The Gold of the Gods (3 page)

There are countless snakes on the gold plaques in the tunnels underneath Ecuador and Peru, and on Father Crespi’s treasures: snakes crawling up pyramids, striving for the summits, flying in the heavens with a trail of fire or lying on the heads of the gods. But neither here nor elsewhere do we see a single snake doing the things men have always seen them do—wriggling through the grass, hanging from a tree, swallowing a mouse or writhing about in the mud with other snakes.

Everywhere dragons and even more so snakes stand as symbols for phenomena from the cosmos. What do the archaeologists say about all this?

The snake was a symbol of immortality. Why? Because our observant ancestors had noticed that the reptile shed its skin and constantly emerged from it renewed. Surely our ancestral students of behavior observed that in the end the snake died just the same?

The snake was an expression of agility and maneuverability. Would not birds or butterflies have been better models than this miserable creature crawling on the ground?

The snake was an emblem of fertility and was honored as such by primitive peoples—all of whom were afraid of snakes. A strange stimulus to the production of offspring.

Forest dwellers were afraid of the snake and so they chose it as a god. Lions, bears or jaguars are much more dangerous—snakes only seize animals that they want to eat, they do not attack indiscriminately.

Moses gets nearer to the truth (Genesis 3:1). For him the snake is the messenger of disaster much as in the North Germanic Midgard of early times, that “farm” between heaven and earth, the snake coils round the property as the personification of danger and destructive power.

Prehistoric evidence shows:

• that snakes and dragons are connected with the creation of men;
  
• that snakes and dragons are connected with the stars;
  
• that snakes can fly;
  
• that snakes have an unpleasant fiery breath.
  

So far there has been no profound investigation of the origin of snakes in myths and legends in archaeological and ethnological literature. Experts could fill this gap. I gladly place my archives at their disposal.

Father Crespi has partially stacked his metal plaques by motifs, for example those with pictures of pyramids. I took a close look at more than 40 and some of them are reproduced in this book.
All
the pyramid engravings have four things in common:

• a sun, but more frequently several suns, is depicted above the pyramid;
  
• snakes are always flying next to or over the pyramid;
  
• animals of various kinds are always present;
  
• two concentric circles in varying numbers, but always of the same size, are engraved near the pyramids. I counted between 9 and 78.
  

These concentric circles, actually a large dot inside a circle, are not only found here at Cuenca, but in all kinds of prehistoric cave paintings and reliefs. Until now these dotted circles were and still are interpreted as solar symbols. I have my doubts about this. The sun (with laughing face or a corona of rays) always has a place reserved for it in addition; in fact, frequently several suns are shining. If the suns are depicted so unmistakably, we ought to ask ourselves what the circles have to tell us. Do they indicate the numbers of astronauts observed? When they occur near the pyramid, are they an indication of the number of alien gods buried inside them? Or do they mark the sequence of explosions observed? I believe that the dotted circles are purely and simply a form of reckoning. What I mean cannot be more graphically depicted than in the cave painting which was discovered in the Kimberley Ranges, Australia. The god in that painting has a “halo” that symbolizes the sun, but 62 circles are painted next to the figure. Are these simply meant to be small suns? There are all kinds of possible questions and I find any answer more likely than the claim that the dotted circles, even when they are next to obvious pictures of the sun, represent yet more solar symbols. Our prehistoric message transmitters did not make things all that easy for us. In addition animals are always present. I cannot resist one more taunt. At the foot of the pyramid made with great accuracy of neat blocks stand two delightful elephants. That’s nice.

Archaeologists have dug up elephants’ bones in North America and Mexico, but they were dated to before 12,000 B.C. But elephants had completely disappeared from the scene in South America in the age of the Incas, whose culture, it is established, began around A.D. 1200. So we must make a choice: either the Incas had received visitors from Africa who drew elephants next to the pyramids for them or these gold plaques are more than 14,000 years old (12,000 plus 2,000). The only answer is either/or.

