A plateau in Peru, east of Lima, is filled with strange rock formations that appear not to be natural. Were they carved by an unknown pre-Inca civilization? Some have suggested these enigmatic figures may be artifacts of the oldest civilization on Earth and prove South American contact with ancient Egypt.

By Marc Roland

Fifty miles northeast from the modern city of Lima, stands a desolate plateau in remote central Peru. One mile across and less than two miles long, its flat top is populated by human and animal forms frozen in stone on a colossal scale, ranging from 10 to 30 feet high. They represent full-faced human heads, some of them seemingly wearing bizarre turbans or caps, and animals, such as dogs—all of them randomly scattered, in no apparent order or deliberate arrangement. And each one shows varying degrees of severe erosion, perhaps indicating their deep antiquity.

But these same weathering forces on the rocky outcroppings may have been responsible for their appearance: Were these figures actually made by men long ago, or were they fortuitously formed by nature? Are they statues or apophenia? These are some of the questions filmmaker Bill Cote poses in his latest DVD: The Mysterious Stone Monuments of Markawasi, Peru.

Markawasi, in Quechua, an Inca family of languages still spoken throughout the Andes, means “Road in the Sky,” an apparent reference to the plateau’s 12,500-foot elevation. (Quechua speakers refer to Quechua by the endonym Runasimi or Runa Simi or “people speech”.) Aymara, a possibly related language, is also spoken in the area. It was here that Cote brought his cameras to document the strange structures, and, in so doing, created a fully professional production, as original as it is intriguing. For example, his employment of time-lapse photography to capture the lengthening or foreshortening of shadows probably brings the figures to life more effectively than even a personal visit might provide. He also outlines the features to deftly highlight their alleged identities, without distorting them—a useful technique, because some of the supposed “heads” or “animals” are otherwise difficult to discern.

Cote offers a well-balanced presentation, allowing viewers to make up their own minds about this undeniably evocative location, regardless of its real origins. That Markawasi, alone, of all other plateaus throughout the entire region, possesses this remarkable collection of structures underscores their artificial creation, to some investigators. The figures first came to the attention of the outside world as recently as 1952, when Peruvian archeologist Daniel Ruzo (1900-93) began his eight-year-long research of the “Road in the Sky” after seeing an earlier, black-and-white photograph of the so-called “Head of Humanity.” It is the site’s largest effigy, the supposed depiction of a Caucasian man or woman facing opposite from a Semitic profile, with the addition of a smaller skull, perhaps Negroid. These themes—so utterly removed from pre-Columbian Peru—add immeasurably to the site’s controversy.

But they are by no means unique. Cote shows us what appears to be a moai, as the great monoliths of far-off Rapa-nui are known to Pacific Ocean Easter Islanders. Another “statue” resembles Taurt, ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth, signified by a standing hippopotamus. In Nile Valley temple art, “the Great Lady” was occasionally portrayed with Sobek, the death-god, at her back, just as the two appear at Markawasi.

Cote’s computer graphics go on to match up one half of King Tutankhamen’s head with the other half of a similarly pharaonic face on the Peruvian outcropping. Hardly less anomalous than these cultural comparisons are the seeming depictions at the “Road in the Sky” of an elephant (pachyderms died out in South America no sooner than 10,000 years ago), a horse (an animal first introduced by 16th-century Spanish Conquistadors), plus an African lion and rhinoceros. Yet more out of place and disturbing is the representation at Markawasi of Amphichelydia, a suborder of giant turtles extinct for at least 30 million years.

If just a few such figures adorned the plateau, we might be inclined to dismiss their lookalike shapes as the haphazard handiwork of wind and rain at work with rock and time. But to find so many—allegedly, more than 200—in one place, and one place only, should give us pause.

That was the impetus for inviting Boston University geologist Robert Schoch to Markawasi. His expert opinion was enlisted to determine once and for all if the Peruvian structures were manmade or entirely the results of erosion. Sadly, he demurred from providing a decision one way or another, leaving viewers no less uncertain than before his arrival. Schoch avows on camera that any question of the structures’ cultural or natural origins seemed to him immaterial, an unusual determination for a professional geologist that must have disappointed his hosts, who went to so much trouble and expense for his personal participation. More enlightening was the on-site research of Peruvian archeologist Dr. Marino Sanchez, director of archeology at the better-known Inca stronghold of Machu Picchu, who points out that the fantastic shapes are not alone on the plateau. Nearby are ancient stone ruins, including irrigation canals and several“chullpas.”

Chullpas are pre-Incan mortuary towers built around A.D. 800 and similarly found at the shores of Bolivia’s and Peru’s Lake Titicaca. While their period does not necessarily coincide with the possible creation of the Markawasi figures, it does show the area was inhabited at least 12 centuries ago. The very existence of these ruins does suggest, however, that either some pre-Incan people did in fact sculpt the human and animal forms, or that visitors were drawn during ancient times to the plateau-top for the same cause that attracts modern researchers; namely, the evocative shapes, even if they were created by the processes of erosion. Even today, native Peruvians revere huacas, undeniably natural configurations of trees or rocks that differ in appearance and stand out from the rest of the local environment. If the presence of chullpas implies that the site may have been a necropolis, then the colossal heads may represent memorials to the honored dead, as inferred by its very name: the “Road in the Sky”; i.e., the road to heaven.

In any case, no one has been able to prove the Markawasi effigies were sculpted hundreds or thousands of years ago by prehistoric Peruvians conversant with not only dynastic Egyptian and Easter Island cultures, but African and even long-extinct animals, or entirely the product of over-active human imagination hard-wired to discern recognizable “patterns” in natural surroundings. In either case, Bill Cote’s documentary takes us as far as we can go in the early 21st century toward understanding this monumental enigma. His production team, BC Video, in New York, won an Emmy Award 20 years ago for The Mystery of the Sphinx, which aired on NBC Television, where it was seen by more than 40 million viewers. His latest effort is no less deserving of recognition.

The Mysterious Stone Monuments of Markawasi, Peru is a two-DVD set, with a total running time of 183 minutes ($24.95 plus $6.50 S&H) from BCVideo, Inc.,
152 West 25th Street,
 New York, NY 10001.

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