Ancient South America & It's Connection to Atlantis (Original)

[Morrison]

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From Oscar's links:


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Recent studies of the ice cap at Sajama suggest the level of Lake Titicaca has been subject to periodic changes of level over the last 11,500 years with alternating periods of drought and flooding. When the lake is at its maximum level, the water overflows down the river Desaguadero where it then continues to flood the level Altiplano and Lake Poopo.
So, just as people build cities on volcanoes or valley floors subject to flooding, the people occupying the Altiplano next to Lake Poopo have been just as much at risk to be submerged under the waters of the lake as those ancient people whose constructions have now been found under the waters of Lake Titicaca.

And there remains one great city or civilisation known only by legend and which people continue to doubt ever existed. It is the story of a city destroyed by earthquakes and overwhelmed by a great flood, all of which took place in the space of a single day and night.

The name of this city is Atlantis.

Remains of coca have been found in the mummy of Ramses II in Egypt dating to 1200BC.

And the island described above (Plato account)is the island of Cerro Santos Villca at the village of Pampa Aullagas on the southern shore of Lake Poopó.

Anyone visiting the island will see that it has been destroyed by the earthquakes mentioned above and is still covered in white, sedimentary lake deposits from the time when the lake was at a higher level.

Behind the village of Pampa Aullagas they will see the remains of an outer ring of land with a gap between for the ships to sail through – exactly as Plato described it. They will also see the wall of stone enclosing the island, the black, red and white stones and the site has been inhabited for a long time by successive cultures. It has a natural source of water as mentioned above and the water is still conducted by channels to concentric cultivated plots – according to a study by a vulcanologist even the soil has been imported to the island to improve the cultivation.
So up to this point, there is nothing outrageous in Plato's story, although Plato said the island sank into the sea, the English philosopher Sir Fancis Bacon said in fact it was the rising waters of the lake which submerged the island – and isn't that just like what happened with the ruins found under Lake Titicaca?
In fact all around Pampa Aullagas are underground springs, so when it rains in another part of the country it can rapidly flood the level Altiplano. And the system of canals Plato mentioned is quite appropriate to the region, indeed when the system of raised fields was restored in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca the presence of water in the small channels raised the local temperature and vastly increased crop production.

The date of Plato's Atlantis has always been a problem since Plato made an error and gave the same date for the founding of Atlantis as he did for the ending of Atlantis (about 9,500BC). But he talked about a war between a confederation of nations which invaded Greece and Egypt and this could correspond to the invasion by the "Sea Peoples" of Egypt around 1220 BC, also the attack by the Greeks upon Troy in 1260 BC which was "the finest of the achievements of the Greeks" which Plato wanted to record – in fact he gives the same number of ships for the fleet of Atlantis as Homer did for the Greek fleet against Troy suggesting that this part of the story was based upon Homer and if we substitute lunar months for years in Plato's account then the "9,000 years" before Solon" becomes 1263BC – the date of the Trojan war.

So it is probable that either Atlantis existed in the period after 9500BC up to 1200BC when the Altiplano had varying water levels due to the climatic changes or alternatively it was overwhelmed by the waters of Lake Coipasa when the entire Altiplano became a giant inland sea in 11,000BC, since prior to that the land would have been cultivable, free of the salt salars and the climate 6 degrees warmer.

Finally, it is easy to dismiss Atlantis as merely a "co-incidence" on the Altiplano, but there is one further factor regarding the site at Pampa Aullagas - from the native Aymara and Quechua the name actually means sunken pampa or sunken level plain.

Atlantis never was a sunken continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or some imaginary creation of Plato or cinematic fantasy of Hollywood, but in reality is based upon an indigenous Andean culture.

And at the end of the day, Atlantis was simply overwhelmed by climate change and natural disasters typical of the Altiplano.
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[ 01-29-2006, 12:27 AM: Message edited by: Morrison ]
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[Morrison]

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quote:
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Themes > Science > Life Sciences > Collection & Preservation > Mummification > Mummification in Other Parts of the World

Outside Egypt, in such widely separated places as the Aleutian Islands, the Canary Islands, China, and the countries now composing what was the Inca civilization, bodies preserved by various artificial means have been found. The venerated mummies of the Inca kings were destroyed by the Spanish. The Chinchoros culture of the Northern Chilean coast practiced artificial mummification around 5000–3000 B.C., and around 4000 B.C., corpses were deliberately salted at La Paloma, in central Peru. Pre-Columbian burials on the arid coast of Peru and Chile, often wrapped in textiles, tended to become naturally mummified. In the late 1990s a cache of late prehistoric mummies of the Chachapoyas culture was found in a rock shelter in humid Northeastern Peru. In 1974 in the Changsha area of China, an embalmed woman, later identified as a matron of the Han dynasty, was disinterred, along with many artifacts, from an air- and watertight tomb, in a remarkably well-preserved state. In Ürümqi (Urumchi), the capital of Xinjiang (Chinese Turkistan), other exceptionally well-preserved mummies, dating back as far as 4,000 years and having European features, have posed a mystery to anthropolgists; some believe they may be Tokharians, members of a so-called lost tribe of Indo-Europeans known from later inscriptions.
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Information provided by: http://www.infoplease.com

