Treasure of the Inca: Sacsayhuaman and the Ancient Tunnels of South America

An aspect of this story has to be told, a story of conquest, treasure, hidden tunnels and lost cities. It’s clear that Sacsayhuaman is a perplexing location, an ancient place whose technologies and purpose are shrouded in mystery. It would seem as though the location is part of a larger story. After I finished my preliminary research on the site, I turned to a website, which I have found particularly useful in esoteric studies, a website called Bibliotecapleyades. Lately, I have become increasingly alienated from modern sciences and scholarship. I have found that fringe areas of the Internet provide valuable information that the harsh requirements of peer-reviewed documents are limited by. I searched for Sacsayhuaman on Bibliotecapleyades and the first article I came across was titled “Subterranean Tunnels & The Hollow Earth: My Search for Tunnels in the Earth” by David Hatcher Childress. The subsequent tale that followed read like the epic pre-archaeological tale of Hiram Bingham, but without the unconscious racism and patriarchisms, and with an incredible story that built upon the narratives of Lost City and Turn Right.

Childress claims that there is a gigantic tunnel system that runs under South America. Not only that, he claims that he has actually been inside these tunnels himself. Today, science and rationalism have been fetishized because of the ability to commodify and monetize these practices; while magic and intuition have been discounted because of the way our culture is at the current moment. Since I have studied magic and mysticism over the past several years, I have come to understand that there is a far more complex history on earth itself, and certainly throughout the cosmos, than mainline “science” believes. In instances such as the incredible megaliths of ancient civilizations, each of which seem to be linked in one way to Hermes-Thoth, it is clear that the proponents of rationalism wish the masses to think them to be unbelievable, (such as the construction of megalithic structures with fantastic technology by a being that lived thousands of years on earth), but in reality it seems that these “unbelievable” things have occurring on earth. It is because of this and other experiences I have had, such as UFO experiences, contact with preternatural entities, incredible synchronicities, psychic phenomena, visions and vast lucid, alchemical and hermetic dreams, have caused me to enact a “suspension of disbelief,” as Coleridge would say, in my life. That is to say, I am more open to believing incredible tales such as the one that follows because I have had similar experiences. I’m not gullible; I’m just familiar, or at least aware of the “daimonic reality.”

Childress begins his story by recounting a fateful time of the Inca civilization: the Spanish conquest, which took place in 1531. In this year Francisco Pizarro made his way to the Inca city of Cajamarca, where the Inca ruler Atahualpa interpreted the arrival of the Spaniards as fulfilling a prophecy of the return of Viracocha. Inca mythology says that they descended from the Viracocha, and that the “Inca were the ruling elite, of a different race, who believed themselves descended from "Manco Capac," a red-haired, bearded messenger from God,” (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_underground14.htm). Soon after conquest, legends surfaced amongst the Spanish that the Inca “had hidden much of their treasure-sacred relics of pure gold either beneath the Inca capital of Cuzco or in a secret city known as Paititi. Either way, legend had it that a tunnel system was used,” (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_underground14.htm). The thought that a vast tunnel system exists below one of earth’s continents and is filled with amazing treasures of an ancient civilization is the makings of a romantic epic of the ages.

As the story goes, Atahualpa came down from his palace to meet Pizarro. Atahualpa had with him some 30,000 soldiers, only some 160 for the Spanish. A Spanish friar told the Inca about the religion of Christianity and gave Atahualpa a bible. Atahualpa put the Bible to his ear, heard nothing, and through it to the ground. This pivotal moment in the earth’s history, when the incredible civilizations of Mesoamerica, seemingly remnants of an antediluvian, Atlantean culture stood face to face with the patriarchal, imperial, religiously destructive culture that is Western civilization. In a poetic moment that only history can provide, ignoring the Bible, and a religion that is supposedly founded on unconditional love, led to the massacre of thousands of people, with no Spanish deaths.

To ransom his own life, Atahualpa promised to fill the room in which he was imprisoned to the top with gold, an offer that the Spanish took. The ransom was not exceedingly large for Atahualpa however, as Childress says:

The Incas did not use gold, silver, and precious stones for currency as Europeans and other cultures did. Instead, they were valued for decoration, and used extensively for religious objects, furnishings, and even utensils. Many buildings had interior gold-lined walls, and exterior gold rain gutters and plumbing. Therefore, when the Inca was ransomed for a room full of gold, to the Incas it was as if they were paying with pots and pans, old plumbing, and rain gutters! (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_underground14.htm).

This for one shows one inherent difference in Mesoamerican cultures and modern living: gold was used for practical purposes not for useless jewelry and vanities. Money is not even backed up by gold anymore; it is a purely theoretical aspect of the hyper-reality that humans have created. In another dark twist of Christian imperialism, Atahualpa was not freed but instead condemned to die. What follows is haunting. As Childress describes it: Spaniards who had befriended Atahualpa advised him to convert to Christianity before his execution, which would allow the Dominical fathers to strangle him as a Christian rather than burn him at the stake as a heretic. He complied, was baptized, and strangled.

While Atahualpa was being executed, there was a second ransom on the way to the Spaniards. The first ransom was an incredible sum, approximately 5 Billion dollars on the current market. When the Indians transporting the ransom on some 11,000 llamas, each carrying 100 pounds of gold, heard of Atahualpa’s assassination, they hid the treasure. According to Childress’s accounts, a nearby mountain range and a subterranean garden near the Temple of the Sun are fabled repositories for much of this lost gold. Apparently when Pizarro became aware of the vastness of the treasure he demanded to know of its origin. It was said that there was an underground mine in the tunnels where the continent’s treasures were buried. Furthermore, it is said that the Inca queen looked into her magic obsidian mirror during the time of conquest and foresaw her husband’s death no matter the ransom. When the queen realized the horrific future, she saw to it that the treasure of the Inca was safely hidden underneath the tunnel systems, and that the entrances to the tunnel were sealed shut.

