Page 52 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Chapter 5

The Inca Trail to the Past

No artefacts or monuments, no cities or temples, have endured in
recognizable form for longer than the most resilient religious traditions.
Whether expressed in the Pyramid Texts of Ancient Egypt, or the Hebrew
Bible, or the Vedas, such traditions are among the most imperishable of
all human creations: they are vehicles of knowledge voyaging through
time.
The last custodians of the ancient religious heritage of Peru were the
Incas, whose beliefs and ‘idolatry’ were ‘extirpated’ and whose treasures
were ransacked during the thirty terrible years that followed the Spanish
conquest in AD 1532. Providentially, however, a number of early Spanish
1
travellers made sincere efforts to document Inca traditions before they
were entirely forgotten.
Though little attention was paid at the time, some of these traditions
speak strikingly of a great civilization that was believed to have existed in
Peru many thousands of years earlier. Powerful memories were preserved
2
of this civilization, said to have been founded by the Viracochas, the
same mysterious beings credited with the making of the Nazca lines.

‘Foam of the Sea’

When the Spanish conquistadores arrived, the Inca empire extended along
the Pacific coast and Andean highlands of South America from the
northern border of modern Ecuador, through the whole of Peru, and as
far south as the Maule River in central Chile. Connecting the far-flung
corners of this empire was a vast and sophisticated road system: two
parallel north-south highways, for example, one running for 3600
kilometres along the coast and the other for a similar distance through
the Andes. Both these great thoroughfares were paved and connected by
frequent links. In addition, they exhibited an interesting range of design
and engineering features such as suspension bridges and tunnels cut
through solid rock. They were clearly the work of an evolved, disciplined
and ambitious society. Ironically, they played a significant part in its
downfall: the Spanish forces, led by Francisco Pizarro, used them to great

1 See, for example, Father Pablo Joseph, The Extirpation of Idolatry in Peru (translated
from the Spanish by L. Clark Keating), University of Kentucky Press, 1968.
This is the view of Fernando Montesinos, expressed in his Memorias Antiguas
2
Historiales del Peru (written in the seventeenth century). English edition translated and
edited by P. A. Means, Hakluyt Society, London, 1920.

50