanski devoted half his life to the study of Tiahuanaco. In his voluminous work Tiahuanacu: the Cradle of American Man, based on his own archaeological research and astronomical calculations, the scientist proved that the designers and builders of Kalasasaya tied its geometry to the arrangement of stars in the sky at least 12-17 thousand years ago.
Of course, most adherents of orthodox science received Poznanski's discovery with undisguised skepticism. However, a group of prominent scientists soon analyzed the results of his research and calculations. The group included: Dr. Hans Ludendorff, Director of the Potsdam Astronomical Observatory, Dr. Friedrich Becker from the Specula Vaticanica Observatory, and two other astronomers - Professor Dr. Arnold Kolshutter from the University of Bonn and Dr. Rolf Müller from the Potsdam Astrophysical Institute. Scientists worked from 1927 to 1930 and came to the conclusion: Poznanski's conclusions are mostly correct.
Among the sculptures that survived in Tiahuanaco, there are three of them (one in the Semi-underground temple and two in Kalasasaya), which lead some researchers to very extraordinary thoughts and comparisons. These sculptures differ in size, degree of preservation, manner and craftsmanship. But all three depict a creature that the sculptors sought to represent as a hybrid of man and fish. American journalist and traveler Grayham Hancock, talking to local residents in Tiahuanaco, received interesting information. It turns out that very ancient legends speak of "the gods from the lake, who had fish tails, and who were called Chullua and Umantua."
The characters of this legend and Tiahuanak sculptures clearly resemble another character - the hero of Sumerian legends, the fish-man Oannes, who in ancient times came out of the sea to the shore in Mesopotamia and taught the mind-mind of the aborigines.
Pre-civilization?
The strangeness and mysteries of the artifacts discovered in Tiahuanaco are largely clarified if we accept the hypothesis of the existence on Earth in ancient times of a completely unknown highly developed pro-civilization, which served as a common basis for subsequent civilizations of the Sumerians, ancient Egyptians, as well as the Olmecs and other peoples. the American continent. We can only hope that in the future archaeologists, historians and scientists of other specialties will discover indisputable evidence of the reality of this mysterious culture, establish its origin and time of existence on our planet.
Vadim Ilyin
Mystery Magazine XX Century