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The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Stones Forum >> Cerro Plomo
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| Author |
Cerro Plomo |
DGRW
Joined:
10-05-2005
Messages: 9
from Derbyshire
 OFF-Line
|  Posted 14-05-2005 at 08:41
Cerro Plomo is a 17.000ft peak just outside Santiago in Chile. It is the home of several known Inca Burial sites and it is said that there are probably many more to find.
We visited one of those sites whilst climbing a couple of years ago. At around 16,000ft and on a bleak, bare and windy shoulder of the mountain I began to appreciate the level of sheer hard work and dedication that must have been required to create these sites the higher of which can be found above 19.000ft. throughout the northern Andes. It's hard enough just to breath and walk up there never mind about build and work. Unfortunately the actual burial site looked very much like a hole in the ground that had been created by one sweep of a bulldozer bucket. There was nothing at all left to give any indication whatsoever that anything of a human sacred nature had ever occurred there. No doubt the recovered artifacts were safely displayed somewhere in Santiago but no attention whatsoever appeared to have been paid to maintaining the integrity of the site itself. Quite depressing really.
On one of our acclimatisation days we set ourselves the task of climbing to a ridge at about 15,500ft that was off the main route. At around 15,000ft we encountered a fairly typical scree field. Our guide (a really great guy from Santiago - thanks again Jaime) told us that Inca artifacts had been found in this area and so with some enthusiasm we began to eagerly scan the ground for signs of human disturbance. I disappeared off across the boulder field in an attempt to visually scan every one of the several hundred million rocks and boulders across which I was walking, yes I know, silly me.
On rejoining the group however, my mate Chris was clutching in his sweaty hands a lump of rock. The lump of rock was approxomately 300mm in diametre and aroound 200mm from top to bottom. It was very roughy circular. The underside was fairly flat whilst in the top was formed a shallow depression of around 50mm. He was more than a little pleased with himself upon presenting me with this three tonne lump of metamorphic aggregate and assured me that it looked like a morter to him. It looked remarkably like a rock to me.
We moved on, I continued to scan the ground and within about ten minutes had located for Chris at least fifty more of these "morters".
All about the same size, all having similar structure and shape including the apparent "bowl shaping" and all looking to me for all the world like "rocks" with an admittedly characteristic fracture.
Either the good old Inca's had decided to run a morter factory of epic proportions 15,500ft up this bleak mountainside or my friend is no Geologist.
I think that some geological knowledge might be in order when attempting to identify "artifcts".
So when is an artifact not an artifact?
When it's a rock.
[ This message was edited by: DGRW on 2005-05-14 08:57 ]
[ This message was edited by: DGRW on 2005-05-14 09:00 ]
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sem
Joined:
12-11-2003
Messages: 1704
from Bridgend,S.Wales
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| Posted 14-05-2005 at 20:59
To quote from the pamphlet of a lecture given by Peter Rogers and Aaron Watson in Jan 2004 and concerning their discovery of previously unnoticed monuments in the Lake District "How many other altered places might remain unrecognised, simply because we have not yet learnt to see them ?"
Unfortunately, archaeologists in general, don't go looking for new sites nowadays as their funding is barely enough to cover rescue archaeology. This is left to a few who do it in their spare time (like Peter and Aaron) and enthusiastic amateurs. A good example was given to me when attending a course by the Nautical Archaeological Society in 1998. The lecturer said there were only TWO professional underwater archaeologists in the UK at that time and neither relied solely on underwater work.
At the high altitudes you are talking about, what do you think are your chances of getting the average chair-bound archaeologist out of his comfortable and well salaried university research seat to look at your rocks?
Sorry for the cynicism but I have a masters in that.
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DGRW
Joined:
10-05-2005
Messages: 9
from Derbyshire
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| Posted 17-05-2005 at 13:43
I assume that you mean; you have a Masters in cyniscism.
Was it awarded to you by the same establishment that gave a Masters in False Economy to my company MD?
I think that it's time some of you professionals got off your arses and started digging.
There's a lot more to archeology than letching over teenage female graduate students you know.
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