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/LifeScience/CollectionPreservation/Mummification/MummificationWorld/MummificationWorld.htm


Mummification in Peru was actually being practiced before it was being practiced in Egypt.

Note, the practice was also performed later in the Canary Islands as well.

The step pyramids in the Canaries actually resemble those in South America more than they do Egypt. It could also be that the oldest pyramids in South America have been misdated and actually pre-date those in Egypt.
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[Morrison]

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   posted 01-29-2006 01:18 AM                       
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Orichalcum:


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Some people believe every single word of Plato's account to be true, while other people believe every single word to be totally false. Yet there are small details, like the mysterious alloy called "Orichalcum" which one translator, Sir Desmond Lee considered to be "a completely imaginary metal" but actually exists in the Andes as an alloy of gold and copper. Here is what Karen Olsen Bruhhs writing in "Ancient South America" has to say about it... "Copper and copper alloy objects were routinely gilded or silvered, the original colour apparently not being much valued. The gilded copper objects were often made of an alloy which came to be very important in all of South and Central American metallurgy: tumbaga. This is a gold-copper alloy which is significantly harder than copper, but which retains its flexibility when hammered. It is thus ideally suited to the formation of elaborate objects made of hammered sheet metal. In addition, it casts well and melts at a lower temperature than copper, always a consideration when fuel sources for a draught were the wind and men's lungs. The alloy could be made to look like pure gold by treatment of the finished face with an acid solution to dissolve the copper, and then by hammering or polishing to join the gold, giving a uniformly gold surface."

http://www.geocities.com/aullagas/orichalcum

The process was further explained and demonstrated by Adam Hart-Davis in his programme "What The Ancients Did For Us" screened by the "Open University" (BBC2) 2nd March 2005. Since gold was not used as a currency, it was valued more for its colour and beauty, gold being the "sweat of the sun" and silver being the "tears of the moon." Taking a small piece of Tumbaga consisting of 50% gold and 50% copper, the alloy was hammered into the shape of a miniature mask suitable for mounting on a finger ring.
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http://www.geocities.com/aullagas/orichalcum

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[Morrison]

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The legend of Tunapa (Poseidon). Apologies for printing the whole thing but it is actually quite scarce on the web and this will be one of the few places one can find it:


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Bolivian Legend and Plato’s story of Atlantis ….What Plato says in the beginning…In the centre of the level rectangular plain at a distance of 50 stades from the sea was a mountain that was low on all sides. Theron dwelt Cleito, and Poseidon being smitten with desire for her wedded her, and to make the hill whereon she dwelt impregnable he broke it off all round about, and he made circular belts of land and sea enclosing one another alternately, which he carved as it were out of the midst of the island. The island later disappeared into the sea in a single day of earthquakes and floods.

Poseidon… Greek name for the god of the sea and of earthquakes.

Tunapa...Bolivian name for the god of rivers and lakes.

Pampa Aullagas. Area surrounding a low mountain with broken off rings of land and formerly sea, destroyed and submerged by earthquakes, located at the southern end of Lake Poopo.

In the Greek legend, it is Poseidon, god of the sea who marries a woman living on a hill and creates the ringed island of Atlantis. But Plato says the legend was given Greek names to make it agreeable to his readers. In Bolivian legend, it is Tunapa, god of the sea (lakes and rivers) who created the ringed formation at Pampa Aullagas.

The following extracts show how the story varied from place to place, Tunapa sometimes being seen as a male god and at other times as a female.

From Britannica.com … summary

"Thunupa appears in different guises -- godlike and man-like. I explore what it might mean to have the same name applied to a female mountain peak in the south who is wedded to a man/god/ mountain who is the highest peak in Condo's territory.

…In several chronicles the god Thunupa is a god who leaves the region of Lake Titicaca. He sails down the Desaguadero River (opening up the route as he goes), ending up in exile in Lake Poopo, where he sinks

In the legend of Azanaques and Thunapa, gender, marriage, and the violence of husband against wife frame the story of their relationship and point to a link between the behavior of gods and humans.

