BS: The Ica Stones

Subject: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 10:35 PM

Sometime around 1966, a doctor named Javier Cabrera living in the town of Ica, Peru received a strange birthday present from a villager--a stone with a fish etched on it. The villager explained that the recent torrential rain had eroded part of the bank of the Ica river revealing hundreds of these strange stones. Dr. Cabrera was intrigued because th art seemed very old and the fish depicted looked prehistoric. He asked villagers to bring him as many of the stones as they could find. He now has collection of 15,000--some the size of a tomato to twice the size of a basketball.

The stones show a history that, if correct, will change everything we thought we knew about the human race and when and how life formed on earth. The stones depict dinosaurs--easily identifiable as stegasaurus, triceratops, brontosaurus, pterodactyl, etc. Even stranger, men are riding them! Some stones depict men being eaten or attacked by them. Some stones depict heart transplants and even brain transplants! One stone has a beautiful depiction of a human heart and appears to be for anatomical purposes. On some stones, men are riding horses which must have been an ancient time indeed since the Spaniards brought the modern horse to the New World. Some stones depict earth as it would have looked 13 million years ago! Some stones show men studying constellations with telescopes. At least one stone shows identical creatures as found on the plain of Nazca--same spiral-tailed monkey, same hummingbird, same spider, same crooked-necked bird. Not suprisingly, the Ica river happens to be very close to the Nazca lines.

The creatures depicted on the Nazca Plain (some 900 of them) often feature fauna found only in the Brazilian Matto Grasso rain forest. The spider and monkey, for example, are of a specific type and not general at all. Both are from the Matto Grasso. But the Matto Grasso is a very long distance away on a completely different terrain! Did the artists who decorated the plain of Nazca visit the Matto Grasso and did they leave behind marks? Apparently, yes, some years ago, a pilot flying over the Brazilian jungle noticed the rivers passing through some of the thickest parts are unnaturally straight. More like canals than rivers. There is no doubt that they are artificial. Nearby, the pilot also saw square lakes and large mounds that looked artificial. Someone had been sculpting this area to fit their tastes. He returned with a camera crew who got some amazing footage. It appeared that someone had been doing some extensive landscaping on the Brazilian rainforest. And it was not something recent. Quite the contrary.

If the stones are fake, who made them? While it is true that some local people have been caught making them for tourists for a quick buck, the difference between the recent ones and the ones in Cabrera's collection are apparent. The varnish coating that accretes on the surface of these andesite stones starts to grow back over time. The new stones lack in quality and contain no regrowths of varnish in the etched lines. Dr. Cabrera's do and are simply better looking--more artistically skilled. If villagers made them it is astonishing that they could pull off 15,000 of them. It would be impossible for one man to do. It takes several days of steady work at the very least to complete one average stone. One hundred villagers each kicking out one stone a week would take about 3 years and that's if they spend little time doing much else but making fake stones (and kicking out a stone a week is cranking!). But the odds of 100 people in a village having the requisite artistic talent and determination to manufacture 15,000 of these stones extremely improbable. It would be a small group--a teacher with students. Maybe 3 or 4 would be good enough to produce masterpieces. It would take each of 4 students between 60 and 70 years to produce 15,000 stones at one stone a week each.

Who were these Nazca people? Whatever happened to them?

http://paranormal.about.com/gi/dynamic/off...ostone.ica.html

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 11:19 PM

Your link didn't go to anything about them. Maybe this is the one you meant: http://paranormal.about.com/cs/ancientanomalies/a/aa041904.htm?

Here is a website made for the late Dr. Cabrera with photos, an interview of him and some of his writings: http://members.cox.net/icastones/home.htm.

Interesting stuff. Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 11:35 PM

Read your article 282 and found it very interesting. Thanks Kat for the correcting, will read it tomorrow.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: GUEST,Keinstein
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 04:24 AM

Read Stephen Jay Gould's book "The Lying Stones of Marrakesh". Then develop just a rudimentary bullshit filter.

