Original subtitles

>> In Peru, there are ancient buildings,

which define modern technology.

How could inhabitants of ancient Peru

build these wonders without having any modern know-how?

They did provide an answer.

They believe the gods transmitted their knowledge.

The heritage of an evolved civilization

with an extraordinary technology, today forgotten.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

More than a century has passed since the first finding,

but the gusty winds of the Paracas Peninsula,

about 250 kilometers south of Lima,

have not removed traces of the giant drawing carved

in the sand.

It is called the Paracas Trident, or Candelabra.

It seems that it was created by the Paracas culture, who

inhabited this region between 300 BC and 280 AD,

but this is just conjecture.

In fact, the few stories which do

mention it don't reveal the authors,

and neither do they indicate its date of creation.

No analyses are available to date a simple excavation

in the sand, and no organic finds nearby

were unearthed like clothing, tools, or other finds

crucial for carbon-14 dating, which are normally

associated with a place to define a, more or less,

accurate date.

Even its significance is uncertain.

It was conjectured that it could be a sign pointing

towards areas of the ancient empire like Cuzco,

Machu Picchu, or Nazca.

But when checked, it appeared that its central axis

extends and ends directly in the Pacific Ocean.

Others have conjectured that it could

be a religious symbol, perhaps the tree of life,

or the representation on Earth of a constellation, perhaps

the Southern Cross.

In any case, the almost 200 meters

of the central vertical axis, the nearly 120 meters

of the horizontal axis, and the 40 degree inclination

seem devised to make it visible from a great distance--

a signal, therefore, a sort of lighthouse.

Arriving from the sea, in fact, it

starts to be seen even more than 15 kilometers

from the coastline.

But arriving from the sky, it can be seen even sooner.

According to research by Professor Zecharia Sitchin,

one of the world's greatest scholars

on Sumerian cuneiform writing and an expert

on ancient civilizations, the symbol

represents Viracocha and marks the point

where the areas visited by the ancient god start.

A higher entity, the head of a population who

could glide over water and fly, worshiped with different names

throughout Central and South America,

who had restored civilization after the Great Flood.

Viracocha, however, did not resemble

the people who inhabited the continent at the time.

He did not have dark skin and wasn't clean-shaven,

but was rather white-skinned and had a beard.

Could he have been the survivor of

an ancient, evolved civilization today forgotten,

who had escaped a world-wide catastrophe, the head

of a small group with a technology not understood

by those ancient populations?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The ancient Paracas population lived around the Candelabrum

area and was simple and peaceful people.

They survived on fishing and rudimentary agriculture.

They were skilled weavers and created beautiful, painted

ceramic wear.

This lifestyle, however, is in sharp contrast

to the practice they are mostly known for,

drilling and deforming skulls.

Deforming was achieved by wrapping the head of newborns

with bandages or wooden boards, which

compressed the bones of the skull

to make them grow abnormally.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This custom must have caused much pain.

Nevertheless, it was practiced for an extremely long time,

and it also spread to more distant lands

like Egypt, Malta, and Central America.

Ancient, deformed skulls dating back more than 6,000 years

were found in these areas.

Today, the true reason behind this custom

has yet to be discovered.

Aesthetic reasons do not seem to justify its use, and the fact

that its spread to civilizations which had no direct contact

renders its expansion even more unfathomable.

Other populations, too, practice deformities

which, today, are considered abhorrent like the Mayan custom

to induce strabismus or the Chinese to deform women's feet.

But these habits have remained confined to those cultures

without spreading to other populations

like skull deformation has.

This deformity was also considered a distinctive sign

and performed only within the highest ranks.

The Viracocha representations, which have come down to us,

depict a being with a stocky bust, short legs,

and especially big head.

Could it be that deforming skulls

was a way to resemble the gods?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ica is a town south of Lima.

Its small museum holds an unsolved archaeological

mystery.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Dr. Javier Cabrera Darquea was a doctor

in the small town of Ica.

Loved and respected by the people all the more because he

was a descendant of the city founders,

he progressively transformed his doctors surgery into a museum.

Today, the three rooms hosting the museum

hold about 11,000 stones, which weigh from a few grams

to 500 kilos.

These are carbonized andesites of volcanic origin and date

back to the Mesozoic Era.

There are several incisions on their surface.

The story starts in 1966, when a friend gave Cabrera

a stone with the drawing of a prehistoric animal engraved.

