Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/51

Rh rising from the lake, of men and women who, for disobedience, were turned into stone. This was to account for the statues. The name of Tiahuanacu is modern. It is said that an Inca happened to receive a message when visiting the ruins, and he compared the rapidity of the runner to that of the swiftest animal known to him: 'Tia, huanacu,' he said ('Be seated, huanacu'), and the place has since had that name. When the Spaniards arrived the ruins were very much in the same state as they are now. The Jesuit Acosta, who took measurements of the stones, speaks of them as ruins of very ancient buildings. Cieza de Leon mentions two gigantic statues which were much weathered and showed marks of great antiquity. An old schoolfellow of Garcilasso, in writing to him, described the ruins as very ancient.

The builders may best be described as a megalithic people in a megalithic age, an age when cyclopean stones were transported, and cyclopean edifices raised.

The great antiquity is shown by the masonry and symbolical carving, but this is not the only proof that Andean civilisation dates back into a far