Hints: there weren't any dinosaurs 13 million years ago. Nor people. When you get juxtapositions like that, it's a fair bet that some conman has spotted their mark.

Now what WOULD convince me? A mummified pterodactyl with a human in its stomach!

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Mr Happy
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 04:57 AM

More here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ica_stones

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Beer
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:45 AM

Well I just finished reading about this stuff and if it is "Bullshit", then it sure is interesting bullshit.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Bee
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 09:09 AM

http://pseudoarchaeology.org/b03-ross.html

Above link cites numerous for and against arguments regarding these stones.

Here's a hint - Erich von Daniken (Chariots of the Gods), a friend of Cabrera's (the discoverer), thinks the stones are a hoax.

Notes:

The farmer who gave Cabrera the first stones admitted to making them himself and aging them by leaving them in his chicken coop. He was, however, being charged with selling antiquities illegally at the time.

No one has ever been shown the supposed cave where they came from.

Some people think some of the stones may in fact be ancient - just not the ones with dinosaurs and telescopes, etc., on them.

It has been pointed out that this supposed mighty civilization, with telescopes, heart surgery, and other advanced technologies, left no other sign of its existence than crude drawings scratched on stones.

It has also been pointed out that the drawings of 'prehistoric fish' and 'dinosaurs' have serious anatomical flaws with regard to the critters they represent.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Bee
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 09:19 AM

I'm just going to add, as a personal observation, that people who do not draw and are not primarily visually sophisticated (though they may be math or music or medical geniuses) can sometimes be easily fooled by the crudest visual effects.

I looked at some of the pictured stones and saw nothing that indicated antiquity. The drawings look modern to me, done by someone with somewhat limited raw talent, in imitation of modern pictures they've seen of both real things and fictional things.

One of the pro arguments was that they are carved in very hard stone, not possible with the tools archaeologist claim may have been available. They aren't. They are carved in the oxidized outer layer of the stones, which in some cases (on stones I am familiar with) is so soft a person could carve it with a fingernail, and certainly with a steel or iron nail, which looks to me like the tool of choice for the style.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 09:47 AM

There is a serious technical term for this:
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BUSHWAH!

But then, there's a certain portion of our population who seem to have an absolute HUNGER for strangeness, for conspiracy, for wonderment, for miracles--and the stranger, the more wonderful, the more miraculous it may be, the better!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Grab
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:07 PM

FWIW, If *von Daniken* reckons it's a hoax, then boy, it's seriously whacky!

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:13 PM

And for your next assignment, class. Here are native American depictions of elephants in the Americas. Some appear to be mastodons and while it is probable that humans hunted these creatures in North America 10,000 years ago and earlier, they were supposed to have died out after that. Yet, here is provably later art showing them apparently still existing. And they are found in pre-Columbian art throughout Mexico, Central and South America where there were supposedly no mastodons at all. And it appears these pachyderms, be they regular elephants or mastodons were used as beasts of burden.

here

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:19 PM

The carbon dating of the stones is guaranteed uncheckable so anything goes. If there is any organic material within the outer layers of the stones to the depth of the engraving we might be able to prove if that material was recently excavated by carving or not.

These seemingly made for mail order stones do not compare to the Dropa stones which are far more intiguing and far more cosmicly controversial.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:24 PM

1. I believe the stones are very, very old. Most rocks are.

2. There is also a demonstrated connection between Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Americas (look it up yourself, I'm too busy to do your homework for you right now). Since pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas WERE familiar with the mastodon, why would they not picture elephants seen (or drawn) by Egyptians with mastodons?

3. My ancestors were smart enough to figure a lot of things out, like the pyramids and Stonehenge and lots of other things. I can't speak for anyone else's ancestors.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Wesley S
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:36 PM

Who am I to argue with someone else's beliefs?

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:43 PM

>>There is also a demonstrated connection between Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Americas (look it up yourself, I'm too busy to do your homework for you right now).<<

IOW, you have no explanation.