Bouysse-Cassagne, indicating that Thunupa was a god venerated in the sixteenth century by Aymara speakers, notes that Thunupa may have well existed in earlier times (1988: 77). Wachtel (1990) claims even greater antiquity for Thunupa than for Viracocha, arguing that Thunupa may be a pre-Aymara god, perhaps of Puquina origin. Thunupa, thought to be especially important to the area round Lake Titicaca, is particularly associated with water (Molina R. n.d.). Wachtel describes him as the maker of terrestrial water.

this altiplano water course system. The travels of Thunupa also mark what Wachtel calls the "aquatic axis" of the altiplano from Lake Titicaca to the great salt pans of southern Bolivia

On this watercourse Thunupa went sailing until "the Aullagas" [another name for Lake Poopo] where "the waters vanish into the bowels of the earth" …..

Thunupa was deposited on the shores of Lake Poopo to take up residence alongside Azanaques

From "La Ruta Tarapaca" …summary. "According to these legends the old Asanaques married a woman called Tunapa."

"Tunapa decided to rest in the region of Quillacas, where she built an oven in order to cook, thus forming the peaks of Santa Barbara and San Juan Mallku, where later the actual village of Quillacas was founded.

The following day, she headed to the west, to cross the River Marquez, Tunapa left one of her sandals in a place today recognised by a small mound known as Sato. On the other side of the river she decided to rest leaving traces of her resting place in the formations of the peak Pedro Santos Willka, site of the people and village of Pampa Aullagas."

Inca Creation Myth from "The Incas" pub Blackwell 2002

"In ancient times before there was light the creator Wiraqocha Pachayachachic (creator of all things) fashioned a race of giants to see if it would be good to make humans on that scale. He saw that they were too large, and so he made humans his own size. But they were filled with hubris and greed, so the Creator turned some to stone, and others to diverse forms, and some were swallowed up by the earth or sea. And he caused a great flood to cover the land, destroying all that was upon it, save for three men, whom he saved to help create humans anew.

From Britannica.com …..abridged version

Magazine: Anthropological Quarterly, October 1999

LANDSCAPE, GENDER, AND COMMUNITY: ANDEAN MOUNTAIN STORIES

By Sikkink, Lynn ; Choque M., Braulio

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On the southern Bolivian altiplano the fight between a male and a female mountain peak marked the region in distinctive ways, defining physical space and humans' relationship to it. Considering landscape from the perspective of one community, we learn about the reworking of history and gender, and individuals' ability to use the story creatively. [storytelling, Andes, landscape, gender, mountains]

"Azanaques got married to a woman from the south named Thunapa... "(Braulio Choque).

Introduction

Arriving as an outsider to take up residence on the Bolivian altiplano, I did not realize that even the landscape was beyond my reach. What I initially saw was flat expanses of sandy pampa bounded by hills, some of them standing alone, the watery vision of Lake Poopo with its salty outline to one side of my new home, subtle changes in color from salt to desert sand to rusty browns. This initial impression of desolate beauty had little to do with how Condenos viewed this scene. Little by little, learning the "stories" or "legends" about the gods who animated this terrain, I was taught to identify the personages here and there and the marks of their relationships and disputes: that rock catapulted from a sling during a fight, this hill as a hat knocked off during a fight, this salt and sand a trail of breast milk and barley flour, this hill an abandoned child, those red rocks the blood of a wounded mountain/ god. But surprisingly this learning process did not result in the exchange of one vision of the landscape for another. Rather in the listening and looking I learned to apprehend always-unfolding possibilities for considering the scene around me, some of them contradictory. Stories about important mountains, overseers of Condeno communities, were recounted differently by various community members, not necessarily in conformity with each other. The telling of folk tales is influenced by the age and sex of the individual storyteller, as well as by the community affiliation of that person and which parts of the landscape are particularly important to him or her.

First, I am interested in demonstrating how the landscape itself is gendered in the region surrounding San Pedro de Condo, and how stories about the landscape like the one I tell here take on specific gendered aspects in modern versions of folk tales. Second, I will contrast the local representation of the gender of two mountain peaks (Thunapa and Azanaques). I will examine how this representation differs from chronicled accounts in which Thunupa(n1) appears in different guises -- godlike and man-like. I explore what it might mean to have the same name applied to a female mountain peak in the south who is wedded to a man/god/ mountain who is the highest peak in Condo's territory.

Landscape, Gender, and Folk Tales

In the Andes the landscape is animated in specific ways. As the Andean geography is monumental, so are the beings that breathe life into mountains, plains, rivers, and rocky outcrops. For instance, a mountain is not just a place where a god walked, it is itself a god. A blocky rock the size of a small house is the missile flung from a sling in a fight between two peaks. Unlike other cultural landscapes that record in myths the passage of gods, ancestors, and trickster figures, and their effects on the landscape, Andean geography is a gargantuan arrangement of bodies, body parts, and the objects these beings used or left behind as they went on their ways in times past.

