(this material is an excerpt from the book "The Message of the Stones", by Dr. Javier Cabrera)

(EXCERPT #3B)

GLIPTOLITHIC MESTIZAJE

That. some ancient objects made of gold, ceramic, carved wood, and cloth have been found in zones inhabited by different Pre-Incaic cultures and later by the Incas might suggest, as traditional archeological teaching holds, that the objects were made by these cultures and that as a result they are no more than 3,000 years old. But within the objects attributed to these cultures, there are distinctions to be drawn. Specimens differ in the quality of execution and in the subjects of the designs. It is well-known that the Incas and Pre-Incas lacked scientific and technological sophistication. This is indisputable. It is therefore quite impossible, given their modest technological achievements, that they could even have conceived of some of the things the objects deal with. There are ceramics from Nazca, for example, that treat, symbolically, the techniques for space flight. There are cloths from Paracas whose designs reveal deep understanding of human microphysical biology. There are objects of gold and champi - the tumis - that deal symbolically with aspects of human pathology. These objects, like the textiles and the wood carvings, are of excellent execution, in accordance with a technology far in advance of that possessed by the Incas or Pre-Incas. Alongside these objects are other which are very different in their primitive execution: objects of gold shaped by hammering or by simple bonding of one piece to another; ceramics of thick clay, with defective firing and rudimentary coloration; textiles of primitive weave dyed with tints with little durability; wooden objects carved coarsely. Some of these unsophisticated objects have designs with clear decorative purposes and others mix indiscriminately decorative figures with symbols that show deep scientific understanding. This strange juxtaposition of the crude and the sophisticated is also to be found in figures on the same objects, as well as from object to object. Curiously, within the same Inca or Pre-Inca grave one is likely to find ceramics, gold objects, textiles, carved wood, etc. Whose symbolic features reveal considerable scientific knowledge or an advanced technological development, next to other things that suggest that the occupant of the grave lived a very primitive life: kernels of corn, squashes, wooden utensils, obsidian spear points, shell or bone necklaces, and crude needles made of thorns.

How to explain this unusual juxtaposition? Obviously the objects that give evidence of scientific and technological sophistication could not have been created by primitive men. Instead, these are the messages left by gliptolithic man, which were originally deposited in very different places from the places where they ended up. It is logical to suppose that the Incas and Pre-Incas discovered sane of these deposits and removed the objects, thinking, because they were incomprehensible, that they were made by the gods. The fact that they are today found in Inca and Pre-Inca tombs reinforces the likelihood that they were considered sacred objects. Where sophisticated symbols and primitive designs are found in the sane object, we can infer that the Inca or Pre-Inca men were imitating what they thought to be sacred , and incorporating familiar elements from their own lives, in order to establish a link between themselves and the gods. Naturally, in these graves there are many objects that have nothing to do with gliptolithic humanity, that were conceived and executed entirely by the Incas or Pre-Incas.

Thus, not including the kernels of corn, wooden utensils, etc., there are three types of objects to be found in Inca or Pre-Inca graves. First, the objects of superior construction with figures and symbols that reveal that they were made by gliptolithic humanity; second, those of crude execution and design which were clearly the work of the Incas or Pre-Incas; and third, those objects, also of crude execution, with gliptolithic symbols mixed in with Inca or Pre-Inca designs. This latter category represents a sort of cultural "mestizaje" or mixture of the gliptolithic and the Inca or Pre-Inca.

Besides the evidence found in the tombs, the huge stone architectonic groupings scattered about Peru furnish further proof of this cultural mestizaje. The technology employed to create these structures is still a mystery: how such heavy stones could have been moved to such high elevations; how they were cut so perfectly that they fit together with no space in between; how they were held together with no binding material. These feats could not have been achieved using the technology possessed by the Incas and Pre-Incas. Archeologists believe that some of thee structures were trade by these cultures using the labor of many, many men over a very long period of time. But this explanation is unacceptable, because these structures reveal beyond doubt the use of an advanced technology that could not have been duplicated by manpower or time. They could only have been made by men who possessed the appropriate technology: the gliptolithic humanity. In these same stone constructions one can see, as evidence of cultural mestizaje, elements of Inca and Pre-Inca influence: the addition of new blocks of stone, deffectively cut and matched, placed on top ef or next to the earlier work. This can be seen, to use only one example of the many that exist in Peru, in the monument of Machu Picchu (Fig. 28).

