A dark investigation into the nightmare of Hitler’s Aryan worldview, Nazi racial policies, how ‘bog-bodies’ were used by Himmler as justification for murder, SS expeditions to Tibet, (Hitler thought Buddha was the last great Aryan leader), gun-wielding modern-day neo-Nazis, the complicity of the scientific community to provide the SS with the pseudo-legitimacy to justify industrial mass-murder and more – I think it’s one of the strongest films in the series. There are more videos on the Solving History site… If possible I would advise reading my blog before hand as I hope it helps before important context for the investigation… Read it here….

Having watched and studied the Indiana Jones films in some depth, I never thought the Nazi connection to the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail or even secret SS expeditions to the Himalayas was even remotely plausible or what they actually represented. Like many times before, I was of course wrong. And alarmingly so. I have not felt so shocked and embarrassed about how little I knew about a period of history of such unspeakable horror.

It’s no secret that Hitler and Himmler had a twisted historical worldview where three groups existed: Founders of Culture (Aryans), Bearers of culture and Destroyers of culture (vermin). They believed there was once a mighty tribe of original Atlanteans, a master race of Aryans that once ruled the world. Often they had Nordic traits including a long head, narrow face, flat forehead, narrow nose, angular chin, thin lips, tall slender body, blue eyes and blond hair. Probably at their great embarrassment, neither Hitler nor Himmler fitted this prescription. Himmler was once appropriately described as looking like a half-starved shrew and when challenged on this point his defence was pathetic at best: “I may not look Nordic, but I possess a Nordic brain” and in defence, Hitler was known to quote scientist Herman Gauch who in 1933 cleared up any confusion with the cryptic but immortal lines: “The reason why birds can be taught better than other animals is explained by the fact that their mouths are Nordic in structure”.

In the minds of Hitler and Himmler this was just the beginning of their insanity and the destruction they would wreak in their evil, twisted perspective. Hitler believed his nation and race had become weak, corrupted by an infusion of degenerate elements into the bloodstream. In his mind, society had to be cleansed, to be built on strong, racially pure blood-stock – an idea he made repeatedly clear, not least in 1942: “I shall have no peace of mind until I have planted a seed of Nordic blood wherever the population stand in need of regeneration”. But to enact his horrific vision upon his world, first he and Himmler needed to prove the existence of an Aryan race, and provide racial profiling of Aryans to support their racial policies.

Himmler took the lead and set up the official, scholarly sounding Das Ahnenerbe, the Ancestral Heritage Society. Their formal role was to promote ‘the science of ancient intellectual history… unearth new accomplishments and deeds of Germany’s ancestors… and communicate the findings to the public”. They possessed a public veneer of being an elite think tank of 137 German scholars, brilliant thinkers, representing all academia including history, biology, linguistics, geology, geneticists, archaeology, anthropology etc etc. They cultivated an air of solid professional integrity, disguising all their ideas as science and fact when in reality they were devoted to myth-making, distorting the truth and churning out tailored evidence to support Hitler and Himmler’s insane historical, and completely unsubstantiated, world view.

Das Ahnenerbe was run under the banner of the Himmler’s SS, academics became senior officers, and the SS provided logistical and military support for some of their expeditions. In order to provide pseudo-legitimacy to their ideas of Aryan supremacy or appear to retrieve some sort of ancient Aryan knowledge, expeditions were sent out to the four corners of the world: to Iceland to search for the Holy Grail (I kid you not you!), to Iran searching for evidence of ancient kings of pure Aryan blood, to Finland to record and film ancient magical rites (sounds recorded by a man called BOSE – any connection?), to Croatia, Serbia and Iraq to study the role of the Aryans in the Roman Empire and even to Tibet to measure the skulls of the Tibetans who they believed were the ancient immigrants and survivors from Atlantis. Wurst, the unfortunately named expedition leader, wrote in his report that “there is great similarity between the words of the Fuhrer and those of that other great Aryan personality, Buddha”. There you have it! That’s what we’re dealing with here – people who believed Buddha was an Aryan.

As we explore in this film, there was far greater depth to their delusion and I wish I could laugh at just how insane they were, but of course there is nothing remotely funny about the impact of their delusion and their subsequent industrialised mass murder. With the fabricated legitimacy constructed by the academic community, the Nazis established racial policies long before World War Two even started that included:
• July 1933: The Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring – led to Compulsory sterilization of 400,000 people including those suffering from schizophrenia, deafness, hereditary blindness, epilepsy and severe alcoholism (this was the precursor to Action T4)
• 1935: Nuremberg Laws – pseudo-scientific basis presented for racial discrimination of Jews
• 1935: The laws of the Protection of German Blood and German Honour
• Lebensraum: As detailed in Hitler’s Mein Kampf – the German people needed increased “living space” (land and raw materials) for the expansion of the Aryan race – mixed Lebensraum with racism to provide the blueprint for aggression and invasion, occupation of Poland, Operation Barbarossa etc.
• Action T4: During the Nuremberg trials, it was estimated that 275,000 people had been killed under Hitler’s Secret memo of September 1st 1939 to kill those ‘unworthy of life’ to ‘improve racial hygiene’
• ‘Final Solution’: the industrialised mass murder of millions classified under Nazi racial policies of being ‘unworthy of life’: including Jews and Untermenschen (“under-human”) – gypsies, homosexuals, disabled, Slavic and non-Slavic Russians.