He discovered that it had been found next

to the Ocucaje Desert and that there were many more.

The stones had also generated some trading.

In fact, the farmers would collect the stones

and sell them to tourists as souvenirs.

They told him that the stones had been brought to light

in 1960 after the flooding of the Río Ica.

Cabrera was thunderstruck.

Thereafter, the Peruvian doctor started to collect and study

these stones with passion, a mission he pursued

until his death in 2001.

As he continued in his research, the doctor

was increasingly convinced that the drawings carved

on the stones were not just simple, artistic creations,

but some sort of ideographic writing.

The images, in fact, were subdivided by Cabrera

into subjects and illustrate the complex knowledge

of, more or less, familiar subjects like astronomy

and geography, but also more unusual like surgery.

The stones can, therefore, be rightfully considered

as pages of a vast library.

Their surfaces depict representations

of body parts, heart transplants, maps

of the entire planet which reveal how continents were

millions of years ago, astronomers

who study the passage of heavenly bodies, wagons

drawn by horses, kangaroos, men with dinosaurs.

But if dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago,

and it is thought that man's appearance on Earth

only dates back a few million years ago,

how can it be that they are depicted together

on these stones?

It is difficult to imagine that this civilization had reached

the degree of knowledge represented in these scenes

during such a distant era.

Anatomy, in fact, was only born in the 1400s,

while the first heart transplant only dates back to 1967.

The knowledge that the Earth is round

only goes back a few centuries BC,

and the use of the telescope for astronomic studies

is owed to Galileo Galilei in the 1600s.

Horses became extinct thousands of years

before they were reintroduced by the Spanish to the Americas

in the 1500s.

And the ancient inhabitants of Peru

never used the wheel, while the pre-Columbian populations

certainly did not know what kangaroos were.

Are we faced with the greatest archaeological discovery

of our times or with a resounding fraud?

Various archaeologists believe these are counterfeits

mainly created by a couple of campesinos

to sell them to tourists, and this theory

needs to take into account the following data.

It is estimated that, between the Cabrera finds,

those owned by Peruvian collectors,

and those taken abroad, the amount of carved stones

amounts to over 50,000 pieces.

Now, that's an enormous amount, even for a tireless couple

of forgers.

In addition, many stones weigh several hundred kilograms.

Why create such cumbersome souvenirs so hard to sell?

And it is really hard to believe that two campesinos barely

able to read and write could ever

have acquired the scientific knowledge carved on the stones.

The reporter Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui,

in an article of the 1500s, reports

that the Incas would call them [? Manco ?] stones, meaning

power stones, and these were part

of the funerary vestiges of noble families based

on an ancient tradition.

This is confirmed by the fact that, in August 1966,

several samples were found in pre-Inca tombs

by the president of Lima's Polytechnic Institute, Mr.

Santiago Agurto Calvo, and by the archaeologist Alejandro

Pezzia of the National Institute of Archeology in Peru.

The news appeared in December of the same year

in the scientific supplement of a Lima daily newspaper,

but the most sensational scientific fact

derives from the lab analysis on the stones.

Cabrera had them analyzed by the mining

engineering company Mauricio Hochschild.

And by the Mineralogy and Petrology Institute

of Bonn University in Germany.

Based on the oxidation layer, which covers the engravings,

it seems that the stones were engraved

at least 12,000 years ago.

The Lima Aeronautic Museum, which owns about 60 samples,

had the analysis repeated, and the data were confirmed.

The engravings are at least 12,000 years old.

Obviously, these are not the millions

of years which can be surmised from the scenes

with men and dinosaurs living together.

Yet even 12,000 years ago, dinosaurs were already extinct,

and we know of no civilizations of the time which

had such advanced knowledge.

According to Cabrera, this culture,

which he called gliptolihic civilization,

disappeared due to a planet catastrophe

caused by the wrong use of their own technology.

Could they perhaps be survivors who created their engravings

to hand down their knowledge and history to generations to come?

It is also true that farmers can realize imitations--

and there are many--

but these are easy to unmask with tests.

That's why the Ica stones remain an archaeological mystery

with their fantastic representations.

Brain transplants, pyramid systems

to transform solar energy and distributed

for use, flying machines resembling

strange mechanical birds.

But human flight is one of the greatest breakthroughs

of the modern age.

Only some time ago, it was believed an impossible feat.