>>Since pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas WERE familiar with the mastodon, why would they not picture elephants seen (or drawn) by Egyptians with mastodons?<<

Because the artwork in the link is long after 10,000-year cut off for mastodons in North America. They were supposedly not in Mexico, Central and Soutn America, yet there are elephant depictions and many of them do not show mastodons but regular elephants.

Even the elephant pipe found in the Iowa mound shows a regular elephant and not a mastodon.

Find an answer and you'll be doing a lot more homework than just mine.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:45 PM

The little man of Casper, Wyoming. Included is his x-ray showing a fully developed skeleton. He stood only 14 inches high and was found behind a solid rock wall that was a good 5 million years old.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WY-LittlePeople.html

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Bee
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 01:20 PM

The (Mormon) link you have for the New World elephants unfortunately consists of dated material, poor photocopies of dated material, and no recent photographs of any of the alleged pictographs, stones and artifacts. Got something more substantial?

The little mummified man from Wyoming was x-rayed, and most recent studies of those, and of a more recently acquired tiny mummy, reveal them to be most likely the remains of anencephalic infants.

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/02/03/news/wyoming/3b6d4aad0120fde187256f9c00839d78.txt

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 02:38 PM

The nonsense about Ica stones, propounded in a popular pseudoscientific book "Chariots of the Gods," rises again.

See these pictures and comments in powerpoint presentation on the Mocha and the Nazca, Andean States II. A colorful and interesting presentation on Andean culture.
www.albany.edu/anthro/fac/rafferty/class_files/131_14.2_moche.ppt-

Moche

If my link is wrong, look in Google for Andean States II.
(Computer illiterate)

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 02:44 PM

Put Moche in the search blank on the main page of the NY Albany University site, which came up when I tried to link, and get the link to Andean States II (top of list).

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 03:20 PM

Even in Peru they have had access to carbide-tipped engraving tools for a few years. Someone heard that 'interesting' archeological stuff was worth money..VOILÁ!

What is sad is that it takes 28 times as much effort to de-bunk these stories as it does to start the rumors.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 03:50 PM

And there is always money to be made with books such as Danikin's "Chariots of the Gods." The gullible are so easily taken in that parting them from their money is big business.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 03:51 PM

It took HOW many years to figure out The Piltdown Man?

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 04:40 PM

Pre-Columbian New World elephant art. Because you asked for it:

http://sitchin.com/elephant.htm

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7294%28190704%2F06%292%3A9%3A2%3C358%3APEMFIM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlar

http://www.the-book-of-mormon.com/elephants-chichen-itza.jpg

http://www.the-book-of-mormon.com/elephant-mound-grant-county-wi.jpg

http://equinox-project.com/esop81.htm

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 04:41 PM

>>What is sad is that it takes 28 times as much effort to de-bunk these stories as it does to start the rumors.<<

Oh, I agree! Look how many people think Jesus Christ was real.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 04:55 PM

>>Well I just finished reading about this stuff and if it is "Bullshit", then it sure is interesting bullshit.<<

What bothers me most about the Ica stones--while they seem too good to be true--is the sheer number of them. If it was just a handful or even a couple of hundred, I could dismiss it as so much BS. But 15,000?? And one guy claims to have faked them?? One guy can't make 15,000 stones. If he made one stone a day (which is not really possible unless it was a simple image), it would take him 40 years. Do the math.

He had to have help and it had to be a lot of people. A LOT of people. While the skeptics attack the depictions and the microscopic bits of this or that they insist should not be there (and most people who buy into this have no idea themselves if that stuff should be there or not or if the tests were properly conducted by qualified people), they conveniently forget to explain how 15,000 of these things got made and by whom.

As for von daniken, it's funny how no skeptic would buy any of his assertions about ancient astronauts (and for good reason) but suddenly when he disavows something, it's now acceptable as evidence. Von Daniken is not and never has been an archaeologist. He isn't qualified to make ANY statements--pro or con--that make him worth citing as evidence, which is why I didn;t bother to bring him up. But it's funny that so-called hard-headed skeptics didn't hesitate.