Locally told and recognized, the stories about the peaks Azanaques and Thunapa also provide a counterpoint to other stories about the Andean god Thunupa whose reputation is known throughout other parts of the Andes, but under a different guise.

…In several chronicles the god Thunupa is a god who leaves the region of Lake Titicaca. He sails down the Desaguadero River (opening up the route as he goes), ending up in exile in Lake Poopo, where he sinks

Condo was the center of the pre-Inca Asanaqi-Killakas Federation whose political structure is still reflected in modern day sociopolitical arrangements. Condenos in turn had the peak of Azanaques at the center of their identity, so stories about Azanaques today reflect in part the origin myths and political assertion of this old Aymara Federation. ….In the legend of Azanaques and Thunapa, gender, marriage, and the violence of husband against wife frame the story of their relationship and point to a link between the behavior of gods and humans.

A Modern Version of the Legend of Azanaques and Thunapa

This story was recorded by Braulio Choque, a young scholar of mythology who lives in Huari, five kilometers from Condo. As Choque grew up in this area hearing this story, he draws on his own knowledge of local lore alongside the information he collected from residents of Huari, Condo, Quillacas, and Pampa Aullagas. His version therefore is remarkably complete in that it draws on angles of representation provided to him by inhabitants of the areas through which Thunapa passed after her fight with Azanaques (see Figure 1). Although Thunupa is a male god when we encounter him in chronicled myths, the southern peak of Thunapa is almost always spoken of as a female,

In other Condeno versions the peak of Thunapa is labeled sometimes as a male,. Legend of Azanaques They say that in the vast region of Huari there lived a man called Azanaques. … One day Azanaques got married to a woman from the south named Thunapa. There were other marital differences -- During the party he drank a lot of alcohol and ended up beating Thunapa. She was badly wounded, harming also the child she was carrying in her womb. Because of the fight, Thunapa took Sullka and resolved to flee from Azanaques. Thunapa, badly wounded, stayed several hours on the outskirts of San Pedro de Condo. She found several medicinal herbs to help her, then continued on her journey. Along the way, however, she dripped blood, which today has been converted into three small hills of reddish earth, named Wila-wila ["red-red" or "blood-blood"].

Azanaques ordered a search. Azanaques and his henchmen followed Thunapa's path, but without success. Meanwhile Thunapa continued her journey, stopping to prepare a meal. She rigged a little oven, made of clay and granite rocks. A long time later the little oven became the village of Quillacas [today a pilgrimage site]. A resident says, "Thunapa cooked her meal in those three hills that you see there, at the top of Calvary Hill. And because of that, those three hills are black with the smoke of the fire -- it stained it that way forever .... "

She continued on across the flat pampa. On her way she left the marks of her dejection in the shape of gigantic sandal prints. Her full breasts spilled out milk on the pampa as she walked towards Pampa Aullagas, …At the first rays of dawn, Thunapa continued her hurried journey. In her haste she didn't suspect that her pito had been leaking out of a small hole in the ch'uspa and had spread across the length of the pampa. Residents say that this was converted into the current line of sand and dust marking her route. Along with this, the milk from her breasts continued to leak out, to be converted into salt. This salt now extends in small mounds to the village of Pampa Aullagas, even covering the environs of the village of Salinas de Garci Mendoza, where Thunapa set up her new dwelling, living peacefully, free from her pursuers.

Landscape and the body

One of the obvious aspects of the story of Azanaques and Thunapa, which as told in this version is like a serial origin myth, is how the landscape is represented as many bodies and is itself the result of the actions of these bodies as they shaped this space in the past. In the story the landscape is animated through its representation as living and dead gods, and as their body essences -- blood, breast milk, and urine figure as parts of the modem landscape.

As a present part of Condo's territory, how does the effect of Azanaques' body on the landscape differ from that of Thunapa's? Whereas Azanaques is encompassed by Condo's territory, Thunapa lies far away, in the territory of Salinas de Garci Mendoza (once called Salinas de Thunapa) and is the tutelary god of those inhabitants just as Azanaques is for the Condenos (see Figure 1). Thunapa is visible from Condo, and marks an important point on the horizon -- the direction of the great salt flats to the southwest of Condo. Condenos still travel to these salt fiats but did so much more frequently in the past, a point to which I return below. Thunapa is an important reference point on the landscape, and people name it frequently, while they may or may not point out other mountain landmarks within sight. Perhaps this is partly so because of Thunapa's commanding location beyond the shores of Lake Poopo and in the region of Uyuni and Coipasa. The orientation of Thunapa also marks the line of an old trade route to the Pacific Ocean through the Atacama Desert which highlanders used to travel. Thunapa also marks the western edge of the Federation of Asanaqi-Killakas' territory to which Condenos trace their history (Espinoza Soriano 1981). Within these old boundaries the distance between Thunapa and Azanaques also marks the wide extent of a common and old territory.