I think that the pyramids stamped in metal from Father Crespi’s treasure help to eliminate an academic error. Until now scholars have asserted that both the pyramids in South America and the Mayan pyramids in Central America originated without any connection with the Egyptian pyramids. In Egypt the colossal structures were burial places, in the other hemisphere simply grandiose edifices on the upper platforms of which temples were built The gold plaques do not exhibit a single flattened surface at the summit with a temple on it! They have
the same
pyramidal shapes as those m Egypt. Who copied from whom? Who were the first to build pyramids, the Incas or the Egyptians? They cannot be posthumous forgeries. Firstly forgers would have needed more gold than there is in Fort Knox, secondly, they would have needed to employ a whole corps of artists with a far-reaching knowledge of the ancient peoples and their cultures, and thirdly it would have been necessary to continue making the grandiose forgeries right through the Inca period, whenever that was.

I should like to know what tricks scholars will use to displace this fabulous metal treasure of inestimable archaeological and historical value, which is described here for the first time, from the period into which it does not seem to fit. Could it be that
all
pyramids
everywhere
in the world had the same master-builders?

Characters can often be made out on the illustrated objects from Cuenca. Are they older than all previously known forms of writing?

Cuneiform writing in Phoenicia and hieroglyphics in Egypt are supposed to have originated
circa
2000 B.C. from a mixture of Egyptian and Babylonian influences.
Circa
1700 B.C. the pre-Israelite population of Palestine is supposed to have created a simplified syllabic script with about 100 signs, composed of a mixture of both the foregoing kinds of writing. The Phoenician alphabet with 22 signs developed from this shortly before 1500 B.C. With the addition or transformation of signs all the alphabets in the world derive from the Phoenician one. About 1000 B.C. the Greeks adopted two variations of the Phoenician alphabet; they left out some expendable consonantal signs and used them to represent vowels, and that is how the first phonetic script in the world originated.

For generations all the scholars specializing in this field have claimed that neither the pre-Inca peoples nor the Incas themselves had an alphabetical script. They marveled at the Indians’ civilized achievements, their road-building and water-supply systems, the accurate calendar, the Nazca culture, the buildings at Cuzco, their highly developed agriculture, an (oral) postal service that worked and many other things. The one thing they would not credit them with was writing or an alphabet.

Professor Thomas Barthel, Director of the Folklore Institute of Tubingen University, told the 39th International Congress of American Studies at Lima that he had succeeded in establishing 400 signs of an Inca writing. He could interpret the meaning of 50 of them and read 24. It was not an alphabetical script. Peruvian and German scholars spoke of “attractive patterns and ornaments” which they thought were akin to writing.

In January, 1972 a veritable bomb exploded on the Congress for Andean Archaeology at Lima. The Peruvian ethnologist Dr. Victoria de la Jara backed up ten years of research work with proof that the Incas really did have a script. She said that the geometrical patterns (squares, right-angles, lozenges, dots, dashes, etc.) on Inca pottery and urns were in fact characters with a content ranging from the simple to the highly complicated. They related factual historical events, they recounted myths and proved that even then some of the Incas practiced the noble but ill-paid art of poetry. Groups of elements formed a grammar based on complementary colors. When Dr. de la Jara finished her lecture, there was thunderous applause from her fellow scholars.

What will the ethnologists say when they begin to rack their brains over the writing on the plaques at Cuenca? I know perfectly well that there will be no thunderous applause for me, but I still say that the characters on these metal plaques found deep under the earth will prove to be the oldest writing in the world! And that wise messengers from the gods inscribed technical data and advice for future generations on them!

I have seen three prehistoric model aircraft of ultramodern design!

Anyone who travels to Colombia can see the first one on show in the State Bank at Bogota. The second is naturally owned by Father Crespi and the third still lies 780 feet below ground in Juan Moricz’s tunnels.

For centuries archaeologists have cataloged the model at Bogota as a decorative religious artifact. I’m sorry for the archaeologists, but that simply won’t do. Aviation experts have seen the object and tried it out in a wind tunnel. They believe it is a model aircraft. Dr. Arthur Poyslee of the Aeronautical Institute, New York, says:

“The possibility that the artifact is meant to represent a fish or a bird is very slight. Not only because this gold model was found deep in the interior of Colombia and artists would never have seen a saltwater fish, but also because one cannot imagine a bird with such geometrical wings and high vertical fins.”

