The Ica Stones of Peru

In 1966, Dr Javier Cabrera received a stone as a gift from a poor local farmer in his native Ica, Peru. A fish was carved on the stone, which would not have meant much to the average villager but it did mean a lot to the educated Dr Cabrera. He recognised it as a long-extinct species. This aroused his curiosity. He purchased more stones from the farmer, who said he had collected them near the river after a flood.

Dr Cabrera accumulated more and more stones, and word of their existence and potential import reached the archaeological community. Soon, the doctor had amassed thousands of "Ica stones". The sophisticated carvings were as enigmatic as they were fascinating. Someone had carved men fighting with dinosaurs, men with telescopes and men performing operations with surgical equipment. They also contained drawings of lost continents.

Several of the stones were sent to Germany and the etchings were dated to remote antiquity. But we all know that men could not have lived at the time of dinosaurs; Homo sapiens has only existed for about 100,000 years.

The BBC got wind of this discovery and swooped down to produce a documentary about the Ica stones. The media exposure ignited a storm of controversy. Archaeologists criticised the Peruvian government for being lax about enforcing antiquities laws (but that was not their real concern). Pressure was applied to government officials.

The farmer who had been selling the stones to Cabrera was arrested; he claimed to have found them in a cave but refused to disclose the exact location to authorities, or so they claimed.

This case was disposed of so artfully that it would do any corrupt politician proud. The Peruvian government threatened to prosecute and imprison the farmer. He was offered and accepted a plea bargain; he then recanted his story and "admitted" to having carved the stones himself. That seems highly implausible, since he was uneducated and unskilled and there were 11,000 stones in all. Some were fairly large and intricately carved with animals and scenes that the farmer would not have had knowledge of without being a palaeontologist. He would have needed to work every day for several decades to produce that volume of stones. However, the underlying facts were neither here nor there. The Ica stones were labelled "hoax" and forgotten.

The case did not require a head-to-head confrontation or public discrediting of non-scientists by scientists; it was taken care of with invisible pressure tactics. Since it was filed under "hoax", the enigmatic evidence never had to be dealt with.

Where did you get this?

I'd like to know more.

Give me a link or something.

For people interested in the Inca culture, the Nazca Lines are possibly even more interesting than Ica stones.

Take a flight out of Ica to Nazca. Ica is a really nice watering hole in the desert too.

do a google search on Ica Stones much information can be found.

Uh what can I say other than "Hooray for forgeries!"

Is this all there is to say about the stones? I heard about these stones a couple of days ago and I don't quite understand how this could be a forgery.
A simple uneducated farmer? 11,000 stones?
What evidence is there that, without a doubt, proves these stones to be a hoax. I've done a google search and all skeptics seem to come up with is: "The farmer recanted his story", "The cave wasn't found" and "It is too preposterous to be true".
I especially like the last argument, didn't the catholic church say the exact same thing when Galileo said the earth revolves around the sun?

Originally posted by Symer
simple uneducated farmer?

Not too simple, he managed to fool everyone.

11,000 stones?

Its not just one person, its a bunch of people making these things. They're just carvings on stones, over decades.

What evidence is there that, without a doubt, proves these stones to be a hoax.

Without any doubt? None. Without a reasonable doubt, well, if he said he is a hoaxster, why not beleive him? Also, the stones were never found in situ, and from what I understand they even become more accurate over time as the public has come to understand more about dinosaurs.

also

here a site
Cabrera objected that andesite is too hard to carve well by mere mortals using stone tools. "True," says Carroll in his entry on the Ica stones, "but the stones are not carved. They are graved, i.e., a surface layer of oxidation has been scratched away.

So they weren't even carved. Also, if they have an oxidized layer removed, you ahve to ask, doesn't that mean that they should've been reoxidized over time? Maybe not say the decade since they've been made and sitting on display, but the thousands of years implied here? And if a 'simple farmer' can't make the stones, how could the natives of that region, who didn't have access to anything that a modern simple farmer wouldn't?

didn't the catholic church say the exact same thing when Galileo said the earth revolves around the sun?

No, they said it was against doctrine and ignored the evidence. Why are there thousands of stones with dozens of different types of dinosaurs but no dinosaurs from modern strata there? Even some of the types of dinosaurs aren't from that part of the world at all.

What supports the stones being authentic?They can't be dated. Their association is unknown.

I am actually reading a book on this. The author hints toward to a longer existance of man on earth. More than 100,000 years, possibly much more than that. I'll get more on that here when I have the book present.

It is by Paul Roland I believe

Originally posted by Symer
Is this all there is to say about the stones? I heard about these stones a couple of days ago and I don't quite understand how this could be a forgery.
A simple uneducated farmer? 11,000 stones?

By now it's not just one "simple uneducated farmer." These have been around for awhile and it was found that the touristas would pay a lot of money for these stones. In fact, you could sell one stone for more than the average laborer in the area could make in one year of hard work.

What evidence is there that, without a doubt, proves these stones to be a hoax. I've done a google search and all skeptics seem to come up with is: "The farmer recanted his story", "The cave wasn't found" and "It is too preposterous to be true".
I especially like the last argument, didn't the catholic church say the exact same thing when Galileo said the earth revolves around the sun?