Thunapa's journey may also make reference to the historic migrations of the inhabitants

Gender: Local and Titicaca Variations on the Myth

In sorting out the various meanings and interpretations of this myth, I find that gender is a notable feature, especially in that the gender of Thunapa is inconsistent from account to account. (Compare the two quotations in the opening of this article.) The mythical action of the Condeno story revolves around a married couple, specifically marked in their human-like relations. Along with exploring this aspect of the story, I also wish to talk about how a local variant of this story links it to early colonial chronicled myths about the god of Thunupa. He is always depicted as a male, sometimes of the same stature as Viracocha (an ancient Andean god), and sometimes as Viracocha's son. Thunupa is variously depicted in these myths, sometimes with Christian-like aspects, and often with associations to water and water courses (Bouysse-Cassagne 1988; Guillen E. 1991; Urbano 1988; Wachtel 1990). Bouysse-Cassagne, indicating that Thunupa was a god venerated in the sixteenth century by Aymara speakers, notes that Thunupa may have well existed in earlier times (1988: 77). Wachtel (1990) claims even greater antiquity for Thunupa than for Viracocha, arguing that Thunupa may be a pre-Aymara god, perhaps of Puquina origin. Thunupa, thought to be especially important to the area round Lake Titicaca, is particularly associated with water (Molina R. n.d.). Wachtel describes him as the maker of terrestrial water (1990: 534). This role is demonstrated in Sarmiento's account (1942[1972]) when he casts Thunupa as the disobedient son of Viracocha. In this account, Viracocha punishes Thunupa because of his misdeeds. Viracocha's other two sons tie Thunupa by the feet and hands and toss him into a boat, which is carried down the Desaguadero River, that flows to Lake Uru-Uru and on to Lake Poopo (also cited by Bouysse-Cassagne 1988: 82). Ramos Gavilan (1976) elaborates by recounting that a strong wind blew on the aft of the vessel, carrying it towards Desaguadero -- which before this time did not exist -- and the prow of Thunupa's boat opened the outlet on this spot, providing enough space for the waters to flow out. On this watercourse Thunupa went sailing until "the Aullagas" [another name for Lake Poopo] where "the waters vanish into the bowels of the earth" (pp. 31-32). (See Figure 2.) Unresolved is the fate of Thunupa in this story -- did he sink into the lake or establish a new home? Given the local Condeno story it is tempting to postulate that the local story picks up where the Titicaca version leaves off; that is, Thunupa was deposited on the shores of Lake Poopo to take up residence alongside Azanaques. Although these two stories are not explicitly linked, they are symbolically connected beyond just the name. Thunupa, and then Thunapa, moves across the landscape, bisecting it roughly along the line between urco and uma(n5) which defined pre-Hispanic Aymara space (Bouysse-Cassagne 1986; Saignes 1984), continuing this process on land until reaching the salt flats, once a part of this altiplano water course system. The travels of Thunupa also mark what Wachtel calls the "aquatic axis" of the altiplano from Lake Titicaca to the great salt pans of southern Bolivia (1990: 527). Comparing the chronicled accounts of Thunupa to the local story there is a shift from water to land, but the shift in register is more than from sailor in his boat to a mountain god; it is from male to female.

This analogy suggests that in mythically encountering the local god Azanaques, the founding symbol of the once huge Asanaqi-Killakas Federation, Thunapa would have found an immediate place in the local hierarchy if construed as a female rather than a male. Not only was she seen as a female, but she was mythically wed to Azanaques, symbolizing the unequal union of Aymara and other pre-Inca religious beliefs, perhaps associated with the regional fishermen of Uru or Puquina ethnicity. Thunupa, after all, is associated with water ways in the Titicaca story,(n6) while he/she goes on to shape the landscape and "produce salt" --logically related to water resources as one moves from wetter to drier parts of the altiplano (Titicaca to Uyuni). The local myth in some way domesticates Thunapa, planting her on the landscape as a creative force come to rest -- as the runaway wife of Azanaques who lost her dominion over the part of the landscape ruled by her husband.

