Stumbled on something interesting in an old book while packing and it got me thinking.
There is some controversy over the age of the ruined city of Tiahuanaco, located on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, with a growing number of researchers are starting to believe it may be over 14,000 years old. The lake is on a plateau 13,000 feet above sea level in the Andes mountains. When Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the area they asked the Inca tribes about the ruins and were told that it had been abandoned as long as anyone could remember. Local mythology claimed that it was the oldest city in the world and was settled by a woman said to be from Venus, who was describes as having hands with 4 webbed fingers and a cone shaped head.
The city contains a number of megalithic structures, some weighing at least 200 tons. One of the most famous of these is the so called Gate of the sun carved from a single block, pictured here:
It is generally agreed that the carvings at the top represent a calendar, but what's interesting is there are only 290 days on it. This is interesting to me because it links up with the cycles of Venus, which spends 290 days as the Morning Star, rising with the Sun and 290 days as the Evening Star, visible with the setting Sun, a cycle which was familiar to the Mayans who came later. This gate led to an area called the Kalassaya (place of standing stones) which seems to have functioned as a celestial observatory from which the equinoxes and solstices could be fixed and the season calculated easily.
At it's heyday Tiahuanaco is thought to have had a population of around 100,000, no small accomplishment at a height of 13,000 feet, and a complex and sophisticated irrigation system was used to feed that population. There was also a large stepped pyramid and some other impressive works of art and architecture.
So there you have it, interesting little archeological oddity or possible Venusian colony? Food for thought in any case
There is some controversy over the age of the ruined city of Tiahuanaco, located on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, with a growing number of researchers are starting to believe it may be over 14,000 years old. The lake is on a plateau 13,000 feet above sea level in the Andes mountains. When Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the area they asked the Inca tribes about the ruins and were told that it had been abandoned as long as anyone could remember. Local mythology claimed that it was the oldest city in the world and was settled by a woman said to be from Venus, who was describes as having hands with 4 webbed fingers and a cone shaped head.
The city contains a number of megalithic structures, some weighing at least 200 tons. One of the most famous of these is the so called Gate of the sun carved from a single block, pictured here:
It is generally agreed that the carvings at the top represent a calendar, but what's interesting is there are only 290 days on it. This is interesting to me because it links up with the cycles of Venus, which spends 290 days as the Morning Star, rising with the Sun and 290 days as the Evening Star, visible with the setting Sun, a cycle which was familiar to the Mayans who came later. This gate led to an area called the Kalassaya (place of standing stones) which seems to have functioned as a celestial observatory from which the equinoxes and solstices could be fixed and the season calculated easily.
At it's heyday Tiahuanaco is thought to have had a population of around 100,000, no small accomplishment at a height of 13,000 feet, and a complex and sophisticated irrigation system was used to feed that population. There was also a large stepped pyramid and some other impressive works of art and architecture.
So there you have it, interesting little archeological oddity or possible Venusian colony? Food for thought in any case