The Ahnenerbe were more than just a cult of crazy scientists – they provided the scientific justification for racial policies to promote racial purity that the Nazis presented as legitimacy for their aggression and the slaughter of millions. Some of the files of the Ahnenerbe were presented during the Nuremberg trials and a few were charged with war crimes varying from the plundering of museums and private art collections, to the cold brutality of human experimentation including exploring new ways to freeze, poison, and sterilize people and even creating a human skeleton collection.

Here we have a precedent of unspeakable horror, but this type of inhumanity, could and has happened again – in East Timor, Kosovo, Iraq, West Papua, Rwanda, Darfur to name but a few. In ‘Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity’ Goldhagen examine why people commit acts of mass murder and whether they were coerced into it. His research reveals that during the Holocaust, “no German perpetrator was ever killed, sent to a concentration camp, imprisoned, or punished in any serious way for refusing to kill Jews”. They, like others who carry out such atrocities, are motivated by politics and their ideology, believing what they are doing is right and necessary and there is little, sometimes, no coercion involved. “Mass elimination”, Goldhagen explains, “is always preventable and always results from conscious political choice…mass murder is a political act… it is not an expression of human nature and it’s not inevitable.”

I cant phantom how these lessons could ever be forgotten, and how this horror and cruelty has ever been allowed to happen again. But as history repeats itself, this will probably happen again. What can we do? I do not know. But we can start with burdening our consciences, take responsibility, look hard and not look away, speak up, question, and don’t claim we know nothing, or we too become complicity in these tragedies.

Wealth From Murder and Theft
The Nazis had a sick penchant for plundering every nation they invaded, most famously for their gold reserves and art. Germany began the war with reserves in the Reichsbank of around $208 million, of which some $97million represented gold already stolen from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Danzig. The total amount of gold looted by the Nazis during the war itself, not only from the defeated nations, such as Belgium, Holland and Hungary, but from Jewish and other victims, is now estimated at $580 million. The gold came from governments and civilians, including Jews murdered in concentration camps, from whom everything was taken down to the gold fillings of their teeth. Of this about $400 million (worth $4 billion today,) went to Switzerland either to the Swiss National Bank’s own account or through their banks to other nations. I’m ashamed to say, that I didn’t know that much about the Swiss connection during the war so I’ve been doing a bit of digging.

Nazi Gold Trading
The Swiss accepted some $280m ($2.8 billion today) on their own account and the rest went directly to the accounts of other countries (Portugal, Spain and Sweden, Turkey, Argentina) in payment for goods and raw materials. Most of it has never been recovered. The Bergier commission (an investigation set up by the Swiss Government) says 76% of Nazi gold transactions went through Switzerland and the volume of trade between Swiss private banks and war-time Germany was at least three times higher than earlier estimates indicated. The Swiss returned only $58 million in gold, keeping gold valued by a Swiss historian at $350 million ($3.5 billion at today’s prices!).

Sinister Swiss Accountants
They also kept most of an estimated $250 million to $500 million in liquidated German assets — even some from German Jews. Half of this was supposed to go to stateless victims, who finally got about $28 million. In 1962, Swiss banks began “finding” “lost” bank accounts, finally returning $9.5 million to rightful owners in the early 1970s. Pressed again in 1996, they suddenly “found” another $32 million in 1996. In the past few years, they have now apparently located $46.8 million in 5,600 “dormant” accounts opened by “foreigners” before May 1945. They are still a long way short of “finding” all the missing accounts.

Aiding the Enemy
The Swiss National Bank, as well as the Bank for International Settlements (based in Switzerland) openly carried out gold transactions between neutral central banks and the Reichsbank during the war, thus facilitating the Nazi war effort. The US War Department, Treasury Department, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Justice Department all accused the Swiss of also engaging in direct production for Nazi Germany and providing protection for their investments. Swiss shipping lines furnished Germany with a large number of boats for the transport of goods. Switzerland also allowed an unprecedented use of its railways to link Germany and Italy for the transport of coal and other goods. Switzerland provided Germany with arms, ammunition, aluminum, machinery and precision tools, as well as agricultural products. Swiss convoys carried products from Spain across France through Switzerland to Germany. This collaboration continued even as the Germans retreated and the threat of invasion evaporated. As late as early 1945, Switzerland gutted an agreement it had just reached with the United States to freeze German assets and to restrict purchases of gold from Germany.

An Amber Room Connection?
In the making of this film, we focused mainly on investigating the Amber Room, but the research in Nazi looting and especially the little known complicity of Switzerland, has truly helped to inform our wider understanding of these events. I’m obviously not saying that the Amber room in held in Swiss bank vaults (although anything is possible – and it seems very possible that the Amber Room could be hidden with numbers to Swiss bank accounts), but there is still a huge amount we don’t know about what happened during the war. The Nazi legacy, including the complicity of others and the location of some of their plunder, still remains unsolved.

