Page 157 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

the entire building in just one night.
9
The steps, as I climbed them, seemed more and more perversely
narrow. My instinct was to lean forward, flatten myself against the side of
the pyramid, and cling on for dear life. Instead I looked up at the angry,
overcast sky above me. Flocks of birds circled, screeching wildly as
though seeking refuge from some impending disaster, and the thick
mass of low-lying cloud that had blotted out the sun a few hours earlier
was now so agitated by high winds that it seemed to boil.
The Pyramid of the Magician was by no means unique in being
associated with the supernatural powers of dwarves, whose architectural
and masonry skills were widely renowned in Central America.
‘Construction work was easy for them,’ asserted one typical Maya legend,
‘all they had to do was whistle and heavy rocks would move into place.’
10
A very similar tradition, as the reader may recall, claimed that the
gigantic stone blocks of the mysterious Andean city of Tiahuanaco had
been ‘carried through the air to the sound of a trumpet’.
11
In both Central America and in the far-off regions of the Andes,
therefore, strange sounds had been associated with the miraculous
levitation of massive rocks.
What was I to make of this? Maybe, through some fluke, two almost
identical ‘fantasies’ could have been independently invented in both
these geographically remote areas. But that didn’t seem very likely.
Equally worthy of consideration was the possibility that common
recollections of an ancient building technology could have been
preserved in stories such as these, a technology capable of lifting huge
blocks of stone off the ground with ‘miraculous’ ease. Could it be
relevant that memories of almost identical miracles were preserved in
Ancient Egypt? There, in one typical tradition, a magician was said to have
raised into the air ‘a huge vault of stone 200 cubits long and 50 cubits
broad’?
12

9 Mexico: Rough Guide, Harrap-Columbus, London, 1989, p. 354.
10 The Mythology of Mexico and Central America, p. 8. Maya History and Religion, p.
340.
See Chapter Ten.
11
12 E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, The Medici Society Ltd.,
1911, volume II, p. 180.

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