Message #11047

[Bianca]

                                                                                                                      continued



Understandably, these "picture stories" have been qualified as spurious by
archaeologists, especially since their source has not been precisely pin-
pointed for them to be examined IN SITU and new stones keep appearing
- the number is now approaching 50,000. 

In addition, one of the local villagers admists to having manufactured a
number of like stones for sale to archaeologists, an example of business
acumen on the part of the supposedly simple natives, not limited to Peru.

The Peruvian authorities eventually decided to classify the stones not as
antiquities, which cannot be exported, but simply as artifacts to be labeled
"made in Peru", as they all, the old and the new, undoubtedly were.

These undatable stones would be easy to dismiss as one more example of
archaeological "plants" were it not for a report of their having been sent
back to Spain by Spanish explorers in 1562 - an indication that the stones
are at least not of recent origin.  That they are at least several centuries
old is attested to by the oxidation produced by the aging of minerals cover-
ing the incisions of the drawings.   

Also, their very number, their size, and the time it would have taken to
completely cover them with incised pictures would tend to indicate that a
number of them are what they appear to be, however active the imagination
of the original carvers.