Atlantis is one of the oldest myths of mankind, a lost paradise and a by-word for all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations. It has been assigned to almost every possible place on earth including Sardinia, Crete, Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Israel, Sinai, Sweden, Bahamas, Bermuda Triangle, Japan and even Kumari Kandam (off India). There seems to be no limit to human fantasy!

Plato (427-347 BC) was the first person to actually write about Atlantis and all other reports, sources and imaginings stem from his original account one of his Dialogues, Critias and Timaeus:
“Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island, and several others, and over parts of the continent… in the center of the whole island, there was a plain, said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile…”

Plato was a Greek philosopher, mathematician and one of the key founding brains of natural philosophy, science and Western philosophy. He wrote 35 Dialogues and 13 letters that form the basis of this thinking, often presenting a connection between the gods, humans and nature and even the glory of Atlantis was created by Poseidon:
“Alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water which he (Poseidon) turned as with a lathe, each having its circumference equidistant every way from the center, so that no man could get to the island.”

This story, like many of his writings was intended as an educational story to illustrate his philosophical ideas. In the Dialogues of Critias and Timaeus, it seems that Plato is not telling an accurate historical account of Atlantis; rather he’s using Atlantis to juxtapose the glories and virtues of Athens and examine ideas of governance and power. Plato concludes the Dialogue with the destruction of Atlantis:
“But there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of misfortune… the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea…”

Plato intended the story of Atlantis to fundamentally to be a warning tale about the rise of decadence, taking the gods for granted and misusing power. But if it is, like all his other writings, just a way to illuminate readers about his philosophical ideas, are there any historical origins upon which he is basing his stories? There is no suggestion in any of Plato’s writings that he heard any of the dialogues first hand. Historians believe that the original source for the Critias and Timaeus was a man called Solon (640 BC-560 BC) who learned of the disappearance of a great island empire from Egyptian priests at Sais and then discussed this with Plato’s grandfather who then passed the story on to Plato.

To really drive home his point, Plato used the oldest story-telling technique in the world – using a story that was fresh in the minds of his audience to gain empathy, understanding and impact. In his lifetime, the great city of Helike, on the Gulf of Corinth was wiped out, presumably by a combination of earthquakes and tsunamis – an event that still resonated strongly in the minds of his readers.
It is impossible to categorically verify these sources, but it seems highly improbable Plato’s story was based on nothing at all, and instead he modified the tales he heard, mixed with recent events for the purposes of his Dialogue. But, within Plato’s writings these are the geographical, geological, historical, cultural and archeological clues can help us to unravel the riddle of the history and even a possible projected location of Atlantis:

1. “Circular Island with concentric structures” – raises the geological question of where would there have been a place like this?

2. “Very fertile plain” – volcanic soil is the most fertile, could Atlantis have been built on an active volcanic region?

3. “Beyond the pillars of Hercules” – in Plato’s time these were the Straights of Gibraltar, so many take this literally to be beyond the Mediterranean in the Atlantic. However in older texts, the Pillars of Hercules were not associated with the Straights, and perhaps Plato was using the phrase ‘Beyond the pillars of Hercules’ to say ‘in a land, far, far way’ which fits with Plato’s intention of providing an antithesis to the Greek society he was defending.

4. “9000 years before this time” - Plato wrote circa 300 BC but many believe there was a mix up with the old Egyptian number system and calendars and should read 900 years, not 9000 years. So if Plato’s account was based upon Solon’s journey to Egypt 300 years before Plato, then 900+300+300 = 1500 BC – give or take a few years?

5. “Rich marine community with economy provided by intensive trade, shipping and vine” - Can modern archaeology identify a Mediterranean location or civilization from 1500-1700 BC that fulfills this description?

6. Destruction:”…but there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of misfortune… the island of Atlantis… disappeared in the depths of the sea” – Are there any geological or archaeological clues about such a massive destructive event around these key periods? Post destruction, Plato describes the resulting landscape as being an ‘impassable barrier of mud’. What could have caused this? Volcanic fallout, tsunamis and debris?

7. “black, white and red” (part of Plato’s description of the landscape after the catastrophe) – These may well be drawn from the key colors of a volcanic landscape: black (lava), white (pumice and ash), red (lava and volcanic mineral deposits.

Atlantis continues to inspire fantasy and fiction, but as Einstein, of all people, told us: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” There are many mysteries we still do not understand, but I think we can be certain of the meaning of Plato’s tale of Atlantis – the arrogance of power and the decadence and decline that follow – still remain a portent warning for every generation.

El Dorado (Spanish for “the golden one”) is a legend that arose with the Spanish invasion and destruction of the Inca Empire. The concept of El Dorado underwent several transformations, and eventually accounts of the previous myth were also combined with those of the legendary city. The resulting El Dorado enticed European explorers for two centuries. Among the earliest stories was the one told by Diego de Ordaz’s lieutenant Martinez, who claimed to have been rescued from shipwreck, conveyed inland, and entertained by “El Dorado” himself (1531).