Here's a response from a non-scientist in the Skeptical Inquirer:
www.csicop.org...

Now, here's a perfect example of the lie:



It's a genuine Ica stone, and it has the following problems:
1) Apatosaurus, etc, didn't look like that. Compare with the one from "Walking With Dinosaurs" series:


2) the way the dinos were depicted changed over time as more of the stones were "discovered." Pretty soon they started looking like the latest concepts as found on television. This would not have happened if they were real.

3) A lot of the dinos depicted on the rocks did not exist in that part of the world.

4) The art styles do not show a consistant cultural style and don't show people from a consistant culture (it would be like showing ... oh... say the space station with astronauts dressed as Zulu herdsmen and American Indians in tribal garb and ancient Sumerians and kids in current fashion and presenting them as all being aboard the space station at the same time.)

Cultural artifacts have a consistant "style" (people have a preferred 'look" for public art... think of Art Deco of the 20's compared to our modern architecture) These don't. The information displayed on them varies wildly. The technology varies according to what OUR modern technology is.

It's the change through time (and not much time) that points to the fakery as well as the wrong information and the wrong descriptions.

The way the peruvian government are calling it a hoax, foreginers involved it all sounds alot like the Celestine Prophecy written by James Redfield. The book is amzing and might hold some of your answers in there!

Originally posted by Nygdan
Also, if they have an oxidized layer removed, you ahve to ask, doesn't that mean that they should've been reoxidized over time?

Nygdan, you're correct that further oxidization would happen. But the "engraving" would
continue to oxidize at the same rate as the surrounding (non engraved) area.

So, i reckon the image would still be visible even if only under lab' conditions.

Sanc'.

I used to think the Ica stones were the real thing (without investigating it that closely), but if there's stylistic anomalies, that could indicate a hoax.

What I don't understand is, why hold 11,000 of them in stock for a small village business ? Was he exporting or expecting a bumper Xmas ?

Just doesn't make sense. Even if they were holding a years worth of stock, that means they would've sold at least 50,000 over 10 years.

Maybe they were distributing to other South American tourist spots, if so, it seems like a pretty good scam !

Originally posted by Ganesh2005
What I don't understand is, why hold 11,000 of them in stock for a small village business ? Was he exporting or expecting a bumper Xmas ?

Those have been discovered over the course of some 40 years, in groups. I'm not sure that there's 11,000 of them, but there is quite a number.

Now, I'm an artist. I've played with carving/engraving things before, and you can engrave something of that size in an afternoon or two. More primitive stuff (like the one I posted a link to) could be turned out in a few hours.

With three sons, a brother, and a cousin, we could easily turn out 1200 or more per year between the six of us (and as many as perhaps 2,000.)

And if you saw your neighbor, Jose, selling these to the tourist trade for enough money for a month, don't you think you could learn to make these and sell them?

The New Age market is hungry for this stuff and there are collectors who will pay a lot of money for some of them (a few hundred dollars... not much to us but a lot in Mexico. It's a nice little business targeted to the gullible.

The other possibility is that the guy originally did find some genuine stones, sold them for big bucks, and when he only had a few left decided to start copying them, and got his family involved.

Originally posted by Ganesh2005

The other possibility is that the guy originally did find some genuine stones, sold them for big bucks, and when he only had a few left decided to start copying them, and got his family involved.

Unlikely. The earliest ones are like the one I showed, with dinos straight out of the "Alley Oop" comic strip and other anomalies. The clothing/costumes are copied without understanding what they are and when they were worn -- so they are out of context.

It would be like seeing a picture of a "primitive hunting tribe that existed before 1000 BC" and showing them dressed in modern blue jeans and Plains Indian war bonnets. The fakery is so obvious that they're dismissed by anyone familiar with the art and culture.

Originally posted by Byrd

Here's a response from a non-scientist in the Skeptical Inquirer:
www.csicop.org...

Now, here's a perfect example of the lie:



It's a genuine Ica stone, and it has the following problems:
1) Apatosaurus, etc, didn't look like that. Compare with the one from "Walking With Dinosaurs" series:

I disagree the dino in the stone looks very close.

I mean, it's not like the depiction of the people are spot on, but nobody's complaining about that....

reply to post by blobby


I think the Ica stones are a library of such antiquity, from a time when indeed, dinasours and man lived together, a time that we only have these stones to give of any knowledge of. I am very intrigued by the stones as well as the Nasca Lines.

Originally posted by blobby
But we all know that men could not have lived at the time of dinosaurs; Homo sapiens has only existed for about 100,000 years.

Actually we have evidence that man is much older than the scientists claim. Like the footprints of a man right beside footprints of a dinosaur in Texas bedrock. Now did the man and dinosaur travel at different times across the same area, or was the dinosaur perhaps a pet.

reply to post by TH3ON3


Unfortunately this is creationism propaganda.

The problem with the Ica stones are:

No evidence of where the stones come from (they are not excavated they were "produced"

No sign of a culture that could or would have produced them

They were produced with modern abrasives and show machining indications

The problem with the patina

The many signs of fraud from those involved in the "find"