Authors: Matilde Asensi
On the back side of the door there were such perfectly worked cornices and vaulted niches that it was difficult to understand how they could have been made without the help of modern machinery, and the same could be said of the frieze on the main facade, with its impressive Staff God in the middle. The God was Proxi’s subject, but when I was reading the descriptions of the Gate it was very hard to separate what was said about the God from what was said about everything else. That’s how I discovered that practically all documents claimed that the little legless figure represented Viracocha, the Incan God, which again reminded me of the absolute misinformation that existed on the subject. Most experts had thrown out this theory a long time ago, according to what the professor had told me, yet few had gotten the message. The Staff God would keep being Viracocha for a long time, and the forty-eight figures that flanked him—twenty-four on each side, in three rows of eight—would continue to be forty-eight cherubs, just for having wings and a knee bent in a pose of running or reverence. It didn’t matter that some of them had beautiful condor heads on human bodies: as long as no one could prove otherwise many would continue to see in those zoomorphic figures some little winged genies comparable in every way to angels.
Some of the most well-known archaeologists expounded, without reservation, the strange theory that the frieze was an agricultural calendar and that the figures of the frieze symbolized none other than the thirty days of the month, the twelve months of the year, the two solstices, and the two equinoxes. Maybe it was true, but it required a lot of imagination—or, surely, greater knowledge than my own—to venture such a proposal especially since some of those experts also asserted that the calendar of the Gate of the Sun, on top of being agricultural, might be Venusian, with two hundred ninety days, divided into ten months.
Nevertheless, just when my skepticism and my distrust brushed the limits of what I could put up with, I was given a great surprise. I was reading peacefully when I ran across an affirmation that shocked me. A researcher named Graham Hancock had discovered that on the Gate of the Sun a couple of animals were depicted that had gone extinct many thousands of years before, during a period in which, according to official science, Tiwanaku hadn’t yet existed. Apparently, on the lower part of the frieze, on a fourth band of decorations that hadn’t caught my attention, two Cuvieronius heads, one on each end of the thirteen feet of the lintel, and in another spot, a toxodon head. The incredible thing about this was that both species had disappeared from the face of the earth—along with many others all over the world—between ten and twelve thousand years ago at the end of the glacial period without anyone knowing why.
I got up from my seat and picked up all the enlargements of the Gate of the Sun that Jabba was printing on the laser printer. Despite distinguishing the forth band, I could make out nothing but some indistinct forms in the reliefs, so, after thinking for a moment, I went to my
grandmother’s room, hoping to find some of her reading glasses, and I was in luck because she had two pairs inside their cases sitting on the night table. Once I was in the study again with the improvised magnifying glasses, I passed one of them to Jabba, since he was already following my trail like a setter sniffing out his prey. The toxodon, an herbivore very similar to a rhinoceros but without the horn on the nose, we couldn’t find anywhere, maybe because we didn’t know what to look for, but the two Cuvieronius, which were identical to modern elephants, we found right away, unmistakable with their big ears, trunks, and tusks. They were indeed under the third and fourth columns of little winged genies, counting from the outside. It was awesome to look at them, confirming without question that the Gate of the Sun was more than ten thousand years old, since it was impossible for the Tiwanakan artists to have ever seen an elephant in their lives, because they had never existed in South America; these could only be Cuvieronius, a prehistoric mastodon whose fossil remains did prove its presence in the continent, up to its sudden and inexplicable disappearance ten or twelve thousand years ago.
“And when do archaeologists say Tiwanaku was constructed?” Jabba asked, confused.
“Two hundred BC,” I replied.
“Or two thousand two hundred years ago, right?”
I agreed with a guttural grunt.
“Well, it doesn’t fit…. It doesn’t fit with these animals, or with Piri Reis’ map, or with the supposed age of the Aymara language, or with the history of the Yatiri….”
Then, Proxi jumped with enthusiasm in her seat and turned quickly to look at us. Her eyes were shining.
“I’ll save you the details and go right to what interests us,” she exclaimed. “According to the last studies on the subject, the Staff God could really be Thunupa, remember? The god of the flood, of the rain and lightning.”