The Spanish believed there to be a city full of gold somewhere deep in the jungles and a place where the remainder of the Inca gold would be found. In the gold-greedy minds of the Spanish and others, the legend of El Dorado often changed and some believe it could have begun with the story of a South American tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and would dive into a lake of pure mountain water. The legend originates in present-day Colombia, where conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada first found the Muiscas, a nation in the modern day Cundinamarca and Boyacá highlands of Colombia, in 1537. The story of Muisca rituals was brought to Quito by Sebastián de Belalcázar’s men; mixed with other rumors, there arose the legend of ‘El Dorado’ (meaning the Golden Man rather than a place – ‘el indio dorado’, the golden Indian or ‘El Rey Dorado’, The Golden King). Imagined as a place, El Dorado became a kingdom, an empire, the city of this legendary golden king. Deluded by a similar legend, Francisco Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro would depart from Quito in 1541 in a famous and disastrous expedition towards the Amazon Basin; as a result of this, however, Orellana became the first person to navigate the Amazon River all the way to its mouth.

Tribal ceremony
The Zipa used to cover his body in gold dust and, from his raft, he offered treasures to the Guatavita goddess in the middle of the sacred lake. This old Muisca tradition became the origin of El Dorado legend. This model is on display in the Gold Museum, Bogotá, Colombia. The original narrative is to be found in the rambling chronicle, El Carnero, of Juan Rodriguez Freyle. According to Freyle, the king or chief priest of the Muisca was said to be ritually covered with gold dust at a religious festival held in Lake Guatavita, near present-day Bogotá. In 1638 Juan Rodriguez Troxell wrote this account, addressed to the cacique or governor of Guatavita:

“The ceremony took place on the appointment of a new ruler. Before taking office, he spent some time secluded in a cave, without women, forbidden to eat salt, or to go out during daylight. The first journey he had to make was to go to the great lagoon of Guatavita, to make offerings and sacrifices to the demon which they worshipped as their god and lord. During the ceremony which took place at the lagoon, they made a raft of rushes, embellishing and decorating it with the most attractive things they had. They put on it four lighted braziers in which they burned much moque, which is the incense of these natives, and also resin and many other perfumes. The lagoon was large and deep, so that a ship with high sides could sail on it, all loaded with an infinity of men and women dressed in fine plumes, golden plaques and crowns…. As soon as those on the raft began to burn incense, they also lit braziers on the shore, so that the smoke hid the light of day. At this time they stripped the heir to his skin, and anointed him with a sticky earth on which they placed gold dust so that he was completely covered with this metal. They placed him on the raft … and at his feet they placed a great heap of gold and emeralds for him to offer to his god. In the raft with him went four principal subject chiefs, decked in plumes, crowns, bracelets, pendants and ear rings all of gold. They, too, were naked, and each one carried his offering …. when the raft reached the centre of the lagoon, they raised a banner as a signal for silence. The gilded Indian then … [threw] out all the pile of gold into the middle of the lake, and the chiefs who had accompanied him did the same on their own accounts. … After this they lowered the flag, which had remained up during the whole time of offering, and, as the raft moved towards the shore, the shouting began again, with pipes, flutes, and large teams of singers and dancers. With this ceremony the new ruler was received, and was recognized as lord and king.It is believed that these rituals[citation needed] were carried out by the Muisca in several lakes along their territory.”

The Muisca towns and their treasures quickly fell to the conquistadores. Taking stock of their newly won territory, the Spaniards realized that — in spite of the quantity of gold in the hands of the Indians — there were no golden cities, nor even rich mines, since the Muiscas obtained all their gold in trade. But at the same time, the Spanish began to hear stories of El Dorado from captured Indians, and of the rites which used to take place at the lagoon of Guatavita. There were Indians still alive who had witnessed the last Guatavita ceremony, and the stories these Indians told were consistent.

Guatavita today bears a curious notch in its cliffside, evidence of an attempt to drain the lake in 1580.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Guatavita
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/754792/posts
http://www.kaiku.com/eldorado.html

Expeditions in search of El Dorado:
In 1540 Gonzalo Pizarro, the younger half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, was made the governor of the provenance of Quito in northern Ecuador. Shortly after taking lead in Quito, Gonzalo learned from many of the natives of a valley far to the east rich in both cinnamon and gold. He banded together 340 soldiers and about 4000 Indians in 1541 and led them eastward down the Rio Coca and Rio Napo. Francisco de Orellana, Gonzalo’s nephew, accompanied his uncle on this expedition. Gonzalo quit after many of the soldiers and Indians had died from hunger, disease, and periodic attacks by hostile natives. He ordered Orellana to continue downstream, where he eventually made it to the Atlantic Ocean, discovering the Amazon (named Amazon because of a tribe of female warriors that attacked Orellana’s men while on their voyage.)

Other expeditions include that of Philipp von Hutten (1541–1545), who led an exploring party from Coro on the coast of Venezuela; and of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the Governor of El Dorado, who started from Bogotá (1569).

Sir Walter Raleigh, who resumed the search in 1595, described El Dorado as a city on Lake Parime far up the Orinoco River in Guyana. This city on the lake was marked on English and other maps until its existence was disproved by Alexander von Humboldt during his Latin-America expedition (1799–1804)

PAITITI:

Background:
Paititi refers to the legendary lost city said to lie east of the Andes, hidden somewhere within the remote rain forests of southeast Peru, northern Bolivia, and southwest Brazil. In Peru the Paititi legend revolves around the story of the culture-hero Inkarrí, who, after he founded Q’ero and Cuzco, retreated toward the jungles of Pantiacolla, to live out the rest of his days at his refuge city of Paititi. Other variants of the legend see Paititi as an Incan refuge in the border area between Bolivia and Brazil.