Don't tell me what so and so said--show me how the stones were faked. They might have been--I'm not insisting they're real. I want someone to explain HOW they were faked. If they were faked then this should not be hard to figure out. If some poor native in Peru could do it then how did he do it--that's all I want to know.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 04:56 PM

It is documented from several sources, including a professor from what is now Idaho State University, that a Roman denarius was found three feet underground when a house was being built in Pocatello, ID. The ground had been undisturbed before that.

The coin was taken to the State Museum in Boise where, I assume, they lost it.

282, I don't have time right now to do homework for others.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Wesley S
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 05:02 PM

Perhaps the stones were outsourced to Mexico? It's well known that the Mexicans take the lowpaying jobs that Peruvians don't want. Peru is considering building a fence.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 05:13 PM

What's this thing?

Graffiti of some sort? Whose? Is it a language? Doesn't look like Indians but then who knows what kinds of Indians existed here prior to the white man? Some even had very elongated skulls--the long heads. For some reason, round heads are the only Indians that survived. The questions nags at me: WHO wrote this and why?

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 05:32 PM

New Ica stones are made every day. New suckers are born every day.

"Undisturbed ground." In whose estimation?

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 07:28 PM

How did cartographer Waldseemuller draw the Isthmus of Panama several years before it was officially discovered?

1507 map a mystery

The isthmus can be clearly seen on the small atlas on the upper right:

Here

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Bee
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:31 PM

282RA:

Okay: the Sitchin.com article starts off with an ignorant assertion that the Olmec heads are depictions of 'black Africans'. This person claims to have visited South America several times, but has apparently never looked at any of the native people, quite a few of whom bear similar features to those portrayed on the artistically exaggerated sculptural faces. Full lips and short noses are not restricted to one part of the world.

He talks about the wheeled toys, and anyone familiar on the lightest level with SA archaeology knows about those toys, and there are some likely reasons why the wheel was not further put to use by cultures there - no one says 'they didn't invent the wheel'.

The little 'elephant' artifact, which he says was in the museum and subsequently disappeared may have been removed because it was found to be a modern pot. Or, given the artistic style, it might be a representation of a shrew or other rodent. Shrews have long noses and some have big ears.

The JSTOR article, I can only read the first page, but that says the first medal had a date, 1486, engraved on it - so the First nations people were also using arabic numerals to date their art at the time?

As for the article defending Barry Fell - see here, and with actual site photographs:

http://cwva.org/ogam_rebutal/wirtz.html

And here, for the Nova Scotia connection, where Barry Fell 'interpreted' a rock inscription almost certainly made by a known local with a joking nature :

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-58545665.html

Your next post, linking to the Dighton rock: there's not much mystery as to its origins. Come to Kedgi in Nova Scotia and we could show you tons of First Nations petroglyphs, along with the added graffitti of the French, the English, and anyone else who passed this way.

The Long Head Indians, as other tribes in other parts of the world, achieved the look by binding or flattening with boards the heads of their babies. When they stopped doing that, they became round heads.

Sorry, I'm in a debunking state of mind. I like mysteries, but I like them not to have been misrepresented. The West Virginia marks are very interesting - I'd like to know what they really are.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: 282RA
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 10:13 PM

>>Okay: the Sitchin.com article starts off with an ignorant assertion that the Olmec heads are depictions of 'black Africans'. This person claims to have visited South America several times, but has apparently never looked at any of the native people, quite a few of whom bear similar features to those portrayed on the artistically exaggerated sculptural faces. Full lips and short noses are not restricted to one part of the world.<<

Sorry to inform you that I don't care about Sitchin and agree with virtually nothing he says. I rank him up with Velikovsky. A kook. I borrowed his his article for the pic. Just because I went to someone's site does not mean I subscribe to that person's views. I do an image search and find one that I think helps me out and I use it. I don't care where it comes from. I don't care about the Olmec heads or who they represent. That's why I haven't mentioned them. You did in order to attack me but I don't subscribe to Sitchin's views so that was a wasted effort. I do not believe in ancient astronauts. Or aliens, for that matter.