And the use of the sun as a source of energy

is also a recent victory.

Who is this unknown population which

emerges from the chasm of time with

this sophisticated knowledge?

The aspect of gliptolihic men incredibly

resembles the Viracocha depictions,

especially the one found on the Door of the Sun

in Tiahuanaco on the shores of the Titicaca Lake in Bolivia.

In fact, there's a man with stumpy legs, large belly,

and large head out of proportion to his body,

the same physical makeup of the gliptolihic men.

After all, Ica is next to the Candelabrum area

inhabited by the Paracas, and in order

to best underline their affiliation

to the noble classes, they would deform skulls.

Perhaps to resemble the ancient Viracochas?

The Paracas also perforated skulls.

And on the Ica stones, the gliptolihic men

are depicted performing brain surgery.

And yet on the Paracas Peninsula,

there's the Candelabrum, which, according to Zecharia Sitchin,

indicates the beginning of the areas where Viracocha

had lived with his group.

And Ica is also next to the Nazca Plain,

where there are large drawings only visible

from the sky, drawings which we find

engraved in the Ica stones.

Is this only a casual coincidence?

Perhaps the Nazca Plain could add other elements

to this research.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The Pan-American sur cuts through the vast Nazca Desert

Plain with its drawings, which having engaged researches

from around the world in the attempt

to explain the mystery like a dark gash.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The stretch between kilometer 419 and 465

passes right in the middle of the mysterious drawings,

but from land, it is impossible to understand

their true aspect.

At first, only stones are visible, furrows,

which are not that deep, and clear spaces

with different colors and undefined shapes.

From the tower, 14 meters high, visibility

improves only a little, yet over 200 drawings

and almost 13,000 geometric figures

are spread over its entire expansion.

Only from above is it possible to realize

the true essence of the shapes traced on the ground.

The Nazca Plain is one of the planet's driest

and most inhospitable.

In fact, rainfall only amounts to 1 cubic centimeter per year,

more or less a quarter of an hour of rain

over a 12 month span.

A real hellish, barren, and stony land,

but at the same time, the ideal place

to trace images which can remain unchanged

throughout the centuries.

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> These lands are quite unique.

After penetrating the path with some walking over them,

you realize that, even in 100 years time,

the same tracks will still be here, because they are formed

by a layer of [? ferra ?] stones,

which reflect the heat during the day,

forming a vortex of hot air, which does not allow sand

to deposit, but moves it to the side.

These stones are superficial, brown, and if trodden upon,

you find the white earth emerges, thus remaining

permanently exposed.

That's why these lines have kept visible all these centuries.

>> An ideal land to preserve the geometric figures in time,

but it doesn't explain how the ancient inhabitants

of the area, the Nazca, could draw them and trace kilometric

lines, most of which are only visible from the sky.

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> Many drawings can easily be observed from the hilltops

or mountains which surround the desert.

Others, definitely big, cannot be seen these heights.

It is extremely hard.

And since they can be observed as a whole only from above,

the question is how have they been created.

We don't know.

It's a mystery.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>> Hence, as Professor Azabache claims,

in order to have an overview of the larger drawings and direct

the creative work, an overview was necessary and achievable

only from the height of a sufficiently high hill.

But on the plane, there aren't any.

Therefore, that only leaves flight.

But who had the capacity to fly over this plane centuries ago?

The oral tradition of the Nazca speaks clearly--

the Viracochas.

The figures have been drawn with an accuracy which

has baffled researchers who have examined them.

The zoomorphic drawings have been

traced with one, continuous line,

meaning with a technique which is even more difficult in terms

of lines and geometries.

One would think these are more recent as they

are more sophisticated, but on the contrary,

they are more ancient.

Therefore, the logic which states

that human progress grows in time

fails with the regression of technical capacity.

How can this be explained?

Perhaps the inhabitants of the plain

ran out of crucial technical support.

Oral tradition helps by reporting

that, suddenly, the Viracochas left

for an unknown destination.

Could this be the right explanation?

When they left, the Nazca found it

impossible to trace other zoomorphic figures,

so they were limited to continue drawing easier

lines and geometric figures.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Only in modern times did man understand

what had been drawn in the Nazca Plain, an era when

man had realized his ancient dream, to fly.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The first to discover the true nature

of the inexplicable farrows traced on the ground

was the American geographer Paul Kosok in 1939.

