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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



desired to extinguish all vestiges of the 

 ancient religion, and became the home 

 and refuge of the Virgins of the Sun, 

 whose lives and whose institution formed 

 one of the most interesting features of 

 the purest religion of aboriginal America. 



Concealed in a caiion of remarkable 

 grandeur, protected also by walls and a 

 moat, these chosen women gradually 

 passed away on this beautiful mountain 

 top and left no descendants willing to re- 

 veal the importance and explain the sig- 

 nificance of the ruins of Machu Picchu. 



Finally, a word of caution : it must be 

 remembered that there are no inscrip- 

 tions at Machu Picchu to enable us to be 

 sure of our deductions. The evidence is 

 what lawyers term circumstantial; but it 

 must stand until some one can find a 

 place or places better suited to answer 

 the requirements of Tampii-tocco, home 

 of Manco Ccapac, the First Inca, and 

 Vilcahamha the Old, religious capital of 

 Manco, the Last Inca. 



In the following pages I have endeav- 

 ored to give a more special study of the 

 so-called "record stones," which seem to 

 be pre-Inca and may have been used to 

 keep the records at Tampu-tocco before 

 the discovery of the quipu, or knotted 

 string. 



OUEKR RECORD STONES 



During the progress of the work car- 

 ried on at Machu Picchu in 1912, the 

 most fruitful digging was that on the 

 ridge between the Temple of the Three 

 Windows and the city gate. The most 

 interesting feature of this part of the 

 city is a huge boulder with several snakes 

 carved on its upper surface. We called 

 it Snake Rock (see page 497, April, 

 1913). 



In these excavations we found large 

 quantities of curiously shaped stones of 

 a type not used by the Incas, so far as 

 we know. Their character is well 

 brought out in the drawings shown on 

 page 204. Many of them are made of a 

 green micaceous or chloritic slaty schist. 

 They were probably quarried at the foot 

 of one of the precipices on Machu Picchu 

 Mountain. Their use is largely problem- 

 atical. 



In some ways thev are one of the most 



interesting features of the collections. 

 It is possible that they are record stones. 

 A few similar ones were found by Pro- 

 fessor Saville in Ecuador, and Dr. Dor- 

 sey found similar ones on the Island of 

 La Plata, ofif the coast of Ecuador. An 

 eminent Peruvian archeologist, Senor 

 Gonzalez de la Rosa, believed that the 

 pre-Incas kept their accounts in record 

 stones, just as the Incas used quip us, a 

 series of different colored and diversely 

 knotted strings. Professor Saville, in 

 his "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," 

 has the following' to say in regard to 

 these : 



'!We quote herewith from Velasco, the 

 source which has undoubtedly served 

 Mr. de la Rosa in coming to his conclu- 

 sion. In the 'Plistoria Antigua del Reino 

 de Quito,' by Velasco, he states that he 

 obtained his information from the work 

 of Fray Marcos de Niza, whose history, 

 he says, is the only fountain of informa- 

 tion which merits confidence. UnfoT- 

 tunately, we know of this work only 

 through the extracts which have been 

 quoted by A'elasco. On page 7, volume 

 2, A'elasco writes : 



" 'They used .a kind of writing more 

 imperfect than that of the Peruvian 

 quipos. They reduced it [the writing] 

 to certain archives, deposits made of 

 wood, stone, and clay, with divers sepa- 

 rations, in which they arranged little 

 stones of distinct sizes, colors, and angu- 

 lar form, because they were excellent 

 lapidaries. With the different combina- 

 tion of these they perpetuated their do- 

 ings and formed their count of all.' 



"On the same page, in treating of the 

 number of years of the Cara rule of the 

 province of Quito before the coming of 

 the Incas, he continues : 'Some, by their 

 traditions and the deposits of the little 

 stones, extended this to seven hundred 

 years, with the succession of eighteen 

 scyris; and others, with the same counts 

 and traditions, only extended it to five 

 hundred years, with the succession of 

 eighteen scyris/ These statements clearly 

 show the system to have been imperfect. 

 Again, in treating of the burial customs 

 of the scyri, or kings of Quito, Velasco 

 writes, on page 33, as follows (see page 

 203). 