>>The little 'elephant' artifact, which he says was in the museum and subsequently disappeared may have been removed because it was found to be a modern pot.<<

May have been? Was it or wasn't it? Don't try to pass off speculation as fact. I'll always catch that. And don't act like that was the only piece of evidence I offered.   Please feel free to explain the rest of them.

>>The JSTOR article, I can only read the first page, but that says the first medal had a date, 1486, engraved on it - so the First nations people were also using arabic numerals to date their art at the time?<<

They might have if they were Arabs. Think that's ridiculous? Tell it to Thor Hyerdahl because he believes the Mexican god-hero Viracocha was "Arabo-Semitic." And he's not alone by a long shot.

>>As for the article defending Barry Fell - see here, and with actual site photographs:<<

This is anti-Barry Fell. It's not a critique of what I showed. Once again, I give you the images and you attack names that appear in the article when I was showing PICTURES THAT YOU REQUESTED TO SEE MORE OF. One more time--it was an image search and nothing more. I showed you depictions of what certainly appear to be elephants and you response is "Barry Fell is stupid." Well maybe he is. I don't give a damn what he thinks. I never even heard of him before today. We call that an ad hominem attack. The refuge of the clueless.

>>Your next post, linking to the Dighton rock: there's not much mystery as to its origins. Come to Kedgi in Nova Scotia and we could show you tons of First Nations petroglyphs, along with the added graffitti of the French, the English, and anyone else who passed this way.<<

Well, we KNOW that!!! We're asking specifically who it was!! Good god!

>>The Long Head Indians, as other tribes in other parts of the world, achieved the look by binding or flattening with boards the heads of their babies. When they stopped doing that, they became round heads.<<

Uhhh...no, sorry. Longheads are a specific classification of Indians who do not exist anymore. I've known about them since I was a teen.

This may help you:

here

>>Sorry, I'm in a debunking state of mind.<<

Me too. That's why I debunked you.

>>I like mysteries<<

Then maybe you'd like to take stab at the Waldseemuller map you conveniently didn't mention.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 11:42 PM

I remember hearing about the little mummy man in Casper while I was growing up there, but my brother always told me it had been kept by Harvard or Yale. There was some disdain about the inferiority complex suffered by the West back then, sending all of the best found dinosaur bones, etc. to back East institutions and such.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 12:39 AM

If I found a pre-Columbian coin, I would only conclude that someone lost their lucky piece. When I was a child, I had several Roman and other coins; many of the coppers are still cheap. My grandfather, gave them to me because he believed I should know ancient history and legends. The coins depicted old rulers, and the reverse often had one of the gods, or some symbol important at the time.
Old coins depicting elephants, except for some from Asia, are hard to get now because they were popular with collectors.

Subject: RE: BS: The Ica Stones
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 04:27 AM

I believe that a lot of this comes down to the American desire for legitimacy, combined with (usually unconscious) racism. American history is that of the native peoples, and is full of variety and interest, but doesn't have the deep continuity found in Old World history. This is possibly due to the more episodic nature of the North and Central American climate- the interplay of the Atlantic and Pacific weather patterns, the "funnel" created by the Rockies and Appalachians connecting the Arctic with the Caribbean, causing periodic violent swings in climate that have devastated civilisations before they took full root, and also partially explains their often psychotically violent world- view.

Desperate for richness to match Europe, and scornful of native cultures for failing to cope with the impossible, they interpret the ebb and flow of city- building cultures as evidence of the inadequacy of the natives, who are assumed to need Old World expeditions to teach them the techniques anew each time. So everyone from Sea Folk to Egyptians and Sumerians to Irish, Welsh, Vikings and Chinese are roped in as cultural missionaries, and every glacier scratch or weathering mark is taken as a Rosetta stone.

The Mormons adopted this attitude, and made up a book remarkable for its language (King James meets Jesse James) and for the fact that not even accidental resemblances to the events described therein have been found, despite the most intensive and massively funded efforts. They are an object lesson in the workings of religion.