“Damn! Tiwanaku is a small world, huh?” I said scornfully.
“Those marks he has on his cheeks seem like tears,” she continued, “and the sticks would symbolize his power over lightning and thunder. Our friend Ludovico Bertonio gives a very odd bit of information in his famous dictionary: Thunupa, after the conquest, transformed into Ekeko, a god who still has many adepts among the Aymara, because, according to the archaeologist Carlos Ponce Sanjinés
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, the rain, due to its scarcity, has become synonymous with abundance, and Ekeko is the god of abundance and happiness.”
“Very imaginative,” Jabba grumbled. Proxi didn’t even blink.
“So the Aymara still worship Thunupa after so many thousands of years. Isn’t that fantastic? The thing is, as you know, the map of the chamber is under the little feet of this god, and…,” she drew out the sound and raised her tone, to draw attention to what she was about to say, “it turns out the name of the god has a very special meaning.” Her face broadened in a wide smile of satisfaction. “Do you know what
Thunu
means in Aymara?”
“If you let me consult Bertonio’s dictionary…,” I said, moving as if to get up.
“You can consult as much as you want, but first, let me tell you. ‘
Thunu,
’ in Aymara, means something that is hidden, concealed like the bulb of a plant underground, and the ending ‘
pa
’ puts ‘
thunu
’ in the third person singular. Or rather, Thunupa means that there’s something hidden under the figure of the god. The god marks the spot.”
Jabba and I remained silent for a few seconds, assimilating the surprising way in which the pieces kept falling into place, one after another.
“Maybe it’s that simple,” Jabba observed, with doubt in his voice.
“It’s not simple!” Proxi exclaimed, still smiling. “It’s perfect.”
“But it doesn’t tell us anything new!” I energetically objected. “We already know the god marks the spot. Where are the entrances to the chamber?”
“Use logic, Arnauet: If everything up to this point has been reflected in the frieze of the Gate of the Sun, the entrances to the secret passages also should appear there. And if they appear, as can be expected, we’ve had them under our noses since the beginning, don’t you think?”
I looked at her with the wide open eyes of a lunatic.
“Look at this enlargement of the Staff God,” she continued, undaunted, holding out a paper to me which I took. “Describe the pyramid with three floors to me.”
“Well…. Like the name says, it’s a pyramid, and it has three floors. Inside, there are a bunch of weird creatures and a square with a horned snake.”
“What else?” Proxi prompted, seeing that I wasn’t going to say anything else.
“Nothing else,” I replied, “but if you want me to describe the god, too, I will.”
“Do you see what the god has in his hands?”
“The sticks.”
“And where are the sticks pointing?”
“Where should they be pointing?” I muttered, exasperated, but then I realized something. “Shouldn’t they be pointing up?”
She smiled.
“But actually, it’s as if the god were carrying them upside down: the beaks of the condors, or whatever they are, are pointing….”
“Toward?”
“Down. It’s a little strange, isn’t it?”
“And what are those upside-down sticks pointing at?” she insisted.
“At those weird things that stick out of… of the pyramid. Wow…. You’re right,” I murmured, returning the paper, which she left on the table.
I was irritated with myself. How could I be such an idiot? I’d been seeing those protuberances on the pyramid since we found my brother’s drawing, and though it seemed incredible, I hadn’t paid much attention to them precisely because they were so weird. They were a decoration, one more ornamentation. My brain had completely ignored them, because they were inexplicable.
“As you can see, from both sides of the lowest step of the pyramid,” she finished, “stick out two horizontal lines, which should represent the floor, but which, oddly, quickly turn upward, drawing a kind of chimney on each side, covered by an outlandish and nonsensical object.”
“They look like…,” Jabba murmured, examining another reproduction of the god. “Really, I don’t know what they look like! Could they be representations of warrior helms?”
“Yes, and also extraterrestrial animals, or space ships,” Proxi teased. “Notice that each one has one round deep eye, identical to the eyes of the god. But, well, who cares? Actually, I don’t think they’re anything other than a mark. Wherever these things show up in Tiwanaku, that’s where the entrances to the passages will be. What do you think, Root?”
