What if the Inca had Conquered Europe?

We are at the late pre-ceramic site of Bandurria. The proximity to the rich

waters of the Pacific fueled the rise of this site some 3200 years BCE.

Last week on our day off we visited an ancient pre-ceramic site called Bandurria. It is part of the Caral Supe complex of ruins of the Norte Chico civilization along the north coast of Peru. These are among the oldest urban centers in the world and compete with another site further north as the very oldest in the Americas.  The pyramids at Bandurria and the older community at Aspero predate the construction of the Great Pyramid of the Egyptians at Giza by five hundred and one thousand years respectively. To date the competition of radiocarbon dating has put the ceremonial center near Casma Peru, called Sechin Bajo as the very oldest. We also have visited that site, though there is very little to see since the work is only recently underway.  One of the scholars investigating Sechin Bajo observed the construction was done by a people who had a "very good knowledge of architecture and construction." That suggests to me there are older sites that have not yet been uncovered, investigated, and carbon dated. The Norte Chico Civilization, dating to approximately 9500 BCE, is the very oldest of Peru. Likely, older sites will be discovered and forthcoming as funding becomes available.

The pyramid structure of Sechin Bajo

RuthAnn in front of one of the pyramids at Bandurria.

The major temple at Bandurria.  Our guide Miriam confirmed the themes

of duality and opposites are symbolized in the complex including a clay

image of the god they worshiped with both male and female representations. 

Contrary to traditional theories for the rise of civilization a few scholars 

suggest it was not agriculture that fueled the rise of these earliest urban 

centers, but the utilization of marine resources. The ground is full of the 

remnants of shells and bones. Maybe they enjoyed oysters and sushi. 

Most scholars believe that following the retreat of the last ice age some 15,000 years ago the coast of present day Peru became inhabited by neolithic peoples migrating over the Andes from the Amazon. These seacoast locations allowed for sufficient caloric intake from the rich waters of the Pacific to allow for community development and cooperation giving rise to these earliest centers of worship and urban organization. Bandurria is one of approximately thirty such sites of the Norte Chico civilization though they reached their height and flourished 3,000 to 1800 BCE.

The troops were starting to complain as we reached the top of this pyramid. 

Our guide suggested it was a sustained El Niño weather change that ended the Norte Chico culture and forced them into the hills perhaps becoming and giving rise to the Chavin Civilization. This culture existed, as near as scholars can determine, from 900 to 200 BCE. They began the first metal working and refining of gold and firing their pottery in kilns. One of the Chavin sites at Huantar was just in the news as archaeologists have determined that it like other ancient temples and sites in Malta and Turkey had the ability to alter the human voice as well as certain notes made by horms.  To get to Chavin Huantar is at best a 10 hour drive and can be tiring given bad roads and the desert coast of Peru before you start inland toward the mountains.

The major pyramid at Aspero, dating 3600 BCE. This site too existed

on the maritime diet afforded by the Pacific.

We yet hope to visit several sites in Peru and one in Arequipa, but our time now is limited. With the next temple maintenance closing in August, we expect to be with family on the northern coast of California. A site we would yet like to visit is in Colca Canyon of Peru and a site of one of the earliest human habitations known as Mollepunko Cave. Petroglyphs of tamed llamas are on the walls of the cave.  These date to 6,000 BCE.

Several llamas have been inscribed on the cave walls and one image shows

a cord tied around the neck of the animal. About the same time as the 

domestication of llama, guinea pigs or cuy were also domesticated. 

In Jared Diamond's epoch and Pulitzer Prize winning view of world history in  "Guns, Germs and Steel," he asks why world history should be like an onion? He tries to answer that question in his book peeling back the layers and offers theories that go beyond simple Darwinist or racial stereotyping.  I find his theories and conclusions to be nearly as informative and thought provoking as the writings of Joseph Campbell who teaches us about the rise of common myths and traditions throughout all of human history. Both of these authors have helped me understand Peru's history and its people. I am better able to understand, though I admit I am still coming to terms how a group of 168 organized thugs, otherwise known as the Conquistadores, could defeat the armies of the Incan empire, some quarter of a million men strong. It was about 'guns, germs, and steel,' though mostly it was germs, since most of the ruling elites of the Inca had succumbed to a virgin soil epidemic of smallpox two years before the arrival of the Spanish. At the time of Christopher Columbus' landing in the West Indies scholars estimate the combined indigenous population of the Americas were greater than that of Europe. So, why didn't the Inca or the Aztec or Maya invade Europe? With a little help from Photoshop I have put a descendent of Atahualpa on the balcony of  Buckingham Palace.  No longer are they the Royal Family, but the Imperial Incan Family. God save the Emperor!

The Emperor Huascar XIV shown with members of the Imperial Family at

a recent June 22 Solstice Celebration marking the Incan New Year.

Evolutionary biologist Diamond spent more than 30 years researching and studying in New Guinea becoming familiar with the people and their environment. Of these and other peoples he asks, "Why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are, rather than in some other way? For instance, why weren't Native Americans, Africans, and Aboriginal Australians the ones who decimated, subjugated, or exterminated Europeans and Asians?" I have asked those questions as many others who have traveled through Peru and begun to understand its history. Travelers though Mexico and Central America would also ask those same questions. 