The veil rises little by little on the mysteries of Paititi, one of the most attractive stories of the Inca mythology. An immense city which, according to the legend, would be hidden in the green ocean of the Peruvian Amazonian forest. The starting point of the legend is little after the death of Atahuallpa, the Inca reigning when the Spanish arrived. Captured by Pizarro, he proposed, in exchange of his freedom, a fabulous treasure. Covetous, Pizarro had accepted. The ransom of the emperor then started to flow in Cajamarca, in the Spanish camp, of all the provinces of Tahuantinsuyu. The Spanish believed that this was just a part of the Inca wealth, being brought along a secret network of routes and secret cities. Ever since, the word “Paititi” was mentioned…

Could it be the hidden face of the Empire of the Sun, or a secret Inca stronghold? Nobody knows, partly because no one has ever found it. If it did exist, it seems likely that it was at first the place where all the raw gold from around the mines of the Inca empire was brought and then worked by the finest artisans. Once crafted it was then distributed across the Empire wherever the leader’s saw fit – including the capital Cuzco. But how to find it?

Historical accounts suggest that the Incas believed that the land of Paititi was associated with the ‘hacha hacha’, the exotic yet terrible jungle, perhaps as far away as the Río Tambopata and the plains of the Mojos in Bolivia. The mysterious jungles of Cosñipata, to the northeast of Cusco, were the target of great military campaigns by the Inca Pachakuti Yupanki, and his son Topa Yupanki, and Incan roads were built heading north along the ridge of the Paucartambo range overlooking the selva to the east, and from Pisac to Paucartambo and then over the puna, the highland tundra, and down into the lowlands of Pilcopata. This was the Antisuyo, the forested eastern quarter of the Incan world, the concept of which was just as important to the Incan psyche as its jungle products were to Incan sumptiousness. To Spanish Conquistadores such as Gómez de Tordoya and Juan Alvarez Maldonado, Paititi was that rich land beyond the Río Madre de Dios, which lured most of those they led to their deaths.

To followers of the great 18th Century insurrectionists Juan Santos Atahualpa and Tupac Amaru the second, Paititi was the mysterious realm to the east of the Andes over which these leaders ruled and into which they would retire to escape death. And to Peruvian and gringo adventurers–as well as to the many Inca aficionados who see Pizarro’s entry into Cusco in 1533 as that of a feared and despised conquering force, Paititi means another Machu Picchu, waiting to be found in some hidden corner of mountain or jungle: a ruined refuge city to which the Incans fled in the wake of the Spanish invasion, and a site which contained, most importantly, that which was most conspicuously lacking at Machu Picchu–gold and treasure.

As Cusco’s contemporary historian Victor Angles Vargas has emphasized in his 1992 ‘El Paititi No Existe’, the Incas of Cusco in 1533 did not view Pizarro’s entourage as one to be feared as enslavers, but, rather, as liberators who had just killed the Cusco faction’s most feared enemy, the Inca Atahualpa, leader of the Incas of what is now Ecuador, who had just vanquished the Cusqueño armies in a civil war of extreme cruelty. The Incas would thus have had no reason to flee en masse from Cusco, and, as well, it would not have been in their mindset to hide gold and treasure, which for them had a spiritual and ritual and artistic–but not a financial– significance.

Recent expeditions to seek Paititi

1925 Percy Harrison Fawcett (Mato Grosso, Brasil) – in search of the City of Z – film with Brad Pitt coming out soon!

1954/5 1955 Hans Ertl, Bolivia)

1972 Bob Nichols

1984-00 12 expeditions by Gregory Deyermenjian (who we undertook our expedition with) in the remote mountain and jungle areas of the Departments of Cusco and Madre de Dios, including the following: extensive explorations and documentation of Incan remains in Mameria (1984, ‘85, ‘86, and 1989); first ascent of Apu Catinti (1986); documentation of Incan “barracks” at Plateau of Toporake (1989); exploration and documentation of Petroglyphs of Pusharo (1991); traverse of Incan “Road of Stone” past the Plateau of Toporake (1993); discovery and documentation of Incan and pre-Incan remains in Callanga (1994); first ascent of, and discovery of Incan complex at base of, Callanga’s peak “Llactapata” (1995); first reaching on foot, exploring, and documentation of the true nature of Manu’s the “Pyramids of Paratoari” (1996); following furthest north the Incan “Road of Stone” onto the Plateau of Pantiacolla, 1999 – discovery of “Lago de Ángel” and its Incan platforms north of Río Yavero on the headwaters of the Rio Timpia: http://www.athenapub.com/timpia1.htm and 2000: full investigation of claims that “Paititi” was to be found on Río Choritiari - http://www.athenapub.com/timpia2.htm

1997 Lars Hafksjold (Madre de Dios, Peru)

1998-00 In August, 1998, the exploratory Chilean young man Camilo Valdivieso realizes his first investigations in Pusharo’s petroglyphs and his relation with the lost city. 2000. Researches towards the river Alto Madre de Dios, developed by Valdivieso and an international group.