The original connection between Cajamarca, where Atahualpa and the Inca met their fate at the hands of the Spaniards, and Sacsayhuaman is that they are important Inca settlements that seem to be linked by this fabled tunnel system. After the Spanish had reached Cuzco, which is hundreds of miles away from Cajamarca, they were introduced to the cyclopean walls of Sacsayhuaman. At the beginning of the conquest, Cuzco was reported to have 100,000 residents, all of whom could fit in the walls of Sacsayhuaman in case of catastrophe. The Spanish were themselves aware of the tunnels of Sacsayhuaman as one Garcilaso de la Vega wrote after conquest:

An underground network of passages, which was as vast as the towers themselves, connected them with one another. This was composed of a quantity of streets and alleyways which ran in every direction, and so many doors, all of them identical, that the most experienced men dared not venture into this labyrinth without a guide, consisting of a long thread tied to the first door, which unwound as they advanced, (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_underground14.htm).

The descendants of the Inca and the Spanish were aware of these tunnels, which jet out in every direction under the continent, and are home to fabulous treasure.

A researcher by the name of Harold Wilkins claims that the tunnels stretch from the central Andes of Peru, and extend north to Ecuador, South to Chile, to the west near Lima in Peru, and east to Brazil. According to Childress, there are entrances to this tunnel system in eastern Bolivia and Brazil, and that the eastward tunnels may lead to the legendary and lost city of Paititi.

The legend goes that the Inca hid their treasures near the Cuzco tunnel system, and that another trove of treasure, (including 14 gold mummies of former Inca rulers), were taken to the city of Paititi. After the battle of Ollantaytambo, surviving Inca fled through the subterranean tunnels to the Paititi, which was ruled by a descendant of Tupac Amaru. Paititi, which translates to either “The Jaguar King,” or “the same as the other,” eluded the Spanish, despite searches for it. The historical records of the legendary lost city of gold come from Spanish priests and adventurers who sought the city but were unsuccessful. A 17^th century Jesuit priest recants being told by local Inca of Paititi and its location east of Cuzco. With time, the city became confused with El Dorado, and explorers wandered searching for the city completely unaware of the original legends. To this day, the whereabouts of the lost city of Paititi are still unknown, and a fabulous treasure may well lie within its vaults.

Paititi’s fabled location is east of Cuzco, and coincidentally in Bolivia, (east of Cuzco) there lays a curious site called Samaipata. This enigmatic location lies on top of a hill, and features massive rocks that have been cut into a great deal of different formations. It’s truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Bolivian archaeologists have attempted to travel in the tunnels that are located at this site, but are met with blockages when they travel deep into the tunnel. According to Childress, there is an entrance to the tunnels here called the Camino de la Chinchana, the Path of the Subterranean. Erich von Daniken, founder of ancient astronaut theory, described Samaipata as a “rocket launching pad,”

(http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_underground14.htm). It is unclear why the ancient Inca would have utilized a rocket launching pad, and unfortunately the tunnels here are sealed as well. But like Sacsayhuaman, Samaipata is an unexplainable structure that seems to be connected by the extensive system of tunnels.

Samaipata, Bolivia

The tunnels entrances at Sacsayhuaman and Samaipata seem to be blocked off, but Childress recants exploring a tunnel in Brazil that seems to be clear of any such blockages. As I mentioned earlier, once before in my life I’ve had a situation such as what has befallen me with Sacsayhuaman, in which a strange word that I had perhaps encountered before seemed to be stuck in my mind. The first time were the words “Minas Geiras,” and this second time was “Sacsayhuaman,” but once again my own odd story of synchronicities brung me back to Minas Geiras, as this is the Brazilian state that Childress adventured to in search of the legendary tunnels. Childress went to the state of Minas Geiras to the location of Sao Tome das Letras, which was reputed to have a tunnel entrance. It was not long after going there that he found, with an accompanying explorer, a massive tunnel entrance which was well known to the local people. He recants traveling for nearly a kilometer into the tunnel, at which point it dropped down at a steep slope, and they turned around. He says that the tunnel seems to have no blockage points, but that it would take the correct amount of equipment to navigate the sinuous passages. It seems that this entrance in Sao Tome das Letras has no clear stopping point, and that the proper explorer could go through the expansive tunnels. Perhaps the lost treasure of the Inca and the lost city of Paititi lie somewhere beyond secret exits within the tunnel system.

One last aspect of this amazing story remains untold. Upon returning home after exploring South America’s tunnels, Childress began studying the legend of the Valley of the Blue Moon. His research led him to a book titled Secret of the Andes, by George Hunt Williamson. Williamson says that in the remote past, a “Lord Muru” arrived at Lake Titicaca when the Andes were uplifted in the cataclysmic event that sank the Pacific continent Mu. In my research, it has become apparent that Thoth (Hermes, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan, Viracocha), was the King of Atlantis for a period, and that Mu is synonymous with Atlantis. It is unclear what the connection between these two events is, but it peaks my interest. Lord Muru set up the Monastery of the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, which held his secrets and treasures. When I hear “Seven Rays,” I immediately think of my research in alchemy, and the seven processes of alchemy represented by seven rays such as in medieval alchemical mandalas. One of the treasures that was reputed to be kept by the Brotherhood of