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The Lost Pyramids of Guimar
Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 (CST) by Thoth
 Sitting around 100 kms off Morocco on the North East coast of Africa between the 28th and 29th northern parallels and the 16th and 17th western meridians, eleven volcanic Islands make up the archipelago of the Canary Isles.
Although well known in Europe, few people outside the continent have even heard of the Islands let alone the mysteries they hold. The Canary Islands could contain definitive proof that ancient people crossed the globe by sea long before Columbus ever did.
That proof might well lie in a large pyramid complex on the biggest of the Islands, Tenerife; and in the research of the Norwegian explorer, anthropologist and author, the late Dr Thor Heyerdahl. Realising that the pyramids were extremely similar to the step pyramids found in Peru, Mexico and ancient Mesopotamia, Dr Heyerdahl spent the last few years of his life living in Guimar, supervising the archaeological mission to survey and preserve the six step pyramids and the complex they were part of.
The fact
that this vast development exists is undeniable, the question is, who
built it and why, and does it offer us proof that there was sustained
contact between ancient people far beyond what conventional archaeology
would have us believe?
Until their conquest at the
hands of the Spanish conquistadores, the Guanches, a mysterious people
of whose history and culture little is known, inhabited Tenerife. Part
of the reason for this lack of knowledge stems from the fact that the
ancient culture was all but overrun by the invading Spaniards, partly
due to the sporadic eruptions of Mount Teide and partly due to a lack
of investment in archaeology in the region.
The Canaries’ unique
geographical location has made the Islands an important point in
maritime routes for hundreds of years; Columbus, for example, used it
as his last port of call before he made the long trip across the Ocean
to America. For years there has been dispute as to whether Columbus or
Leif Eriksson actually discovered America first, but there seems to be
a strong possibility that both of them were centuries too late and that
the people of Mesoamerica and the Islanders of Tenerife actually
established expeditions or even trade routes between their
civilisations much earlier.
Convinced that ancient
people were not only sea faring but also pioneers and explorers
themselves, Heyerdahl set out to show that modern science
under-estimated long-forgotten aboriginal technologies. In 1947, he and
five companions set sail from Peru in an aboriginal raft called the Kon
Tiki, named after a pre Incan Sun God. They successfully crossed 8000 kms of ocean to reach Polynesia in 101 days using nothing that wasn’t
available to the ancient people of Peru, demonstrating that the ancient
Peruvians could have reached Polynesia by sea in this manner.
His theory suggested that
the first wave of migrants had reached Polynesia via Peru and Easter
Island on balsa rafts. Centuries later, a second ethnic group reached
Hawaii in large double-canoes from British Columbia.
In the foreword to the 35th edition of ‘Kon-Tiki, Across the Pacific by Raft’, Dr Heyerdahl wrote:
"The Kon-Tiki expedition
opened my eyes to what the ocean really is. It is a conveyor and not an
isolator. The ocean has been man's highway from the days he built the
first buoyant ships, long before he tamed the horse, invented wheels
and cut roads through the virgin jungles."
Just over twenty years
later, Heyerdahl bought 12 tons of papyrus reeds and worked with
experts to construct a second ancient style vessel, this time a reed
boat, which he named ‘Ra’ after the Egyptian Sun God. Ra was launched
from the old Phoenician port of Safi, Morocco.
 Sadly, Ra sank shortly
before completing its epic voyage (due to human error at the design
stage) but had sailed far enough to prove Heyerdahl’s theory. Less than
a year later, Dr Heyerdahl tried the same voyage with the smaller (12
meter) Ra II, a scale model of which can be found at the Parque
Etnografico. Parque Etnografico is the open air museum that Dr
Heyerdahl and shipping magnate Fred Olsen built at Guimar to preserve
the pyramids and the valuable research for future generations. This
vessel also sailed from Safi and crossed the widest part of the
Atlantic, from Safi to Barbados, a distance of 6100 kms in 57 days.
What these epic journeys
had shown is that ancient people did have the technology to navigate
huge stretches of ocean successfully. If Dr Heyerdahl’s theories are
correct, then it is clear that those same seafarers might have been
responsible for the construction of the pyramid complex discovered at
Guimar on Tenerife. Dr Heyerdahl and others involved in the project
believed that the Guimar pyramids could well be evidence of
pre-European voyagers who sailed the Atlantic in ancient times, and
that they may have forged a link with the pre-Columbian civilizations
of the Americas or conversely, evidence of pre-Colombian seafarers who
made contact with the Islands on their way to Europe. The idea that
Europe might have been discovered by South American people is of course
a subject bound to fuel debate, but in light of Guimar, it has to be a
serious consideration. If Peruvian explorers first travelled across the
Pacific and settled in Polynesia, is it possible that Tenerife was
settled in a similar way and that the Peruvian pioneers built their
temples and pyramids along similar lines as to the ones they had left
back home?