By Lynn Sikkink, San Jose State University and Braulio Choque M., Huari, Bolivia
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[Morrison]

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The legend in it's original Spanish:

El peregrinar de Tunupa hacia la costa: Historias indígenas

Los cronistas logran rehacer la ruta de Tunupa hasta que se pierde en la región de Aullagas, al sur del lago Poopó. Es claro que este peregrinar no termina allí, incluso los cronista mencionan una posible relación con la costa de Chile. Historias indígenas regionales respecto al volcán Tunupa, situado a orillas del salar de Uyuni nos permite extender el itinerario de sus viajes desde el altiplano boliviano hacia la frontera con Chile.

Molina (1996), por otra parte, recogió una serie de leyendas que tienen al volcán Tunupa como personaje central. Estas versiones fueron recogidas en las zonas de Quillacas y Pampa Aullagas, Salinas de Garci Mendoza y Challapata, Huari y Sevaruyo. Según estas leyendas se dice que un día el viejo Asanaques se casó con una mujer llamada Tunupa y tuvieron varios hijos. El Asanaques era un viejo con barba blanca y el principal Mallku de la región. La Tunupa era una bella y joven mujer que llevaba doce polleras de muchos colores y doce enaguas. El viejo Asanaques era muy celosos de la bella Tunupa acasionádole muchos sufrimientos. Un día, tanto sufrir, la joven Tunupa decidió irse hacia la costa. En esa ocasión la Tunupa y el Asanaque tuvieron una riña en la que el Asanaque comenzó a castigarla. La Tunupa pidió auxilio y salió en defensa de su hermana, Chullasi, que se encontraba al otro lado del lago cerca a Orinoca. Chullasi, para defender a su hermana Tunupa lanzó una piedra, con una honda, a la cabeza del Ausanaques, hiriendo al Mallku para siempre. Es por esa razón que el mallku se encuentra inclinado hacia donde sale el sol y la piedra que le hirió se encuentra aún en la pampa cerca al camino, que llaman PacoKahua. Mientras el Asanaques estaba herido, la Tunupa aprovechó para marcharse, dejando atrás a sus hijos Wilacollo, Huatascollo, Huari y Sevaruyo (Cerro Gordo) (cerros menores que se encuentran al sur del lago Poopó).

Iniciando su camino hacia la costa, la Tunupa orinó en las pampas de Aguas Calientes, donde hoy existen brotes de aguas termales, consideradas saludables. Luego de transitar por las pampas de Condo,



la Tunupa decidió descansar en la localidad de Quillacas, donde se construyó un fogón para cocinar, formando así los cerros de Santa Bárbara y San Juan Mallku, donde luego se ubicaría el actual pueblo de Qillacas.

Al día siguiente, se dirigió rumbo al oeste, para cruzar el río Marqués, la Tunupa dejó una de sus abarcas, en el lugar hoy conocido por una pequeña loma denominada Sato. Al otro lado del río decidió descansar dejando rastros de reposos en los contornos del cerro Pedro Santos Willka, lugar de fundación del pueblo y ayllu de Pampa Aullagas.

Rumbo al sur, cerca de Tambillo, la Tunupa excavó la tierra para construir una Tiwaraña de piedra para preparar la quinoa. Continuando su trayectoria hacia el sur, en una localidad llamada Jayu Cota, excavó nuevamente la tierra para luego verter su leche y dejarle a su hijo menor que la seguía. Más adelante dejó en su camino a un hijo enfermo con viruela, llamado Saalviano, nombre de un cerro que tiene muchos huecos en su superficie.

Siguió camino hasta una gran planicie donde se perdía de vista el Asanaques y donde dicen que la Tunupa vertió grandes cantidades de leche para alimentar a sus hijos. En esta zona, conocida desde entonces como el Salar de Uyuni (o Aullagas) se encontró con dos jóvenes muy guapos, el Cora Cora y el Achacollo o cerro Grande, con los que entabló una buena amistad. Ellos la convencieron que se quedase por esos lugares antes de seguir rumbo a la costa.

Muy pronto los jóvenes se enamoraron de la bella Tunupa. y comenzaron a pelearse por su amor. Con un hondazo, el Cora Cora hirió el corazón del Achacollo, por lo que desangró mucho. Por su parte, el cerro Achacollo también le lanzó un hondazo al Cora Cora, hiriéndolo en la vejiga y habriéndole muchos huecos. Así ambos jóvenes pretendientes murieron por el amor de la Tunupa y desde entonces la Tunupa se quedó y permaneció para siempre en esta región de los Aullagas (Molina 1996:405-408).

http://www.geocities.com/webatlantis/atlantisoriginsinlegends.htm
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Posts: 391 | From: New England | Registered: Oct 2004   

[Morrison]

Morrison

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   posted 01-29-2006 01:37 AM                       
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More gods of South American mythology:

http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/deities/southam.htm
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Posts: 391 | From: New England | Registered: Oct 2004   