Drawing of an 18th Century Slave Ship. Indigenous peoples around the

world who were subjugated, annihilated, and exterminated were viewed 

by the Europeans as evolutionary vestiges of earlier more primitive life 

forms, perhaps without human souls.  

The Europeans embraced the technology of iron and gunpowder, working metals and materials, to the subjugation of others.  Among the Inca and others in the Americas metal working was for decorative and religious purposes. Their weapons remained fashioned from wood and stone. As the room in Cajamarca was being filled with gold and silver to pay the ransom for Atahualpa's release the Inca could not understand the unquenchable and insatiable desire the Spanish had for gold and precious metals. Though there are ancient iron mines in Peru, as far as any scholar can confirm, there was no working of iron or steel.  The iron ore was used for cosmetics and the dyeing of textiles. An oxide for of iron called hematite/magnetite was used extensively by the Inca and other peoples. Evidence also suggests that meteoric iron and nickel were used in pre-Colombian America. Hematite and its magnetic cousin magnetite are much harder than iron or granite and were used in the shaping of the beautiful construction stones of the Inca Imperial era found in Machu Picchu, Cusco and other sites. 

The caption reads a "Necklace of gold with beads of LapisLazuli and Cacao."

This type of decorative use of precious stones and gold was typical of a 

a people known as the Lambayeque who preceded the Inca by centuries. 

The image of the Lord of Sipan of the Moche Culture is shown in this 

gold spider medallion. The Moche or Mochica preceded the Inca by

five hundred years. The medallion is not just evidence of their art but also

of soldering and metal alloying. The gold is hardened with copper but

worked to preserve the luster and beauty of the gold. The ability to do this

type of gold alloying was not discovered in Europe until centuries later. 

The jewelry of the Lord of Sipan, a Moche ruler from the most spectacular

tomb uncovered in the Americas, illustrates the decorative uses of gold and
metal working of the indigenous peoples of Peru. 

The question arises, and historians will grapple with it for a very long time -- why did the Europeans embrace metal working and iron for the advancement of weaponry and domination in their quest for guns, manufactured items, and steel, while the Inca and others thought of it only in decorative terms?

The so called 'ransom room' where the Inca filled the room once with gold

to a height of 8' and twice with silver to secure the release of the emperor.

He was sentenced to death anyway and was garroted rather than being

burned at the stake for being a heretic. 

At the time that Pizarro began his search for more empire to conquer for God, King and his personal fortune he did encounter a heavily laden Incan ship off the coast of Ecuador. It was the discovery of that ship and the captives that he took back to Panama wherein he would learn of the riches of the Inca. Scholars suggest this Incan craft was the size of a Spanish caravelle.  I am uncertain what size of ship that is, but certainly more than the reed boats used on the coasts for fishing. Might they have made Atlantic and Pacific crossings?  The historical evidence suggests such and had been happening for many centuries even thousands of years before the Inca. Peruvian cocaine and tobacco were found in Egyptian mummies dating to 1100 BC. Certainly such transoceanic crossings were made by at least several early peoples.

Astonishing, so much so, even the Spanish troops

wet themselves as they waited for the command

to attack the Inca in the square at Cajamarca. 

Professor Diamond suggests the immediate factors that enabled the Europeans to kill and conquer other peoples were indeed guns, infectious diseases, steel tools, and their manufactured products, but they do not provide a complete understanding and do not explain why Native Americans or Africans were the ones not to end up with guns, the nastiest germs and steel? Our trips around Peru to various archaeological sites and accompanying museums define and illustrate the intelligence, creativity, and abilities of the numerous civilizations and cultures here. Cotton was domesticated here and used by the inhabitants of Bandurria and Aspero in weaving textiles and fishing nets  more than 5,000 years ago. The museums are loaded with precious metals skillfully and beautifully made, but never done in the context of the Europeans. Iron was used by at least one group of pre-Hispanic people in Central America, the Olmecs, but did not continue to their successor states.

Also, on my Kindle library waiting to be read is William McNeil's "The Rise of the West." Perhaps Professor McNeil will explain why the West/Europe was able to succeed the earlier states of China, India, the Mongols, and Islam. Therein lies the answer, in the relationship of one state to another as civilization moved from east to west, one building upon the other. In the Americas there was a largely independent development from the retreat of the last ice age to the arrival of the Europeans.  Left alone to develop they would have neither the benefit of Greek thought, Islamic algebra and philosophy and Chinese gunpowder, nor iron from Anatolia post the Bronze Age.

If the Spanish had not arrived when they did would those in the Americas have entered at some point an age of iron and manufacturing? Atahualpa had in mind to capture the Spanish, geld a few to guard his harem, kill the rest of them, but to breed their horses. No one can say if he had any interest in their guns and steel.

Jared Diamond sums up his book with one sentence: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." Such are the quandaries and questions of an idle mind on a warm Lima Sunday afternoon. The fans are on and the windows are open.