2001: Kota Mama II expedition led by John Blashford-Snell (The Scientific Exploration Society) located significant ancient ruins in the jungle east of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, and which are believed to have been those discovered earlier by Hans Ertl.

2002 Camilo Valdivieso achieve towards the nearness of the Sinkibenia river , finding important archaeological evidences on the presence Inca in zones not explored previously.

2002 Jacek Pałkiewicz expedition

2004: “Quest for Paititi” – http://www.paititi.com – exploration team of Deyermenjian and Mamani discovered several important Incan ruins along branches of the Incan Road of Stone at the peak known as Último Punto in the northern part of the Pantiacolla region of Peru.

2005 French Thierry Jamin and French-Peruvian Herbert Cartagena record Pusharo petroglyphs and discover large geoglyphs in a valley nearby. They think they may have found a “map” where Paititi might be localized. (Further details below) Further expeditions are set up each year – click here to follow links to all these expeditions. http://www.granpaititi.com/AN/paititi.php

2006: Paititi Expedition: Beyond the Pantiacolla Plateau and the Furthest Reach of the Incas, carried out in June 2006 by Gregory Deyermenjian and Paulino Mamani to the Río Taperachi north of the Yavero, found the furthest Incan settlements yet identified beyond the highland remains they had found in 2004 at “Último Punto.”

2009: Expedition Antisuyu: organised by Thierry Jamin to search for a larger settlement, possibly Paititi thought not far from the archaeological complex of Mameria, small agrarian center of Inca origin, discovered in 1979 by his friends Nicole and Herbert Cartagena:
http://www.granpaititi.com/AN/antisuyu2009_objectif.php

The Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532, lead by Francisco Pizarro – 182 men, mainly independent freeloaders and mercenaries, motivated by the greed for gold and carrying out their invasion in the name of God and the Crown. They set about ripping out the golden heart of the Inca monuments described in part by Ciezo de Leon:
“In of the one of the houses, which was the richest, there was the figure of the sun, very large and made of gold, very expensively worked and enriched with many precious stones. They also had a garden, the clods of which were made of pieces of fine gold, and it was artificially sown with golden maize, the stalks as well as the leaves and cobs, being of that metal…”

The Spanish famously kidnapped the Inca Atahualpa and ransomed him, unsurprisingly for gold – the Inca bought gold from across the empire, including Prince Choqe Auki. En route, he heard that Pizarro hadn’t kept to his end of the bargain and had strangled Atahualpa. Legend has it, he hotfooted it through Calca, Lores, Choque, and Kancho Lago with 200,000 llamas with gold and Inca treasures. The Spanish went after him but never found him, nor his gold. Whether this is true or based on legend, we don’t know; but it is just part of the origin of the mystery of a lost city of gold. What we do know is that the Spanish stole so much gold that it altered the whole European economic system.

A Peruvian economist Virgilio Rool tallied up the value of the gold and silver they stole (what the Inca called the ‘Sweat of the Sun’ and ‘The tears of the moon’), estimated the destruction and damage they inflicted, and reckoned it to be around $600billion. He lodged a demand for compensation with the Spanish government who instead replied with an offering to upkeep the Spanish churches – a deliberately tactless move I imagine, as in the eyes of some locals and others, the churches are seen as monuments to the genocide the Spanish carried out in the name of God. Whilst this figure of $600billion may seem high at first, it cannot of course come close to compensating for the cultural and moral damage inflicted upon the Andean people and the effect that this has even today. Whilst it’s true the Conquistadors did not intend to kill so many people (two thirds were unintentionally killed by smallpox brought in by the Spanish that the Andean people had no immunity to), and I’m not one to be an apologist for the Inca (who were not the most savoury crowd in history), what occurred was simply genocide motivated by the greed of gold. Sadly it seems we have not learned these lessons of history as the idea of raping a country of its wealth, often killing its inhabitants for the benefits of others, continues.

Gold was not in short supply and even to this day, the Andes and the Amazon are mined for gold. During our expedition up in the high Andes, we saw countless streams of white quartz, one of the key indicators of gold. Since the initial invasion, The Spanish, British and others have mounted expeditions in search of into the unmapped regions of South America usually motivated by one of a number of factors: 1) searching for routes to the south seas; 2) Hope of finding hidden kingdoms of fabulous wealth (El Dorado, Patiti, City of Z (the latter made famous by British Explorer Percy Fawcett of which a film is scheduled for release this year starring Brad Pitt); 3) Hope of discovering mineral deposits or fertile land for settlement. For centuries explorers have believed there could be a lost city of the Inca, El Dorado, Patiti, City of Z or whatever else you may call it, but is it is nothing more than a metaphor for hidden wealth rather than a real place?