[Morrison]

oscar

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Rate Member   posted 01-29-2006 09:56 AM                       
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Morrison: Do you know Spanish? If you need assistance and wanna know the translation of something -or anyone here- please, do ask me.
Regarding the name Atlantis, Jin says the name ATL means "water" in Central America and he's right cos since I like languages I've read Charles Berlitz and I already knew for a long time, that translation is correct. Antis reminds us ANDES. The mixture of both names give us Atlantis and the very name Atlantic Ocean and many places in both extremes of that ocean using the letters ATL indeed indicate something happened in the past. But we are not gonna understand the thing ignoring the expanding earth theory. In that theory the splitting of South America happened differently from North America. If my memory doesn

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inca

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Posts: 3395 | From: belo horizonte, brazil | Registered: Feb 2003  |

[Morrison]

oscar

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Rate Member   posted 01-29-2006 09:58 AM                       
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...doesn't betray me, the South expanded even more than North America. If my memory betrayed me, the opposite is true. But I think my memory didn't betray me.

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inca

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Posts: 3395 | From: belo horizonte, brazil | Registered: Feb 2003   

[Morrison]

George Erikson
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   posted 01-29-2006 11:40 AM                       
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SEA ROUTE TO WEST COAST OF SO AMERICA

SEA ROUTES OF ANCIENT NAVIGATORS TO THE AMERICAS

Following the trade winds and tropical equatorial currents ancient voyagers would have encountered a series of islands including what we now call the Windward Islands of the Caribbean... except instead of being the "bare bones" left after Atlantis "sank", the islands would have been much larger than they are today due to substantially lower sea levels at the end of the Pleistocene (11,500 ybp). Continuing west the navigators would also have encountered a Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba, etc. that would have been more than twice their current size, just as the Bahamas Bank would have been one large island. But in every case navigation around and through the Caribbean would have been possible. This progress west would have been stopped only at the western end of the Caribbean, at what we now call Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. This was the main "island-continent" of Atlantis, and although it was boundless north and south displaying the notion of "continent" it was easily traversed east to west across these narrow lands, thus displying the charteristic of "island". Once traversed the navigators would have encountered what was a very duifferent body of water, with substantially greater wave intervals. This was the Pacific or "true ocean." It was the way to other islands and to the true continent of Asia (which could not be crossed in a six day walk). Of course, to accept this you would have to believe that ancient navigators had actually circumnavigated the world and knew about the narrow size of the center of the Americas and of the great size of both the Pacific and of Asia. I believe it.

www.AtlantisInAmerica.com
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Posts: 572 | From: Prescott, AZ USA | Registered: Aug 2002   

[Morrison]

George Erikson
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   posted 01-29-2006 11:50 AM                       
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Oscar,
"Morrison: Do you know Spanish? If you need assistance and wanna know the translation of something -or anyone here- please, do ask me.
Regarding the name Atlantis, Jin says the name ATL means "water" in Central America."

You are correct that ATL means water. But ATL isn't Spanish (if that is what you meant). It is a key syllable of the Nahuatl and Maya languages spoken throughout Mesoamerica.
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Posts: 572 | From: Prescott, AZ USA | Registered: Aug 2002   

[Morrison]

Herr_Saltzman

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  posted 01-29-2006 12:22 PM                   
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And ATL in Indo-Euroepan languages is connected with "To Bear" it has nothing to do with water. ATLANTIS was not the name of Atlantis.

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Cheers, and Good Mental Health,
Herr Saltzman

http://forums.atlantisrising.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001530;p=10

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Posts: 1245 | From: Vienna, Austria | Registered: Sep 2005 

[Morrison]

Artemis

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   posted 01-29-2006 07:32 PM                       
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The Seeds of the Inca

Early in 2001, a site located on the Pacific coast of Peru which had been known for over a hundred years made headlines all over the world. The site of Caral and the cluster of eighteen similarly dated sites located in the Supe Valley included in what is now called the Caral-Supe Civilization are important because together they represent the earliest known urban settlement in the Americas--nearly 4600 years before the present. By contrast, the Inca state rose during the 15th century AD; the Nasca Empire about 0 AD; Teotihuacan first flowered ca. 200 BC; Monte Albán about 500 BC; Chavín society 1000 BC; Olmec society 1200 BC. The culture represented by the Supe valley sites dates as early as 2600 BC, when Khufu was building the pyramids at Giza.


Caral is a 200 acre site located on a dry terrace, fourteen miles inland from the coastline. It has a central public area with six large platform mounds arranged around a huge plaza. The largest of the mounds is 60 feet high and measures 450x500 feet at the base. All of these mounds were built within one or two building periods, which suggests a high level of planning, generally associated with state level societies. The public architecture has stairs, rooms, and courtyards; and three sunken plazas suggest society-wide religion. Of the 18 other sites near Caral, ten are more than 60 acres in size; all of them have similar public architecture. Crops included squash, beans, and cotton, grown in the dry desert climate with the assistance of a intricate irrigation system.