FIGURE 28: The impressive stone structures of Machu Picchu, Cusco, showing defectively cut and joined
blocks - made by Pre-Inca and Inca cultures - placed on top of or beside blocks made by gliptolithic men,
who built Machu Picchu. This is evidence of cultural mestizaje of the Inca and Pre-Inca with the gliptolithic.

Outside of Peru there is other evidence of this cultural mestizaje of the typically gliptolithic with elements of the ancient classical cultures. Such is the case with the models of livers made of clay that have been discovered in the regions once under the cultural influence of the Sumerians. Archeologists have suggested that these models are related to the practice of adivination performed by the Sumerians via inspection of the livers of animals sacrificed to the gods; the favorite liver was that of a sheep. One of these models is divided into forty small squares, the majority of which have a hole in them; each one of the squares contains the typical cuneiform writing of the Sumerians (Fig. 29). Archeologists tell us that this model was probably used by priests for consultation and for teaching adivination to their students; the small holes were used to hold a sort of toothpick which recorded on the model the changes in the liver of the sacrificed animal. Nevertheless, the widely-held but mistaken notion that the older the culture the more primitive it must have been has not permitted archeologists to see in the model what is obvious at a glance to anyone who does not share this assumption. That is, that this is a schematic model of the human liver, represented on two levels: a macroscopic and a microscopic level. The macroscopic level shows the shape of the liver with its right and left lobes, its biliar vesicule and supporting ligaments. The microscopic level reproduces schematically the hepatacites - the squares in the model - that is, the cells that comprise the hepatic system, and it also reproduces in cross-section the biliary capillaries - each hole that appears in the model - capillaries which have microscopic dimensions and form a network between the cells. In a few cases the biliary capillaries are depicted inside the cell (the squares); this is meant to show that bile is made by the hepatic cells. What we have, then, is a clay object that reveals a profound knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the human liver, knowledge that our own scientists and doctors have only quite recently acquired. It is certainly not a knowledge possessed by the Sumerians, but it was possessed by gliptolithic humanity.

FIGURE 29: Schematic model of the human liver made of clay by the Sumerians, on display at the British Museum in
London. The representation of the hepatic cells (the squares) and the cross-sections of the biliary capillaries (the holes)
shows that the model was based on a microscopic study of the liver, which implies a profound knowledge of the physiology
of this organ. Neither the means to observe such microscopic phenomena, nor the knowledge implied, could have been
possessed by the Sumerians, who added some cuneiform writing to the model. This model is an altered replica of one of a
series of models of human livers made by gliptolithic man. This altered model is evidence of cultural mestizaje.

The scientific information conveyed by the model must have reached the Sumerians or their ancestors in a form similar to that of the model itself, one of the objects made by gliptolithic humanity to leave evidence of his existence and transmit messages to the men of the future. Not understanding what they saw, the Sunerians reasoned much as did the Incas and Pre-Incas: they attributed the designs and the object itself to the authorship of the gods, and deemed it sacred. So as to ingratiate themselves with the gods, they made replicas of the object. The addition of inscriptions and the changing of the placement of some of the holes provide evidence of cultural mestizaje. The truth of the matter is that the archeologists are right, to a point: the practice of adivination using a sheep's liver is ancient, probably originating in the Middle East and spreading to the Mediterranean region; the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans are known to have used it. But what the archeologists ignore is that this form of adivination came about because of the discovery of a scientific message left by an advanced people - gliptolithic humanity - a message that it was inpossible for the Sumerians to penetrate, and so was turned to fraudulent uses, just as sometimes modern men alter, in a strange mixture of admiration and fear, ideas which they do not understand. This form of adivination practiced by the Sumerians is in itself a type of cultural mestizaje; indeed, I think that most of the the beliefs in magic held by ancient peoples were generated in the same fashion: by the discovery of other incomprehensible messages left by gliptolithic humanity.
 

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