While he flew over the area with the night aircraft,

he tried to discover the mystery,

guessing it was an astronomic calendar.

But the most famous researcher who

tried to unveil the mystery behind these lines

was Maria Reiche, a German.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The scholar, affectionately called the Lady of the Pampas,

also fought hard to safeguard this extraordinary site,

managing to have it proclaimed patrimony of humanity

by UNESCO.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In the city of Nazca, an association and a museum

have been named after her.

Her grave is in the garden of the museum.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> It was an order by Mary to bury her body in a tomb,

which we keep in this museum.

She wants to be part of this area,

feel surrounded and safeguarded by these lines and drawings.

>> Reiche dedicated her life to studying the drawings

of the plain starting in 1949, a passion which kept her going

till the very end in 1998, the year she died.

Her conjecture is amongst those most highly esteemed.

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> There are many conjectures, but the most widely embraced is

that by German doctor Maria Reiche,

who claims it is a large, astronomic calendar used

for agriculture.

>> Viktoria Nikitzki lives in the town of Nazca and knew

Reiche during the last years of her life,

when the scholar had become blind and paralyzed in her bed.

She writes promotional material on the drawings in the Nazca

Plain and illustrates to tourists

the wonderful work carried out by Maria Reiche

by means of a simple, plastic model.

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> The spider and the monkey are directly linked to the Big

Dipper constellation, in the case of the monkey,

and to the Orion constellation, in the case of the spider.

Both are connected to the summer solstice.

This was how it was possible to forecast rainfalls.

>> A huge, astronomic calendar.

Is this the answer?

But was such complexity really necessary only

to achieve an astronomic calendar which,

amongst other things, could be realized in a less

colossal and laborious size?

An astronomic calendar for agricultural use

also, surely, had to be completed quickly for survival,

but archaeologists speak of 1,500 years for its creation.

In addition, why realize such a mammoth work which could only

be seen from the sky in flight?

Without this capacity, the great majority

of signs traced on the ground becomes inexplicable

and therefore useless.

Finally, many drawings, if subjected

to computer inspections, find no astronomical reference

whatsoever.

Therefore, Reiche's studies only partially

unveil the Pampa's mystery.

And the enigmatic figure traced on the side of a small hill

seems to look and salute someone in flight.

But who flew in the distant past?

A plot which thickens even more over the past few years

with the discovery of other drawings and geometric

figures in the close by Palpa Plain.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The style is similar to the Nazca,

but these date further back in time

and are still only comprehensible

from above in flight.

Finally, the Nazca and Palpa drawings

cover a total area of nearly 600 square kilometers,

and to be created, thousands of tons of stones were shifted.

Only a very important reason could justify

any activity of this magnitude.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The Antonini Educational Museum is in the town of Nazca,

where many archaeological finds of the Nazca culture

are kept, the last to have inhabited

this land before the Incas, who incorporated them

into their empire, canceling out all their customs

and traditions.

The Nazca had reached an incredible artistic and

cultural level witnessed by the exquisitely painted

ceramic wear and by the sophisticated and efficient

underground aqueduct system they had built.

There are no elements in these finds which

help clarify the mystery of the origins

and the significance of the drawings

of the plain except for one engraved

stone found in the Nazca Tomb.

The workmanship is not as accurate as that of the Ica

stones, and the drawings depict elements

ascribable to the daily Nazca world.

But why would the Nazca engrave stones

when they were perfectly capable of painting exquisitely

colorful ceramic wear and weaving

finely embroidered blankets?

Perhaps it was a way of responding

to what they had seen in finds they

believed to be of great importance like the Ica stones.

Once again, the engraved stones, which

were considered stones of power, reappear.

Or were they, perhaps, even stones of knowledge?

Is there a true connection between the Ica and the Nazca?

A 1586 report written by a magistrate, Luis de Monzón,

explained what the plains natives said about the origins

of the drawings.

During extremely ancient times, a small group of people

called Viracochas, who differed from the Indios,

reached this land, and the Indios

obeyed them, followed them, and realized roads

which can still be seen today.

The Viracochas suddenly left, but promised

to return, a memory and a promise which was kept so alive

in those people to deceive the Incas and Aztecs when

they met the conquistadores for the first time.

The Spanish were exchanged for the gods who had returned,

thus allowing a handful of men to defeat well-trained and much

more powerful armies.

But truthfully, who were the Viracochas, a myth, a legend,

or a historical truth?