Few scholars endorse the
idea that American Indians navigated the oceans in the way Thor
Heyerdahl suggested and discount the hypothesis largely on linguistic,
genetic and cultural grounds, all of which point to the settlers having
come from the east, not the west. However, none of the scholars have
come up with a convincing explanation as to how the Canary Isles ended
up with their own step pyramids.
In the 1980s, Dr Heyerdahl
directed the excavation of South America's largest pyramid complex,
Tucume, in Peru, where researchers found reliefs of bird-headed men
navigating reed ships, this is often cited as further evidence that men
sailed along the Pacific coast long before the Spanish conquest
Dr Heyerdahl suggested that
the Guimar pyramids, which were constructed using local black volcanic
stone, were built using techniques similar to pyramids found in Mexico,
Peru and ancient Mesopotamia. The pyramids are flat-topped like the
majority of the South American pyramids, where the flat-topped stepped
platforms often had a small temple on the top, not unlike the ziggurats
of Mesopotamia. Egyptian pyramids, with the exception of the stepped
pyramid at Saqarra which is one of the earliest ones, were largely
smooth faced and sharply pointed.
The Guimar complex
Archaeologists still know
surprisingly little about the pyramids that form the complex although
excavations indicate that there was a community based around them. The
complex comprises of six step pyramids, which are aligned to the East,
suggesting that they were used to worship the sun. During the solstice,
they are reported to line up with the sunset in a distinctive spot on
the mountainous horizon.
 Terraces and ceremonial
pathways lead up to the pyramids from all directions. Pens or
enclosures, thought by archaeologists to be used to keep sacrificial
goats, are still evident. It should also be said that goats also played
a part in the invocation of the Gods without always being sacrificed.
Although the Guanches
appear to have believed in one supreme deity, there does seem to have
been a reliance on possibly earlier beliefs, as Gods were invoked
during times of calamities such as droughts. One of the methods used to
ask for rain was to remove the adult goats from their kids and make
them fast for three days, the bleating of the hungry young goats were
thought to please the gods who would reward the people with the much
needed rain.
Interestingly, the Canarian
natives are known to have practiced a form of mummification known as
‘mirlado’ although this funerary practice seems to have been restricted
to the highest of social classes.
There are undoubtedly
parallels between the Mesoamerican cultures and the Canary Island
cultures. Artefacts have been found on the islands that are almost
identical to ones found in South America. On the neighbouring isle of
Gran Canaria, there is a small cave named “Cueva Pintada”. What is
interesting about the cave is the unique geometric paintings from the
native Guanche. The paintings consist of red, black, and white squares,
spirals, and triangles. Their meaning is not clear, some researchers
suggest they are symbols of female fertility or the expression of
religious beliefs, but they also seem strangely reminiscent of
artefacts and colours and designs used in Bolivia at around that time.
Tenerife and its surrounding islands were colonised by the Spanish in
1496, causing significant changes to the social, political, religious
and cultural life of the aboriginal world. This Spanish colonisation
resulted in a new city built over the aboriginal settlement and thus,
the "Cueva Pintada" cave was lost for many generations.
Conclusion
Dr Thor Heyerdahl spent his
life gathering evidence that seafaring sun-worshippers crossed the
oceans in prehistoric times. The pyramids of Guimar are probably one of
the biggest indicators we have so far found that he was correct.
Dr Heyerdahl was an ardent
exponent of the diffusionist school of cultural anthropology, which
holds that cultural similarities between geographically separated
societies (such as the building of step pyramids that are aligned to
the sun), are not necessarily spontaneous coincidence but are sometimes
the result of actual contacts in antiquity. After a lifetime of
research, he commented:
"I have proved that all the
ancient pre-European civilizations could have intercommunicated across
oceans with the primitive vessels they had at their disposal. I feel
that the burden of proof now rests with those who claim the oceans were
necessarily a factor in isolating civilizations”
The pyramids of Guimar seem
to echo that sentiment and place the ball once more firmly in the court
of conventional archaeology.
Related link:
There are over 70 photographs of the pyramid complex of Guimar in our Gallery. Check them out, by clicking here.
© Thothweb - http://www.thothweb.com
This article is copyrighted. No part of this article can be reproduced without the written permission of ThothWeb.
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