412 THE POZO STONE. 



a grouped picture writing in use amongst the Mexicans,, in which 

 occasional use was made of characters of a phonetic capacity to 

 express foreign names, in a manner analogous to that of the 

 Egyptians, and they wrote these on cotton cloth and a fabric made 

 from the Agave or American Aloe."* 



It is evident that the Pozo and similar inscribed stones 

 belong to a period long antecedent to the Incas Indians, these 

 people are but as children of yesterday, a thirteenth Incas king only 

 reigned when Pizarro overthrew him. Before them lived a nation 

 of potters and artificers, the Incas were destroyers, but in Peru 

 have lived nations or tribes which built monuments, fashioned stone 

 and wooden idols, and fabricated gold, silver, and copper ornaments 

 and pots, some of these objects were made so long ago that three 

 score yards of guano have been deposited on them. From these 

 nations and that peculiar civilization which no one has yet solved, 

 but which has left, says Dr. Newberry, "from the frontiers of 

 Chile to Salt Lake in Utah, an almost uninterrupted succession of 

 ruins * * * with a certain general resemblance throughout; so 

 that we may fairly conclude that they are relics of different tribes 

 or nationalities which were of common stock, or, at least, derived 

 their civilization from a common source. * * * Hence, in my 

 opinion, those who have attempted to bring all the history of this 

 western civilization * * * within a thousand or two years have 

 been in error, * * * for I am constrained to believe they may 

 claim an antiquity equal to the oldest civilization of the Eastern 

 Hemisphere, "f 



If amongst the Egyptians 7,000 years ago a perfected system 

 of hieroglyphic writing was in use, we may be permitted to imagine a 

 nation, older than the Incas, in Peru incising the simple petroglyphs 

 of which those on the Pozo stone are examples. The history on 

 the Pozo stone is merely pictorial, and I agree with the expression 

 given in our Journal, in 1886, that it is an account of a tribal journey. 

 But it tells more ! And this is the most controversial part of this 

 account. Mr. George Tate, a most practical observer, says of 



* " The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing," by Henry Noel 

 Humphreys, p. 19. 



f Abstract of Lecture on " The Ancient Civilizations of America, their origin 

 and antiquity," by Dr. J. S. Newberry ; Trans. New York Academy of Sciences, 

 Vol. IV, p. 47. 