Were they the true inspirers of the great civilizations

of the past?

Could the gods be the survivors of

a remote and forgotten civilization which

had reached a level of progress equal to, or higher than,

the current one?

The Monzón chronicle and the engraved stone exhibited

at the Antonini Museum add a new,

important detail to the other clues,

and the ancient oral traditions seem increasingly less

of a myth, of a legend, to become history.

The Marcahuasi Meseta lies on top

of a 4,200 meter mountain 80 kilometers northeast of Lima.

It is little known still today, also because in order

to reach it, one has to organize a true expedition rather

than a small trip.

In fact, the final section of the road

to reach San Pedro de Casta, the last inhabited center

of the Meseta Valley, is a mule track,

which clambers up the sides of the mountain for about

30 kilometers, large enough for a car to pass.

Driving along the road at night without a guide

who knows the place is an even more difficult task.

In fact, a five hour trip is required

to reach the small pueblo 3,200 meters up.

Mass tourism with its comforts has not

yet spoiled the primitive territory

surrounding the plateau.

Marcahuasi was discovered by the Peruvian archaeologist Daniel

Ruzo de los Heros in the '50s.

His research convinced him that there

were some entrances to the mythical network

of underground tunnels which cross

South America and the ruins of sculptures

realized in a distant era by an unknown and extremely evolved

population, which he called Masma.

Could it be another trace of the passage of the mythical

Viracochas?

In the small San Pedro de Casta museum,

there are many meseta finds discovered by Ruzo.

They come from a settlement of Incas,

who lived in Marcahuasi long before the disappearance

of the mysterious Masma culture.

Amongst the various types of finds the mummies

with their facial expressions paralyzed

in a moment of eternal terror.

Perhaps they are the vestiges of Inca prisoners

tortured during the Spanish conquest.

But this is not a certainty.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The unpaved, small square of San Pedro

is from where visitors to the plateau usually depart.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The path leading to Marcahuasi is even more difficult

than the one departing from the valley.

It can only be covered by foot or with pack animals, which

become even more indispensable when heavy, cumbersome luggage

needs to be transported to the meseta

at an altitude of 4,000 meters.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

From one of the highest points, the first ruins

of the ancient Inca settlement can

be seen, while further on, there are even more.

The meseta, in fact, takes its name

from these ruins, one of the few Inca constructions

to be built on two inhabitable floors.

And the name "Marcahuasi" means exactly "home with two floors."

Daniel Ruzo de los Heros has studied the ruins

of the meseta for eight years in a row,

stationing at the plateau for six months a year.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The small heart where the archaeologist would camp

is still in an excellent state and an obliged stopover

for anyone visiting Marcahuasi.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Manuel Olivares is an expert guide who

knows the meseta inside out.

He accompanied [? Ruzo ?] during the last years, when

the archaeologists studied the Marcahuasi sculptures

and cavities.

Even today, Don Manuel acts as a guide

to the very few tourists and researchers

who adventure to the meseta.

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> In 1952, Daniel Ruzo came here for the very first time,

and we climbed to Marcahuasi.

I worked with him for eight years, six months a year.

He would work a week in Lima and the other week in Marcahuasi.

This was his job during those years.

>> Don Manuel still accompanies visitors to the meseta

to settle into their campsite, a natural amphitheater sheltered

from the winds which blow over the plateau.

From here, in order to reach a canal, which Ruzo believed

communicated with the mythical network of underground tunnels

connecting places hundreds of kilometers afar, at least

an hour's walk is needed.

The place is called Infiernillo, meaning "little hell,"

and the name exactly sums up what the natives

think of this tunnel.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The entrance to the canal is about seven meters underground,

and it can be reached by crossing a cleft between two

gigantic rocks.

When Ruzo used to work here, Manuel did lower himself

down various meters, but the archaeologist

feared for his safety and prevented him

from continuing the descent.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

To reach the entrance, it is important to have

mountain gear.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Unfortunately, the heavy rainfalls

which have hit the meseta have brought mud and silt,

which now block the entrance.

To open it, suitable excavation equipment

would be required with long working days.

But the tunnels are not the only Marcahuasi enigma.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The plateau is also the showcase of dozens

of mysterious drawings found and catalogued buy Ruzo.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The archaeologist claimed that the technique used by the Masma

to carve the Marcahuasi rocks differs

from any known to mankind.