There are still large chunks of the Amazon and high Andes that remain unmapped and largely unexplored by the outside world, so is it not possible that within these unchartered areas, there could still be something waiting to be found? Machu Pichu is still the most famous lost city to be found recently, and that was only discovered (or revealed to the outside world, as presumably the locals always new it was there) in 1911 by Hiram Bingham. The amusing, and oft-neglected part of this tale, is that he only spent a few hours at the site when he discovered it, took some pictures, made a rough sketch map, jotted down a few laconic lines in his journal, only afforded the site 7lines in his expedition report (whilst writing 2 pages on some old bones he found in a glacier) and took a year to return to it. Bingham was actually looking for Hatun Villacamba, the lost city of the Inca and he was initially convinced Machu Pichu wasn’t it. But Machu Pichu is not alone and the great Inca sites of Gran Pajaten and Espiritu Pampa (Vilacamba – rediscovered in 1964) should be considered among the pantheon of important archaeological discoveries in the 20th Century. But history continues to be revealing itself.

In the last few months, explorers using satellite technology have detected giant mounds over 155 miles, that seem to point to a sophisticated pre-Columbian culture near Brazil’s border with Bolivia (read more). These rediscoveries at the very least should stimulate the possibility that more sites, and possibly cities remain hidden.

Tan: how did I get away with impersonating a priest? Long story. Sorry cant reveal the secrets of my trade except it’s amazing what you can buy online… plus it was during the final days of the JPII, so there were lots of priests around ;-) And I certainly cant tell you about the transvestite experience in Reading or dancing as the Devil! I’ll never work again ;-)

CC Richards: Would you consider investigation into the yet unsolved staggering number of sexual homicides of Ciudad de Juarez? Some of my colleagues at Unreported World I think have been looking into it…

Tessie: I’m sorry that you think I had no respect for the guardian in the Ark film. Sadly not everything makes the edit and we spent a lot longer with him, explaining our situation, listening to his position than ever makes the edit. He was incredibly media savvy and I took my lead from my contact featured in the film, who had spent years living with monks on Tana and knew the Guardian well. He felt he was knew what was going on and was just playing with us regarding the cameras. At no time did I or the others feel we were disrespecting his beliefs and culture. As I hope this is evident with all my work as a journalist and working with indigenous groups (Kombai, Mek and Machigenga), cultural respect is always the backbone of my work, and I apologise that you feel that this was not clearly conveyed.

Evie: Solving history in the UK? I hope so… looks like mid May…

Amanda: I have always loved to travel – it was rooted in me by my folks – my father told me insane stories about his adventures whilst my mother instilled a social context to my work, encouraging me not to wander around the world, but have focus to what I do and ensure I give something back. I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rules for having a career like this one, (I don’t have a degree in journalism – instead Politics and Mandarin), but the most important thing to have is insatiable curiosity and not be afraid to make mistakes!

Chris: Neo-Nazis in Pittsburg? Sorry, cant tell you yet! Tune into Hitler’s Mummies (in a month or so to find out;-))

Reen and Lissa: Many thanks for the invitation in NYC. Sadly, I wasn’t there long enough this time, but hopefully next time! I’ll let you know when I’m next coming through and hope to have time to share a coffee…

NAZCA

Steve: grave-robbers: thank you for your concern about meeting the grave-robbers. Sadly I don’t share you belief that we were facilitators by not reporting them. I feel that if we had bought their skulls etc we would have been party to their crimes and encouraging further grave-robbing. Instead, as journalists and documentary makers, we felt we were recording what they had done, making their crimes better known and hopefully contributing to a wider awareness of what is happening, and we hope subsequently contributing to ending their crimes. It is a difficult subject to know what to do but we feel we are not policemen, rather journalists and think it should be the mandate and responsibility of Peruvian authorities to tackle these crimes, rather than us.

Aliens: well far from me to say that Aliens don’t exist. Steve Hawking and other far more intelligent than me, reckon that by the laws of probability, there is a very high chance that intelligent extra-terrestrial life does exist somewhere in the Universe. However, I do think that aliens had nothing to do with making these lines, mostly because it does assume that prehistoric peoples (in this case the Nazca) were helpless, incompetent and forgetful savages. On the other hand, if the Nazca lines were alien runways as Erich von Daniken and others postulate, then surely the aliens would have been rather baffled by the giant lizards, spiders, monkeys, llamas, dogs, humming birds, criss-crossing lines etc. If aliens had made them, then it seems unusually considerate of them to have drawn out animals etc of relevance to the ancient peoples. And whilst I’m ranting, with so many lines, it would have been quite a busy airport and having made one, myself, it seems a little difficult to believe that they could have landed without disturbing any of the artwork! For me the more interesting question is why do people believe in aliens? Of all the indigenous peoples I have met, not one person has ever spoken and described an alien and their cultures are some of the most important living links to the ancient world – and surely an alien visitation would have been passed down through spoken word through the generations…. It seems that it is a product of our recent, sci-fi times. Personally, I think alien and UFO sightings are the mythology of the Space Age, rather than angels or witches, we now have extra-terresterials as products of our creative imaginations, providing the same poetic and existential function to give us deeper roots and bearing in our universe whilst expressing our hunger for mystery. As Einstein said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious”. We don’t know the answers to everything, so we should celebrate that ;-) As Lolita and others have said, proofs in the pudding and there’s no concrete pudding yet… I look forward to trying to eat one though ;-) I’m pretty confident we’ll all know about it when we do have meaningful contact with intelligent extra-terrestrial life-forms!

