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SURVIVORS OF...
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In the Andes, on a now-desolate plateau which sits at 12,000 ft above sea level, are the amazing ruins of Tiahuanaco, Bolivia near the shores of Lake Titicaca, and also beneath its waters. The peoples our scholars currently think of as the oldest inhabitants of South American refer to those who once inhabited the ruins as "the ancient, forgotten ones" and their histories are without memory of a time when the ruins were inhabited. It seems that any examination into Tiahuanaco's history shows the site to have been shaped by a succession of cataclysms and revivals. If we are to believe local legend, the civilization began after a cataclysm and quite apparently achieved a golden age of wisdom - as witnessed by the vast, exacting constructions and remaining evidence of the inhabitant's advanced knowledge (such as the Gate of the Sun, thought to be 27,000 years-old, which has on one side a calendar of Earth, and on the other, a calendar of Venus so precise, that our science could not duplicate its accuracy until recent times; or the fact that they commonly used the ratio of pi ages before Archimedes or the Egyptians). At the time commonly given to the cataclysm of volcanic activity which claimed Mu, a large majority of Tiahuanaco was claimed by an accumulation of water. In the 400 acres of ruins belonging to the oldest parts of the site, dry silt covers the ancient constructions to a depth of at least six-feet. Those remaining in the region further insisted that more of the city was to be found beneath the waters of Lake Titicaca. Though this last fact was widely documented by scores of researchers speaking on behalf of local populations and local findings, the mainstream community denounced the idea as ridiculous, and perhaps with good reason. Lake Titicaca is currently twelve miles from the main site, with the water-level being 800 ft. lower then the level of the city. Even Jacques Cousteau helped to discredited this portion of Tiahuanaco's past in 1968 when his investigation of the lake's depths revealed nothing more then algae. It wasn't until 1980 when a team of divers led by well known Bolivian author and scholar, Hugo Boero Rojo, took to the waters of Titicaca and discovered monumental ruins which included temples built of enormous stones, long stone roadways, walls, a palace-like structure, steps whose bases were lost in the depths, and even an advanced docking harbor surrounding the lake's sacred center Island. Researchers now believe that a large part of Tiahuanaco must have existed before the Lake came into existence and that the cataclysmic flood which created the lake was the result of geological events which took the region from sea level to its current high elevation; though it seems just as likely - if not more so - that it was the ocean which changed its levels instead of the land. Anyhow, this cataclysm is said to have brought with it vast changes to the region and initiated a "dark age" which scholars think lasted between 500 and 1000 years. Local traditions further tell us that after a second cataclysm - a flood which inundated the land for 60 days and vanished Tiahuanaco's neighboring cities (of which is would now appear there are none) - a bearded white man with emerald eyes appeared who they call Viracocha. Often thought of as a God, he was said to have re-awoke the light and wisdom of Tiahuanaco by instructing the inhabitants of the Andes in the secret arts of advanced civilization before departing from Ecuador with his entourage of green-eyed companions. Viracocha is often linked to Quetzalcoatl and Jesus. He is also linked to giants, for it is regarding this 60 day flood that the following is also said: Tiahuanaco reached its glory in a single night. It was built in those days after the great flood by unknown giants. These giants took women as their wives. They brought waste in their appetites. They later disregarded a prophecy of the coming of the Sun, and were annihilated. In this way, by the Sun their palaces were reduced to ashes. This "coming of the Sun" is known as the "third cataclysm", and is the only cataclysm not recorded by some manner of tangible evidence, which makes sense when considering that it is this third cataclysm largely thought to lay near-complete waste to the city and change the landscape into the barren, inhospitable plain we see today. |
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©2003, 2004 XIA Neifion |
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