He defined it organic sculpture and believed

it derived from extremely advanced knowledge

from a different way of viewing reality and representing

shapes, a world where magical power and the earth and sky

bond were of fundamental importance.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> About 32 drawings can be found in Marcahuasi,

and each one of these only peaks the curiosity to discover how

it was possible to realize them.

In my personal opinion, it seems obvious

that these were extremely well-prepared people

with another type of mentality, a very special civilization

with great knowledge.

>> Ruzo discovered that, in order to recognize the drawings

carved in the rock, they should be viewed from the right

distance and angle, and the precise light and shade

conditions at the right time of day,

and even right season of the year.

Lacking these prerequisites, the sculptures are indecipherable.

This rock was called the African Lion by the scholar,

and one can guess the profile only

when looking from a certain perspective,

exactly as explained by Ruzo.

If viewed from other angles, it shows no comprehensible shape.

Identifying the sculptures is made even more difficult

by natural erosion due to the enormous amount of time

passed since their creation.

The period surmised by Ruzo dates back much further

than the common accepted time to extremely ancient eras

over 10,000 years ago, an age which

would have certainly transformed tools or handiwork

left by the mysterious sculptors to dust,

making any test currently available to date

the drawings practically useless.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> This is Marcahuasi, and this is the Monument for Humanity.

We have come here so that you can

learn about it and the other drawings which are here.

>> The most famous work at Marcahuasi is the Monument

for Humanity.

Ruzo had come up with this name, but its existence was already

known by the indigenous population for a long time,

and they called it the Head of the Inca.

It is 25 meters tall and is very eroded,

but the profile is clearly human.

Ruzo discovered that, by glancing

at it from different angles and light conditions,

other faces of various sizes belonging to all human races

appeared on its surface.

That's how it gained its current name, Monumento a la Humanidad.

Other drawings can be seen from the plateau.

Some are clearly identifiable.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Others are hidden in the mysterious landscape

of the meseta, awaiting the ideal conditions

to unveil themselves to the eyes of observers.

But many archaeologists did not agree on the artificial origin

of the sculptures.

They claim that they were created by natural erosion

and weather conditions.

Fully convinced of his discovery,

Ruzo invited important researchers

to visit and study the sculptures

and data he had collected.

The German Albert Giesecke, the Frenchman Marcel Homet,

the Austrian archaeologist Hans Schindler Bellamy,

and the Englishman Peter Allen all

agreed with the theories supported by Ruzo.

Allen, personally, visited the Marcahuasi sculptures

and was so impressed he said, the fact

that they have this peculiarity implies an uncommon technique.

Once more, the science world was divided

into two opposite stands.

Who was right?

And once more, the usual question arose.

Did the people who inhabited the meseta in ancient times

remember the origin of the finds in a place

the Incas considered sacred?

Pedro Cieza de León, Spanish reporter with

the conquistadores, asked them if they knew who had created

the strange shapes which were on the plateau.

They replied that they belong to men

who came from afar, white-skinned foreigners

with a beard.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The imposing ruins of Chavín de Huántar are 3,200 meters high,

lying between the mountains of southern Peru.

They have been attributed to the Chavín culture,

one of the most important in ancient Peru,

considered the cultural route of the subsequent Andean

civilizations.

This culture developed suddenly in 1200 BC,

and its influence spread to coastlines far from Peru.

The entire complex of buildings is

set towards east west, amongst which

the large temple, which overlooks the entire site.

It is called El Castillo and is built with various sized stone

blocks with a more or less regular weight and shape.

The walls were covered with large, stone slabs,

sometimes carved in the characteristic Chavín style.

Similar carvings can be seen on the columns of the temple

portal.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And on several stones slabs of the ancient round square.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The walls of the Castillo were adorned with over 200 stone

heads, called hollow heads.

Currently, only one has remained fixed in place.

The others have been transferred to the small Chavín museum.

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> Yes.

Here in the exhibition hall, we have

heads with proud faces, astonished faces.

Research claims that these hollow heads

show people who are in a trance state,

in a hallucinatory state.

These expressions would terrify the visitor

who came to this area.

The hollow heads were stuck, fixed to the walls of the main

Chavín temple.

>> The Chavín population worshiped the jaguar god,

and its religion originated from the atomic bond between man

and the forest, a religion which,

as the museum's director explains,

terrified its believers with practices which probably

utilized hallucinogenic substances.