Inca Temples, Joseph Campbell, and the Chartres Cathedral

The party of tourists at the "Utah Rock" in Sacsayhuaman an Inca

religious site and fortress above Cusco. Utah does have good rocks
that we miss. 

Our time is drawing into the last months of our mission in Peru. We continue to travel given the opportunity. In a week we will travel north to Bandurria. It holds the most recent claim as the oldest urban center in the Americas and is part of the Norte Chico/Caral Supe civilization. It features more pre-ceramic, and monumental architecture, as well as sunken circular plazas that seems to be a part of all of the sacred sites in Peru we have visited.

Alice and Kyle. He was a missionary in Peru a dozen
years ago, as was his father before him. Grandson
Jack indicates he would like to be a missionary here one
day too. 

During the two week February temple closing we visited several familiar sites with family. We added a new one. It also seemed to be the consensus favorite of those we saw and experienced. It outranked, only slightly, my favorite of Machu Picchu. This was Lake Titicaca. We arrived there after an enjoyable bus ride through the altiplano or high plains of the Andes from Cusco.

A stop on our bus ride to take a photo of a young Quechua girl in traditional

garb. The houses are very small and the winters very cold at 15,000 feet. Our 

guide said the residents sleep with "blankets that have ears" to stay warm as 

there is no heat or fireplaces at this elevation. No firewood or trees grow at
this elevation either. Potatoes and llamas do, along with a few woolly sheep.

The floating islands of the Uros are usually the photos you are shown from any tours to Lake Titicaca.  The people on the Uros Islands were fascinating, hospitable, gentle, and very friendly.  In addition to tourist visits and dollars their whole life depends on and is built from the reeds called 'totora' that grow in the lake.  The reeds are part their diet along with fish caught from the cold waters including transplanted Canadian trout. They provide the building material for their houses, transportation, and floating islands. Walking on these islands has something of a giant water bed feel. There are more than forty of them on the Lake.  One island has LDS Church members on it, but ours was an Adventist Island, we think, since there were no Catholic iconography in sight. I did ask our Uros host where the 'Mormones' were and he pointed toward the horizon.  The Uros are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the area and speak a different native language than Quechua and is known as Aymara. It has a few characteristics common to Mongolian, Turkish, and Korean, though no linguist or scientist would ever say so.

Em, Alice and Kyle on a reed boat, Lake Titicaca Peru

A view of a neighboring boat being rowed by several of the Uros

While here during our free time and in addition to traveling to these important historical sites we are learning more of the early history. I am also enjoying the works of the preeminent scholar of comparative religious myth, Joseph Campbell. His commentary and characterizations about the myths of the ancient world fit and explain Peruvian traditions. In the  television series on PBS with interviewer Bill Moyers Campbell is asked where are the sacred places in the world today. He responds, "They don't exist. There are a few hundred spots where people may go to think about something important that happened there. For example, we may go visit the Holy Land, because that is the land of our religious origins. But every land should be a holy land. One should find the symbol in the landscape itself of the energies of life there. That's what all early traditions do. They sanctify their own landscape." The architects, builders, and stone workers of ancient Peru did sanctify their landscape.  There is so much here that is so beautiful.

We stopped at Raqchi on our bus trip to Lake Titicaca.

It is a 15th century Inca temple of Viracocha. 

The foundation stones of the Temple of Viracocha are carved in the Inca

Empire style while above adobe bricks were used. It is impressive the 

adobe walls have withstood earthquake and El Niño rains for 500 years.

A glue extracted from cactus added weather resistance to the adobe creating 

a type of 'cement' or more weather proof plaster. 

Scholars have suggested five of the most important and sacred sites for the Inca were the Temple of Koricancha in Cusco, nearby Machu Picchu, the Isla del Sol or the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, the ruins of Tiwanaku, and the old ruins at Pachacamac near Lima. Of these we have visited or seen all but one. The ruins at Tiwanaku remain elusive to us as they are on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and outside of the mission boundaries. Our allotted time too has dwindled to make such a visit. When our twenty two months are up, we will depart for home where our nearly two years older grandkids await.

One of the Pre-Inca ruins at Tiwanaku known as the Temple of  Kalasasaya. It
was likely also a solar and stellar observatory. The figure in the distance is
the staff god, inasmuch as he carries a staff in his right hand. We regret we
will not see these ruins. Looks like it could be from an Indiana Jones movie
set. 

In addition to these aforementioned, we have in our travels observed, photographed, and climbed about literally hundreds of pyramids, huacas, or sacred sites, and shrines. There is no question about the importance of the role of religious ritual in the lives of the inhabitants of Peru, both present and past. It is not a secret for many anthropologists, and particularly for Campbell, that religion or myth is the force that motivated and compelled the sacrifice and cooperative human endeavor on such a grand scale to construct such places as Machu Picchu or these many mounds, earthworks, and pyramids. Campbell freely interchanges and uses the word myth to describe religion. Of course he says everyone else's religion is myth while your own is not.

Templo del Sol or the Temple to the Sun built by the Inca at Pachacamac.

