Page 58 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Civilizing mission

Above all else, Viracocha was remembered in the legends as a teacher.
Before his coming, it was said, ‘men lived in a condition of disorder,
many went naked like savages; they had no houses or other dwellings
than caves, and from these they went forth to gather whatever they could
find to eat in the countryside.’
11
Viracocha was credited with changing all this and with initiating the
long-lost golden age which later generations looked back on with
nostalgia. All the legends agreed, furthermore, that he had carried out his
civilizing mission with great kindness and as far as possible had abjured
the use of force: careful instruction and personal example had been the
main methods used to equip the people with the techniques and
knowledge necessary for a cultured and productive life. In particular, he
was remembered for bringing to Peru such varied skills as medicine,
metallurgy, farming, animal husbandry, the art of writing (said by the
Incas to have been introduced by Viracocha but later forgotten), and a
sophisticated understanding of the principles of engineering and
architecture.
I had already been impressed by the quality of Inca stonework in Cuzco.
As my research in the old town continued, however, I was surprised to
discover that by no means all the so-called Inca masonry could be
attributed with any degree of archaeological certainty to the Incas. It was
true that they had been masters in the manipulation of stone, and many
monuments in the Cuzco area were indisputably their work. It seemed,
however, that some of the more remarkable structures routinely
attributed to them could have been erected by earlier civilizations; the
evidence suggested that the Incas had often functioned as the restorers
of these structures rather than their original builders.
The same appeared to be true of the highly developed system of roads
connecting the far-flung parts of the Inca empire. The reader will recall
that these roads took the form of parallel highways running north to
south, one along the coast and the other through the Andes. All in all
more than 15,000 miles of surfaced tracks had been in regular and
efficient use before the time of the Spanish conquest, and I had assumed
that the Incas had been responsible for all of them. I now learned that it
was much more likely that they had inherited the system. Their role had
been to restore, maintain and unify a pre-existing network. Indeed,
though it was not often admitted, no expert could safely estimate how
old these incredible highways were or who had built them.
12
The mystery was deepened by local traditions which stated not only
that the road system and the sophisticated architecture had been ‘ancient
in the time of the Incas’, but that both ‘were the work of white, auburn-

11 Ibid., p. 72.
12 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1991, 26:42.

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