Excavations at Caral have been undertaken by Jonathan Haas from Chicago's Field Museum, Ruth Shady Solis of the Anthropology Museum at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and the Field Museum, and Winifred Creamer, Northern Illinois University and the Field. It was featured in a Science article in April 2001, after a long and careful investigation into the radiocarbon dates from the site. With dates like these, you have to be sure.

The interesting thing about Caral and the rest of the Supe Valley sites, is that it illustrates the problems archaeologists have dealing with so-called "urban settlements" and "state societies." Building monumental architecture such as pyramids and irrigation canals and cities takes planning, pretty sophisticated planning, in fact. When archaeologists first stumbled across the cities of our ancient pasts, we began developing our theories of why states rise. One of the most prevalent theories was that it takes a combination of factors to create the political climate that creates public works; and that usually means full scale agriculture, craft specialization, a writing system, ceramic production, social stratification, even metallurgy.

But the Supe Valley sites, and other early urban settlements such as Catalhoyuk in Turkey [6300-5500 BC], apparently arose without all of these elements. Although we can't know the political structure of the people who built Caral, we know that they did not have ceramics or metallurgy or writing. The investigations of Caral and the other Supe Valley sites promise to teach us how people choose to become urban dwellers.

---

Recent excavations at Caral by Ruth Shady Solis have recovered a quipu, an artifact found at later Incan sites that may be a form of record keeping. See South America's Oldest Writing System for more information. Related Glossary Entries

http://archaeology.about.com/od/southamerica/a/caral.htm
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Posts: 137 | From: Mt. Olympus | Registered: Sep 2005   

[Morrison]

Artemis

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   posted 01-29-2006 07:37 PM                       
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Quipu Found at Caral Nearly 5000 Years Old
Archaeologists excavating at the ancient Peruvian coastal civilization called Caral have recovered an artifact which may represent one of the earliest forms of communication in the world, roughly equivalent in age to the cuneiform of Mesopotamia.

The early civilization known as Caral was first reported in 2001, as a collection of at least 18 separate towns and villages on the northern coast of Peru, dated to approximately 4600 years ago. The discovery was of vast importance, because, on the basis of the dates, Caral is the earliest of the sophisticated civilizations in the Americas, and was one of the few civilizations on the planet which apparently developed without a form of written communication.

Archaeologists believe that most civilizations--those that develop public projects such as monumental architecture, and have a geographically wide distribution that was controlled--require some form of record keeping to arise and survive. The exceptions include the Inca civilization, which did not have anything we modern people recognize as writing. What the Inca had were quipu, a complicated system of knotted cords of different colors. Many of these quipus (also spelled khipus) were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, but approximately 200 of them dating no earlier than about 650 AD have been found. Although archaeologists do not all agree about the function of the knotted strings, one fairly compelling argument is that the quipu was a method of record keeping.

The recovery of quipu from the civilization of Caral, if the context and dates are correct, suggests several things. First, this is additional evidence that Caral was a precursor to the Inca civilization (since the Incas also used quipu). Secondly, quipu as a tradition dates at least 2000 years older than we recognized prior to this point. Thirdly, and most importantly, if quipu were indeed a form of written communication, they are among the earliest forms of writing in the world, only slightly younger than cuneiform, which has been identified at the Mesopotamian site of Uruk approximately 3000 years BC. As a very recently identified civilization of the world, Caral has the potential to help us rewrite human history.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/ancientwriting/a/caralquipu.htm
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Posts: 137 | From: Mt. Olympus | Registered: Sep 2005   

[Morrison]

George Erikson
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   posted 01-29-2006 08:34 PM                       
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Artemis,

Artemis,

Now I know that Olmec culture has been given a date of 1,200 BC. And we all tend to accept these dates. But this is a date which corresponds to their dominance in a large region... from the Gulf of Mexico to Oaxaca covers over 400 miles. I have studied sites in Belize, Cuello is the best example, that date back 2,500 BC and that were undeniably Olmec. Cuello is not pre-Olmec, nor is it in any way primitive. I'd like to take you there!

www.AtlantisInAmerica.com
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Posts: 572 | From: Prescott, AZ USA | Registered: Aug 2002   

[Morrison]

Artemis

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   posted 01-29-2006 08:43 PM                       
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Well, I'd certainly like to go, but do the native archaeologists date these sites any earlier..?
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Posts: 137 | From: Mt. Olympus | Registered: Sep 2005