Incredibly huge pyramids were constructed by several methods either of 

stone or adobe. Over the centuries or millennia they eroded into just natural

looking hills. Such was the case with these mounds or pyramids. Archaeologists

slowly and painstakingly uncover the original stone or adobe work in their 

efforts to reveal the past. Literally millions of adobe bricks were made and used

to construct this temple and others. The work went on for generations, not
unlike the construction of the LDS Salt Lake Temple. 

Earlier in the month we visited a site known as Pachacamac, about 40 km south of Lima along the PanAmerican Highway. Construction probably began on the site more than a thousand years before the Inca.  In Pre-Inca myth Pachacamac was the creator god. Because he was an invisible god he had to be represented as a totem. One side was depicted as a male and the opposite a female figure. This duality is universal in Peru's history. Eventually a complex of some 17 temples or pyramids would be constructed on the site. When the Inca arrived early in the 1400's they allowed the locals to continue to practice their religion, but added their own Temple of the Sun or Inti as he was called.  It was the New World equivalent of the Oracle of Delphi. There Pachacamac would intercede in the lives of the petitioners as well as give direction and instructions to the solicitous. Pachacamac was also the god of earthquakes and therefore required propitiation or sacrifice.

The two of us at Pachacamac on one of the 17 temple mounds or pyramids

The Spanish fathers and priests of course knew it was the devil who was deceiving the Inca and their predecessors. Our guide Miriam informed us, even to this day near the first of October, coinciding with a national Catholic holiday, Peruvians make a trek to the site at Pachcamac. It is not uncommon here to have Christian holidays coincide with those of the Inca and others. After all we celebrate our December 25th Christmas day based on an ancient Roman pagan holiday of some sort. The solicitous still make the pilgrimage bringing a purple corn drink and coca leaves for Pachacamac. Those two things, along with a potent and a near hallucinogenic strength tobacco, were the items of choice as offerings to deities in Peru.

With our English speaking guide Miriam. She has a degree from the
prestigious University of San Marcos in Lima. 

A younger cousin of Francisco Pizarro named Pedro Pizarro, learning of the stories about this site and supposing the many sacrifices and offerings made there would be in the form of gold, silver, and fine textiles came to exploit the site in 1533. He found only the wooden idol of Pachacamac and maybe some wetted ground from the chicha drink. He and his men with some frustration pushed over the totem and then set fire to the temple.

The terracing of the island provides cultivatable garden space for several

varieties of potatoes, corn, beans, including fava beans or habas verdes, 

onions, peppers and more. 

The consensus highpoint of our trip was the hike up la Isla Tequille in Lago Titicaca.  We had majestic views of the surroundings and could see the Isla del Sol in the distance on the Bolivian side.  According to Inca myth it is the point of origin where the creator god Viracocha and his two assistants emerged going forth and beginning the creation of the world and the first people on the planet.

The Island of the Sun or the Isla del Sol in the distance.  Maybe on another
trip we can visit this island and the accompanying ruins at Tiwanaku. 

Early Inca ruins on the Isla del Sol

During our nearly 18 months here our interest in Peru's past has deepened significantly. It is tied in with our day jobs as we find so much of allied interest and comparable to the temple traditions we know so well. This has been enhanced of course by reading everything of Joseph Campbell's available on Kindle or listening to on Audible. Books have sent from Utah via UPS as well when I had an 'emergency' and could not get something of his electronically. In his book, "The Mythic Image" he writes, and it is confirmed from our travels around Peru, "The idea of a sacred place where the walls and laws of the temporal world may dissolve to reveal a wonder is apparently as old as the human race."

One of our dear friends and fellow temple workers in the 

Lima Temple Sister Rosa.  

Our day jobs in Peru and our experience of working in a temple for a number of years elsewhere have us agreeing with the good professor about sacred places, places that were open to ritual, meditation and contemplation.  From those who inhabited this land centuries ago their whole world was a sacred place. Our lives have become so economic and practical in their orientation that as we get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the h+** you are, he says, and what it is you intended. We are always so busy doing something that is required of us. He asks, "Where is your bliss station? You have to try and find it...put on music that you really love, or get the book you like to read. In your sacred place you get the sense of the "thou," the sense of the awe of things Goethe wrote about. Continuing he urges us to "...follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are--if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time." 

The Chartres Cathedral built in the 12th Century has

survived with its original stain glass windows. Going 

through a ritual day after day can keep us in touch with 

our spiritual life and "keeps you on the line," according

to Campbell. 

Joseph Campbell's favorite place of ritual, meditation, and contemplation was the Cathedral of Chartres in France. In the medieval towns of Europe they dominated the skyline and the surrounding countryside, much in the same manner of the pyramids and temples of the ancients here in Peru. He regrets the decline in the use and loss of such sites today, concluding with his observation, "Since about the year 1914 there has been evident in our progressive world an increasing disregard and even disdain for those ritual forms that once brought forth, and up to now have sustained, this infinitely rich and fruitfully developing civilization." We continue to enjoy what we do here in Lima and the people we work with each day.  The meaning of what we experience is deepened as we have visited these impressive sites from ages past. It is ironic to me that in this land of 10,000 temples, huacas or sacred places, and pyramids, we work and are most appreciative to be doing so in the Lima Peru Temple. As President Hinckley observed, "The Temple is concerned with the things of immortality, a bridge between this life and the next. It is a symbol of and faith in the immortality of the human soul."