It seems strange, however, that a population with such

a primitive religion had the knowledge to build the imposing

Chavín structures.

Could it be, perhaps, that the Chavín people had simply

occupied preexisting structures built by a population which had

disappeared and had more advanced knowledge?

The Castillo is also called Old Temple,

but by looking carefully at it, rather than a temple,

it looks like a giant strongbox.

Its massive walls, in fact, do not have any windows,

and inside, there are no large worship holes.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Underground, one of the galleries leads to a small,

cross-shaped room, where the most valuable and sacred Chavín

work stands out.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A granite monolith 4 and 1/2 meters high

with a monstrous, carved, anthropomorphic figure

revealing animal features.

The style is typical of the Chavín population

and represents the highest divinity of that ancient

culture, the jaguar god.

The monolith is called El Lanzón, the Spear,

and neither the passageway leading to it nor the narrow

hole where it is placed were suitable to hold large,

worshipping crowds.

But from a religious point of view,

there is no sense in this.

Usually, a divinity would be visited

by a large number of people to be honored and worshiped.

Its life-size reproduction can be admired in the garden

of the Chavín Museum and leveled over a wall.

The aspect of the jaguar god incredibly

resembles the Viracocha depictions.

Stumpy legs, large belly, and large head out of proportion

to his body.

Is this only a casual coincidence?

Could it be another trace of the passage of the mythical

Viracochas?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It is possible to access an intricate, underground network

of corridors, holes, narrow tunnels, air ducts, and a water

canalization from the open entrances at the top of the Old

Temple and from others spread in various points.

These are currently unusable, obstructed

by debris and cave-ins.

But once, they connected the waters of the two rivers where

Chavín de Huántar nestles in the middle.

Huanchecsa overlooks Chavín and Mosna,

which is at a lower height.

The water descended from Huanchecsa,

and it would fill the large, sunken square

in front of the Castillo through its channels

to finally flow in the Mosna.

Could it be that such a sophisticated water network

only had a ritual purpose, and could the Chavín underground be

part of the legendary network of tunnels which connected ancient

sites of a forgotten past?

Mr. Lopez, archaeologist in charge of Chavín,

states that there truly are underground tunnels which

depart from Chavín towards other unexplored settlements

of the surrounding mountains.

>> [SPEAKING SPANISH]

>> The ancient Chavín population mentioned tunnels which

connected an area northeast of here,

about 2 kilometers away in the higher mountains.

The ancient Chavín people spoke of this,

so it is likely this connection truly exists.

>> For the first time, video cameras have entered

the tunnels in Chavín, some of which are still unexplored.

It's a difficult path, and the presence of bats

makes it even less accessible.

The network of underground tunnels is intricate,

and the conjecture that the whole structure only

had a religious purpose is increasingly less acceptable.

Did the Chavín population really build the complex,

or did it simply settle in buildings it had found,

readapting these to its requirements,

buildings constructed by a population which had

disappeared and with more advanced knowledge?

The American archaeologist Ephraim George Squier,

in his book "Peru, Incidents of Travel and Explorations

in the Lands of Incas" published in 1887,

believed that two, distinct cultural eras existed

in Peru's history, one extremely ancient with the most advanced

scientific knowledge, and the other much more recent

like that of the Incas with a lower cultural level.

According to Squier, an extremely hard to calculate

span of time, but certainly broad,

passed between these two cultures.

He is also convinced that the ancient

and sophisticated Peruvian finds are

evidence of an advanced technology, heritage

of a forgotten humanity.

The tunnels unwind for still unknown distances,

also due to the danger of covering them.

Many are damaged or obstructed, and in fact, in the end,

it becomes impossible to continue.

Luckily, there are side exits, which suddenly emerge

from the large, main square.

The tunnels and the entire Chavín complex still remain

an unsolved mystery, and the uncertainty of their real

origins is increasingly more substantiated.

Who really built these?

Professor Walter Krickeberg, in his book ""[INAUDIBLE] American

Cultures," sustains the most ancient and advanced

pre-Columbian civilizations appear suddenly,

apparently without any roots and preliminary stages.

This can only be explained by an external impulse, which

influenced ancient America.

An external impulse, exactly what has been orally

narrated by the ancient pre-Columbian populations.

The Viracochas, men of great knowledge

and with extraordinary powers, with their white skin

and beards, gave birth to civilization once more

after the Great Flood.

[MUSIC PLAYING]