One of the fingerprints which the cataclysmic giant hand leaves, telling us of this supernatural violence on the Earth, is the plethora of mammalian teeth of many, many species found in the sharp demarcation boundaries between sedimentary layers such as we see exposed in the Grand Canyon. It bespeaks of animal life being pulverized, with teeth the only mammalian substance hard enough to withstand the onslaught.
Some places undergo less violent winds and inundation, to be sure; and there we find traces of prehistoric civilizations which had advanced to achievements we deem impossible for that many years ago. Let’s go back to Tiahuanaco, in South America, to see what’s there.
The Incas discovered this deserted city at 12,500 feet altitude on the shores of Lake Titicaca, in the second century A.D. Although they lived in that land for generations upon generations, centuries after centuries, they left it totally undisturbed. Anyone who has been on a hunt for gold or treasure in the mountains – as I have been in New Mexico – knows the Indian credo: “What is in the mountain belongs to the mountain.” That means that whatever they find they do not disturb nor destroy, nor move nor remove.
You can read about it, see it portrayed in movies, in be told about it, but there is nothing like seeing it in person when gold fever takes over an entire personality.
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It’s a kind of consummate greed which changes a veteran outdoorsman to a wild-eyed, scheming, secretive, intense introvert who could lead himself and others to destruction and death through his greed. I have seen it.
Tiahuanaco was found by Pizarro and his band of plunderers in the 1520’s. The gold fever had evidently taken over his entire expedition of 13 to 16 men, for they proceeded to vandalize almost everything in sight. They smashed thousands of statues searching for gold. There were huge silver bolts of up to several tons each, passing through massive stone monoliths. You guessed it: they broke up the monoliths in order to obtain the silver bolts.
There was one member of the early discoverers, a Spanish priest, Diego de Alcabaso, who wrote down what he saw:
“I saw a vast hall carved on its roof to represent thatch. There were the waters of a lake which washed the walls of a splendid court in this city of the dead, and, standing in its fine court, in the shallows of the water, on the platform of a superb colonnade were many fine statues of men and women. So real they were that they seemed to be alive. Some had goblets and upraised drinking-cups. Others sat, or reclined, as in life. Some walked in the stream flowing by the ancient walls. Women, carved in stone, dandled babies in their laps, or bore them on their backs. In a thousand natural postures, people stood or reclined.”
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