Lambayeque Ruins and Other Delights

We continue to enjoy traveling to archaeological sites in Peru and with the temple closed for its semiannual maintenance closing, we made reservations and flew to Chiclayo, approximately 800 km north of Lima.  Traveling to the north of Peru is also a special treat for us as the food is significantly more to our liking than in Lima.  We enjoy the cabrito seco or goat cooked in wine sauce. The cebiche de pato or cooked duck, and the fresh cebiche de mero or corvina are to be enjoyed as well. Our friend, and college educated taxi driver, Walter knows where to find the best restaurants and about the sites we wanted to visit. His home base is in Trujillo, but he drove several hours up to Chiclayo to ferry us around for three days.

Lunch with Walter in Lambayeque. He and I are having the goat cooked in

wine, 'cabrito seco', cooked without water. I have learned over the years never

to trust the recommendations of a skinny man and my rule of thumb holds 

true for Walter. He is an accomplished cook and our friend as well. 

Both Chiclayo and Lambayeque are not far from the ocean so cebiche is an important menu item of any restaurant and I enjoyed it several times. Even being a gringo Norte American I can discern the differences between cebiche prepared in Lima and that in the north of Peru. The peppers, for one thing, are a little hotter. The waiter asked how hot I wanted it, i.e. how much mochero pepper? I responded "muy picante, por favor." Typically, Peruvian food is never above the halapeño range so it is pretty safe asking for hot. I am slowly beginning to understand the subtleties of the many peppers in Peru.  There is more to enjoying peppers than just just being hot. Each pepper has a unique flavor or 'sabor.' Reading the account of a 16-17th Century Spanish chronicler and Jesuit Priest, Bernabe Cobo, I learned about the religious fasting of the Inca and earlier peoples. When fasting was a religious requirement, the Inca and other indigenous people would give up their 'ajis' or peppers along with salt for a week or more.  Peppers played that important of a role with the people here. I too, would find it difficult to give up peppers or ajis for 10 days, or so, in observing the typical holy days and festivals.

About the best cebiche in recent memory.  We are going to learn to prepare

this when we return home. It is admittedly an acquired taste but I really 

enjoy it. This marinated and uncooked fish plate is accompanied by sweet 

potatoes, yuca, corn or choclo and this time something akin to a deep fried

corn fritter. The fish is "chemically' cooked by the action of the lemon and
vinegar marinade. 

RA has a new cookbook, 'The Art of Peruvian Cuisine', that we found at the airport on our way home.  It has seven different recipes or 'recetas' for cebiche. We will ask some of our Peruvian friends in Utah for cooking lessons. There is an ongoing debate whether cebiche was brought to Peru by the Spanish as it has North African or Moorish roots or was it indigenous. Limes supposedly were brought to the New World by the Spanish. It is clear the Inca prepared it, though their marinade was likely chicha de jora rather than the Spanish lime and vinegar variety normally used today. I have yet to experience this type of cebiche, but may ask for it on our next trip to Cusco. Several of the young missionaries I have spoken to about Peruvian food have told me they are prohibited from eating this dish.

Photography is not allowed within the museum so we have to rely on 

images others have taken.  This is the young Señor de Sipan. Local 

residents were recruited to make the casts for the fiberglass mannequins.

Without any question the most significant archaeological find in Peru has been the grave of the Lord of Sipan.  He was a Moche ruler whose people dominated the North of Peru from 100 AD to 800 AD. I also completed reading Roger Atwood's account of the grave robbers vs. the archaeologists as it played out over the 'discovery' and subsequent investigation of the royal tombs of Sipan. It reads like an Indiana Jones film script. One particular family of brothers or huaqueros actually found the site. They were able to loot one tomb and put the gold objects and other tresures into the murky world of artifact smuggling and dealing. Two other tombs were saved by archaeologists and the police. Regrettably, one of the brothers was shot and died from his wounds while a raid was occurring on their farm. The animosity of the locals toward the archaeologists and the government remains to this day. RA reminded me this sounds like the tale of Southern Utah's own Anasazi pot hunters and their battles with the Bureau of Land Management and the US Attorney's office.

An incredible medallion illustrating the capabilities of the Moche in

working miniatures. This piece shows the care of their artisans in using

turquoise stone inlay, gold soldering and delicate fabrication.

DNA testing of the remains of the two principal occupants of the unmolested tombs confirmed them to be grandfather and grandson. Likely, the middle occupant was the father of the Lord of Sipan. Nothing remains of his tomb except the treasures that were spirited away. Some of the best pieces reside in the hands of private collectors or abroad in a few museums. No one knows the full extent of the lost pieces from this first tomb looted by the huaqueros.

A very unique and fitting museum for the Lords of Sipan. It is accessed by

a ramp on the right to the third floor.  From there visitors descend two

floors to view all of the exhibits and even the remains of the Lords and

their retinue buried with them. 