I didn’t remember exactly what answer I had given her that night, but I obviously must have shown myself to be in agreement. All that conversation, held right before packing our bags to come to Bolivia, had come back to me in the short time it took us to cover the distance
separating us from the real Gate of the Sun. Maybe the altitude sickness had erased two whole days of my life, but it had inarguably respected that last hour of work in Barcelona. And at last, there we were, in front of the Gate, separated from it only by the rickety wire that protected it. My eyes went right to the central figure of the god which in real life, with its reliefs, and the shadows produced by the sunlight, looked like a little monster with evil intentions. There was Thunupa, the god of the flood, who hid a secret. His round eyes gazed at nothing, his arms, forming a “V,” held the sticks (a dart thrower and a slingshot, said the guide Proxi was carrying), and from his elbows and belt hung human heads. Over his chest, on his breastplate, was repeated the image of the small snake that appeared at his feet, in the secret chamber that we would try to get to even though we weren’t exactly sure how. And there was the three-tiered pyramid, full of hallways ending in the heads of pumas and condors, with the two side entrances that looked like chimneys covered in those strange warrior helms that also could be extraterrestrial animals or space ships equipped with eyes.
Jabba, who was pacing ceaselessly back and forth in front of the Gate, gave exclamations of admiration at the sight of his friends, the Cuvieronius-elephants, unmistakable enough to make us rail at the sky because of the indifference they provoked in official science, a science that claimed to be guided by what was empirically verifiable. Fine, there was the inarguable proof that the Gate, at least, had to have been made when those mastodons abounded on the Altiplano
—
at least eleven thousand years ago, that is. However, like with Piri Reis’ map, no one seemed to pay any attention to them. I couldn’t keep from asking myself “why” one more time. There had to be some reason. The fear of academic ridicule couldn’t be a strong enough motivation to keep the truth from being investigated. Certainly, in the Middle Ages, the Inquisition had punished heresy with death, but now what reason could there be?
“Well, here we are,” Proxi said, shooting photographs with her tiny digital camera. We had brought good computer equipment with us, in small sizes that allowed us to work in the hotel if necessary. All we had to do was download the images onto one of the laptops, and we could get whatever enlargements and prints we needed. The truth was, because of the altitude sickness, we still hadn’t installed anything, and I began to feel remorseful over the pile of emails that Núria must have sent me and that would be awaiting response.
“It seems unreal,” I commented, “that a week ago we hadn’t even thought of coming to Taipikala, and today we’re here.”
“I hope the effort hasn’t been wasted,” Jabba said resentfully, just as he walked by us in his comings and goings between the Cuvieronius.
“Come on, let’s not waste any more time,” I declared. “We still have a lot to see.”
The truth was, there wasn’t much left of Akapana, only a couple of enormous stone terraces coming out of a hill covered in vegetation. We took it on faith that it was a pyramid with seven floors, because there was no clue showing that to be the case. On the top part of the hill, which we climbed from the back, we could see some kind of hole, which was presumably the deposit in which rain water was collected before it was made to circulate through the recently discovered zigzagging canals, whose purpose no one really knew. But if they were going to make channels, why with such a strange shape, if, after all, they weren’t going to be seen?
Proxi let out a rude laugh.
“Well, if you think this is a disaster,” she warned, “wait till we get to Lakaqullu which can’t be much better.”
“It will be worse, I’m sure,” I agreed despondently, remembering that Lakaqullu was completely buried under ground.
As the sun ascended in the sky and the morning progressed, the temperature became more agreeable. We ended up unfastening our jackets and taking off our sweaters, tying them around our waists so we wouldn’t get hot. There came a time when I even felt lucky to be wearing the panama hat, and what we were of course infinitely thankful for were the comfortable shoes that allowed us to go up hills, walk on dirt and stones, and easily tolerate the sharp fragments of old carved stone that abounded everywhere. The number of visitors grew along with the heat, and groups could be seen here and there. The noisy school children who had preceded us disappeared from our sight and hearing, surely to complete some sedentary scholarly activity, and in their place, the cicadas started to deafen us with their monotone rattles.