The front part is as clumsy as that of the heaviest U.S. B52. The pilot’s cockpit lies directly behind the streamlined nose, protected by a windscreen. The aircraft’s rear, heavy with the propulsion unit it contains, rests in aerodynamic symmetry on two rounded-off wings. (The model at Bogota has two delta wings like the Concorde and terminates, like it, in a sharply pointed nose.) Two stabilizing fins and the upright tail complete the Inca model aircraft.

Who could be so dreary and unimaginative as to interpret these model aircraft as birds or flying fish?

In all ages gold was a rare and consequently precious metal; it was found in temples and royal palaces. If an object was cast in gold, it was because it had great value
per se
and also because it was to be preserved for an indefinite period of time. Hence it was made of a material that did not rust or corrode. Anyway, there was no fish or bird cult to which these models could be attributed.

There is a massive gold sphere with a broad flange round it, in the cosmological treasury at the State Bank in Bogota. To anticipate fatuous objections, it is not a sculptural representation of a hat with a brim. Hats have hollow spaces for even the most stupid heads to fit into.

In
Gods from Outer Space
, I showed—without contradiction—why I consider that the sphere is the ideal shape for spaceships or space-stations. Spherical bodies rotate in space, thus creating an artificial gravity for the crew in the cabins placed at the sphere’s circumference. (Gravity is necessary for the metabolism of the organs on lengthy journeys.) The gold sphere once again supports my contention that the sphere was the shape used for celestial vehicles in distant ages.

In addition to serving as a docking ramp for supply ships, the broad flange may also have been divided into cells to store solar energy. The technical possibilities, we can imagine, are endless.

At all events, I should like to
know
how the matrix of this gold sphere came to be in Turkey, 7,500 miles from Ecuador! This find, carved out of stone, is on show in the Turkish Museum, Istanbul. It is the negative of the gold sphere in Bogota’s treasure: the same sphere, the same notched pattern on the encircling rim. The card under the stone matrix in the first story of the Museum at Istanbul says “Unclassifiable.” As long as science refuses to accept the idea that flying machines could cross the oceans and cover the vast distances between the continents as early as prehistoric times, its rigid prejudice will find certain puzzles insoluble.

One cannot say that scholars have no imagination, but the fact remains that they insist on new discoveries fitting into accepted patterns.

At Cuenca I photographed a copper object, some 20 inches high, representing a figure of normal human dimensions. An abnormal feature is that he has only four fingers on each hand and four toes on each foot. However, we also find representations of the gods with some of their limbs missing among the ancient Indians, the Maoris, the Etruscans and other peoples.

Yet I read in a serious scientific publication how simple the solution of this mystery is. Toes and fingers were a kind of adding machine. If the artist wanted to express the number “19,” he left out one finger or one toe. Pursuing this scholarly fantasy, the number “16” was represented as a being with four plus four toes and four plus four fingers = 16! This ingenuous way of counting seems to me to be unworthy of a people who built roads and fortresses and cities.

Why, by the gods of all the stars, did the intelligent Incas have to draw or sculpt a whole man with hands and feet to express the number 4? Deadly serious science gets entangled in the net of its own fantasy. To be sure it admits that the Incas
could
count, but it does not credit them with being able to represent “4” by four dots or four dashes. So they had to lop off fingers and toes.
O sancta simplidtas!

As for the figure that is minus two fingers and two toes, the explanation as a childish method of counting is unconvincing, for according to Father Crespi, it is a representation of the “Star God.” In his right arm the smiling sun god clasps an animal combination of hippopotamus, parrot and snake, in his left, a staff with his emblem, the laughing sun at the top and a decorative snake’s head at the bottom. Star-like points surround the god’s happy face and they can be seen, too, on his two colleagues from caves in the Australian bush, the two “creators.” They wear overalls with broad straps around the chest.