The preservation of the site at Sipan, its artifacts, and existence of a very incredible museum is due to the passion and energy of Walter Alva and his wife Susana Meneses. Unfortunately, she passed away some seven months before the museum would open.  With permission, Dr. Alva was allowed to bury his wife in the grounds with a simple marble plaque noting her final resting place. When they began their archaeological careers they literally camped out on neighboring huacas without even a tent. They did not own a car, so they stayed for long weeks and months on sites they were studying in Lambayeque. Because of their efforts the greatest archaeological site discovered in the last 40 years (according to National Geographic) in all of the Americas is preserved for generations to study and appreciate. They did this with little help from the government of Peru. Most all of the money came to build the museum by showing the treasures in Europe, Japan and the USA.

Walter and Susana reviewing drawings of a site they were studying. 

The village of Sipan, on the other hand, has changed little since the discovery of the tombs. A few tourists and taxis drive through on the way to see the Huaca Rajada where the tombs with re-creations of the occupants are visible. The King and Queen of Spain were supposed to visit the site a few years ago.  In anticipation the main street was graded be paved in preparation. Their visit was canceled and in the end the village received nothing, only the notoriety that it was the home of the Bernal brothers. It was their grave robbing activity that brought archaeologists to the site. Even the museum was located elsewhere and the villagers are mostly forgotten. Hopes were that they would at least get a new school for their children.

Here we are standing above the tomb of the Lord of Sipan. 

These hills appear as though they are just the outcroppings of nature. 

In fact they are the pyramids of the Moche people and were 

painstakingly built from adobe bricks, millions of them. El Niño and

the rains it brings over the centuries has reduced these pyramids to 

piles of mud and rubble. 

Several theories have been proposed for the decline of the Mochica civilization. Ice cores taken from high in the glaciers of the Andes suggest weather patterns became very erratic. A long period of drought followed by an equal period of flooding brought to an end the Moche culture. These people had a sophisticated and complex society as evidenced in their metallurgy, agriculture, ceramic production, and temple building.  They engaged in ritualized warfare with neighboring groups to obtain victims for human sacrifice. The speculation about the details of such are among the most gruesome and cruel of any I have read.  However, the pottery of the Moche is our favorite and they present the most lifelike any of the Pre-Colombian peoples of the Americas. Their energy in building canals and irrigation projects is still evident after more than a thousand years.

A Mochica ceramic stirrup pot from the Larco Museum

in Lima. It is one of the great museums in Peru and all

of South America. It is our favorite of those in Lima. 

The Museum of the Lord of Sipan is the most

impressive of all that we have visited. 

A Mochica prisoner of war bound with a rope and hands

tied behind his back awaiting sacrifice. Note the facial

hair, something not common in other representations in

ceramics, glyphs, or paintings. A stiff belt of punch from
the Peruvian Star cactus likely made the victim more
compliant and manageable prior to torture and execution.
Cannibalism was also practiced among the Moche according
to scientists. 

We visited several other sites in Lambayeque and their story deserves consideration in another post. There is no question about the upheaval, in terms of the political, social, and religious consequences climate change, brought to the societies of ancient Peru. Al Gore would confirm the link between climate change and societal upheaval. Except in this instance, the change was not anthropogenic.

Machu Picchu for Dummies

Once again the semiannual maintenance closing for the Lima Temple will be happening next week. We are excited that more of our family are coming to visit us. We will spend a week touring in Cusco, Machu Picchu, and this time a new twist, a bus trip to Puno and Lake Titicaca.  Since our last visit in August, seems like only last month, I have read a few more journal articles, and a couple books in collecting additional insights about Machu Picchu.

Tonight we are giving a PowerPoint presentation to the Family Home Evening group. RA has been researching authentic Peruvian/Incan recipes for desert.  She has prepared a quinoa pudding, topped with mango and a touch of lime zest. It was so good that I told her to look no further for any other recipes. Quinoa remains the food I enjoy and eat the most in Peru.  I am happy to know it is available at Costco when we return.

The quinoa mango pudding RA made again this afternoon.

Machu Picchu, according to National Geographic Explorer in Residence and scientist, Johan Reinhard, is “One of the very few places in all of the world where reality can surpass one’s imagination.” Dr. Reinhard's theory for the 'why' of Machu Picchu is the most satisfying of the several I have read. Other questions come to mind about this one of seven current wonders of the world such as, why was it never completed, and why was it built in such an isolated location? 

Our Peruvian friend Miky looking over MP on our first trip there one year ago.

The theories for the "why" of Machu Picchu range from it being an exclusive prison for royal Incan family members to be isolated from the current emperor to prevent any palace coups, to it being a summer residence for the founder and builder, the Emperor Pachacuti. Along the way other theories have been tossed on the table such as it being primarily a religious and ceremonial center. Lastly, it has been proposed as being a regional capital of the empire. During the rapid expansion of the Inca they  were known for establishing outposts of governance. From these centers, soldiers would be barracksed, taxes would be collected, the pantheon of gods worshipped, food and supplies would be stored, and regional commerce controlled.

The Temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu. It might have once held a solid

gold life size statue of the Emeperor Pachacuti.  The windows align for

solar and astronomical alignments and observations such as the heliacal 

rise of the constellation Pleiades or Collca as it is known and still observed
by the Quechua. 

This past July 24th marked the 100th anniversary of the "discovery" of Machu Picchu by a Yale history lecturer Hiram Bingham. George Lucas would neither confirm or deny that his character Indiana Jones was based on that of Hiram Bingham. Machu Picchu was never really "lost" and in need of discovery, though the conquistadores likely never visited it, or it might have been destroyed because of its deeply pagan and troublesome representations. The site was looted in the 1860's by a team of German treasure hunters with Peruvian government permission.  By the time Bingham arrived with his Quechua guides there was little left to loot. What he did find was sent back to Yale for study and "safe keeping." Some but not all of the Yale artifacts have been returned to Peru and a new museum in Cusco is housing them.

Their style of hats were similar though Hiram could not afford the leather jacket

Hiram had his own theories about Machu Picchu, but not being a trained archaeologist, he was wrong on almost every count.  His adventures in the high Andes did bring the site to the attention of the world.  It also propelled him to the governor's mansion and eventually to a US Senate seat. Peru's history has been one of continual foreign exploitation and Bingham was just another in a 500 year succession of foreigners capitalizing on the richness of Peru. He has been characterized as just an upper class grave robber or huaquero, as we know them down here.

The best theory for me and others as to the "why" of Machu Picchu is embodied in the work and research of Johan Reinhard. His book "Machu Picchu -- Exploring and Ancient Sacred Center" seems to offer the best explanation for Machu Picchu and does not detract much from the other predominant theory that it was constructed as an estate for the Emperor Pachacuti. 

Available on Amazon. If you buy a used copy be

certain it is the 4th Revised Edition. 

Dr. Reinhard has proposed Machu Picchu should be understood in the context of the natural geographic features that surround the site.  Its breathtakingly beautiful location must have struck the Inca in the same manner that draws a million tourists to the site annually. Venerating and reverencing mountains, rocks, caves, and rivers as sacred sites, (known as huacas), and even as gods, the location between the two mountain peaks of Machu and Huayna Picchu must have impressed Pachacuti, his priests, royal architects and engineers. Reinhard's explanation for MP is called the "Sacred Landscape" theory. The site's spectacular setting, design and construction are directly related to the significant mountains that surround it. In each of the cardinal directions is a significant mountain peak. Temple and site alignments within Machu Picchu are oriented to many and yet to be determined astronomical phenomenon including solar alignments of the solstices and equinox. The heliacal rising of the constellation Pleiades or Collca, as it was known among the Inca. was preeminent in the annual cycles of planting, weather prediction, and the harvesting of crops. The Inca worshipped and reverenced it as the guardian of seeds and planting. Americans and Japanese of course are very familiar with this constellation as it the logo for Subaru automobiles. (Thanks again Watson for your stellar education on the subject of Pleiades).

Due south from Machu Picchu is the mountain Salcantay which is important to Inca myth and lore. It was also venerated from the Inca capital of Cusco.  At the Summer Solstice of December 22 the Southern Cross is directly above and at its highest above the peak of Salcantay as observed from the Intihuatana Stone, the highest point in Machu Picchu. All of the sites we have visited in Peru from the earliest at the Caral/Supe complex to Machu Picchu have important astronomical and solar alignments. Books have and will continue to be written on the subject or archaeoastronomy and the peoples of Pre-Colombian Peru.  This next trip to MP we will have our GPS attachment for the Ipad and will be taking a few additional photos of alignments. 

We have yet to observe the Southern Cross in the 14th months we have 

here, maybe when we return to Cusco in two weeks. 

Throughout the site and elsewhere in the lands of the Inca and their predecessors is found the symbol known as the Chacana or Inca Cross. From the June 22 Winter Solstice the rising sun illuminates the Temple of Three Windows and casts a shadow of the Chacana on the floor.  I have seen this jewelry for sale and had not been interested, thinking it to possess provenance only from the Colonial or Spanish Period. Understanding the steps of the cross represent the three existences of the Inca, heaven, the current world in which we live, and the underworld of death I am now more interested in acquiring something to add to the wardrobe. The hole in the center represents Cusco, their capital of the empire. A young Peruvian friend also asked me, while walking by the Lima Temple recently, what the three steps signified in the steeple supporting the Angel Moroni? I had no answer for him. Who knows if it was coincidental or deliberate? The steps of three are significant in the iconography of Peru certainly. 

The three tiered step is found throughout Peru though maybe the spiral will 

now be replacing it. 

Because Machu Picchu was abandoned before the Spanish entered Cusco it escaped desecration and destruction, fortunately for the world. The question has to be asked, why was it never completed? Stones are left part way on their path toward installation. Important buildings were left uncompleted as were significant sites in nearby Ollantaytambo as well. The reasons for the abandonment of Machu Picchu also explain why it was possible that 168 conquistadores could defeat an empire of 12 to 25 million people and an army of up to a quarter million men.

Stones left in the quarry showing evidence of recent work and others left

sitting awaiting installation in the Temple of Three Windows. 

Two years before the Pizarro's army of thugs entered the land of the Inca, smallpox arrived there first. The Inca Emperor Huayna Capac, his son and successor, his generals and ministers were fatally infected while on a military campaign in Colombia. The internecine struggles that ensued as rival factions and other sons fought for the ascension to the royal throne created the 'perfect storm' of opportunity and circumstance for Pizarro and his men.  Two sons were named by the pox ridden emperor with the names of Huascar and Atahualpa to divide the empire and succeed him.  The Spanish were shrewd enough to use one against the other thus largely neutralizing the numerical superiority of the empire's forces and capitalizing on the discontent and resentment of subjugated peoples within the empire.

Yes, guns, armor, and horses, carried the day at the Battle of Cajamarca 

between Pizarro's 168 soldiers and six thousand Inca warriors but 

ultimately it was germs that brought about the collapse of the

largest empire in the Americas. 

Within two years of the arrival of smallpox, in what epidemiologists refer to as "virgin soil," roughly one half the population was sick or dead. Within 130 years of the arrival of Columbus estimates run as high as 95% of the indigenous population of the Americas was gone due to the European diseases of smallpox, typhus, measles, diphtheria and influenza. No natural immunity to any of these diseases existed among the peoples of the Americas. The best treatment on this topic and summary of the research is from Charles Mann's: "1491, New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus." The only gift in return to the Europeans was a particularly virulent form of syphilis which returned to Spain along with the stolen gold and treasures of the Inca.

A long period of incubation for smallpox exists allowing for its rapid spread.  At least 12 days from first contact with the virus until the signs or symptoms of the pox appear. During this period the infected host is highly contagious so the disease could spread, as they say, 'like a wildfire.' Some social scientists have pondered and weighed the near extinction of all the indigenous of the Americas as a high price to have paid for Christianity and the alphabet.

Cows, horses, pigs,  and camels did not exist in the Americas

at the time of the coming of the Europeans. Smallpox and

other diseases morphed, jumping from animals to humans. In 

Europe natural immunities developed among the survivors

of smallpox. 

Smallpox strains only exist currently in the germ stockpiles of the US Army and the Russian Republic. In the future it could be a very lethal biological weapon as generations of earth's children are not being immunized since smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980. Certainly one of the great achievements of science in the modern era. Reading about how this hellish disease brings about the sweet mercy of death, I have to agree it is one of the great achievements of medical science.

Existing stocks of smallpox held in the US and Russia should be disposed

of, lest new strains be developed and pose a threat to humanity. Potentially 

as devastating as any nuclear arsenal. 

Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo, and other sites were never completed simply because of the European diseases which so quickly killed the inhabitants in advance of the conquistadores. Solutions were not to be found in star gazing and celestial alignments for Inca. Sacrifices to the gods availed nothing.  In areas of the Americas where disease had not preceded the arrival of the conquistadores and other Europeans the indigenous peoples were never conquered. The Zapatista rebellion of Southern Mexico has it roots in the rebellion of the Maya some 500 years ago. Florida was invaded five times by the Spanish but the locals were never defeated by them. In Brazil the Portuguese brought colonists to 14 sites along the Pacific coast. In less than 10 years only two survived.  Pedro Pizarro, a young cousin of Francisco, concluded in his memoirs without the Inca civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa the Spanish would never have been capable of defeating the Inca. Further he said, had the Emperor Huayna Capac been alive and at the head of his army in Colombia the Spanish would have been easily defeated, their horses captured for breeding purposes, and the surviving conquistadores would have been gelded to guard the emperor's wives. That was Atahualpa's plan.

One has to wonder what might have happened and turned in history if the Spanish had not brought disease to the Caribbean. I have also pondered several questions about the conquerors and vanquished. Specifically who was the worst? Were the Spanish any less bloodthirsty or driven less by conquest than the Inca? I am not sure I have an answer, but I do have an opinion. It would be this: 

In the totality of comparison between the Inca vs. Conquistadores, in terms of brutality, and inhumanity to man, the Inca exceeded the Spanish with very little argument. Pertaining to the larger view of culture and civilization, the Spanish were guilty of cultural genocide and annihilation of the greatest magnitude and scale. Nothing in my study or knowledge of history compares to this so total and complete annihilation. Compounding the systematic and deliberate destruction of the icons of culture and religion of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, such as the temples, ceremonial centers, huacas, and shrines were the unforeseen consequences of biological warfare brought to the Americas by Christopher Columbus and subsequent so called European “explorers.” 

Machu Picchu -- The most beautiful place I have ever visited

Each time we have visited Machu Picchu we discover and learn something new. We continue to be impressed with its beauty. The Inca were far from the characterization of Spanish chronicler and priest, Father Bernabe Cobo, as being "simple minded and ignorant barbarians" under the spell of the devil. On the contrary, their achievements left in stone at Machu Picchu and elsewhere, rival anything this world has ever seen or has been created by man.