Reena, Kasumi: San Pedro different to the Machigenga drug? It was pretty bitter with the consistency of snot. Not recommended. And a lot weaker that the potent mix I had with the Machigenga shaman – in the Amazon, I think I tripped for 4 days, this was 12hours or so… and fortunately no imaginary cats this time.. but I did end up back in Nazca town in the middle of the night, having a few drinks with a gaudy band of transvestites who turned out to be hairdressers (I was assured the following morning, that was NOT my imagination playing tricks on me, but advised to stay out of the hairdressing salons after that ;-))

Martin: Testicles taste: well not wanting to spoil the fun for you – try them yourself!

Martin: Fear for your life: usually not, and a couple of times in the making of this series – but only for a few passing seconds when the fear gets the better of me.

Martin: back home? The one thing I miss and look forward to the most, is hanging out with friends and family. Too much time on the road makes this tricky.

Martin: Pets: nope. Although I did have a tabby cat called Octopussy as a kid – he was leading the way when I imagined hundreds of domestic cats whilst tripping with a Machigenga shaman last year.

Martin: Keep in touch with Mark? On and off – we’ve been through a lot together and whilst we’re now doing different things, we’ll always be bought together by those incredible shared experiences with the Kombai, Mek and Machigenga.

Glenda: Ceremonies at particular times of the year? Not as far as we know but its difficult to know. If anything I imagine that they would have been more often during the dry seasons when they needed to ask their Gods for rain, although it was dry most of the time in the desert! Camelot? May be next series!

Carmen: flat mountains in Nazca: I think there is a geological answer to that one that I don’t know… although there are flat mountains all around the world… Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa…

Carmen: Impact of San Pedro: the drug would have certainly altered their state… and this is the traditional use of drugs in the ancient world – to aid transformation and access the spirit world. So without being able to prove it, I can postulate that it would have been key to their relationship with the lines, the creation of the lines and their interaction – the ceremonial acts were an expression of their spirituality and perhaps even a way for them to communicate their spiritual thoughts or even engage with their spirit world. But unfortunately, without being able to prove it, we’re getting into the realm of fantasy, projection and imagination… where it is all possible! However, there is some evidence of soot and carbon deposits on the lines that they would have been used during the night, perhaps by torch-light processions and in fact the practice of ceremonial procession both during the day and night is something that was and still is practiced by Andean peoples before and after the Nazca.

Lissa: Do you think the same theory also applies to other geoglyphs in other parts of the world? Not sure – I think we’d need to examine them on a case by case basis. Although I would speculate that there is some similarities in methods of expression, although presumably for different reasons.

Lissa: Nazca Farmers Plant in their farms? To be honest I don’t know! But the original home of the potato is peru, some may be potatos!

Lissa: San Pedro duration: 12 hours!

Lissa: Inca heads? – ‘cone-heads’? Although the practice of binding skulls to elongate their shapes was practices by the Nazca and other neighbouring ancient Andean Peoples. Although I haven’t seen them anywhere else.

Click on to read the Journal from the Ark

Field Dispatch: Ark of the Covenant: Believe it or not?
Historical documents record the existence of the Ark of the Covenant as a chest that housed the 10 commandments, given by God to Moses. Fortunately there were only 10 commandments, otherwise Moses would have needed a bigger box. That aside, did it really exist and did it really house the power of God inside? Of course, I have absolutely no idea. The historic and archeological records are wholly inconclusive, but is that the point?

If you believe in the Ark of the Covenant, then the Ark exists and vice versa. If you believe the Ark is missing, then you probably believe that when it’s found, it will bring strength to the weak and the oppressed will be free. And in my book, that conclusion is pretty good thing to believe in. Amen to that. I like happy endings. But isn’t that really a bit of a cop-out?

Belief remains at the core of so many great historical mysteries, but it may also supply an all too easy “get-out-jail-free” or “one-size fits all” generic super-conclusion to many of the historical riddles we question in this series. Yes, we can look at the historical, geological and archeological records to inform our opinion, but at some point, we’re still left projecting into the unknown – often based on belief, or even faith.

But what role does belief play in influencing our understanding of history? Well obviously a lot, but it’s one of those questions that I’ve never thought to ask until starting to make this series. So what is belief and where did it come from? Well it’s clearly way above my pay-grade and brain-station to have anything meaningful to contribute on the subject, but I like the question and hopefully hopefully someone reading this will have some intelligent thoughts to contribute and challenge.

Recent archeological discoveries gives credible evidence that religious practices have occurred for the last 300,000 to 500,000 years. Today, the vast majority of the world believes in something (less than 0.005% are atheists, I think) while religious subscription is declining in Europe, it is rising in America, Africa and Asia. As we continue to push out the frontiers of our knowledge to the point when we’re even trying to replicate the conditions of the Big Bang, why do the majority continue to want and need to believe in something mysterious?
Strip back the layers and complexity of modern religious thought, structure and practice and maybe there are clues to be found in the building blocks of belief. Prayer, ritual, meditation, music, art, history (oral and written) and ancestral and cultural traditions all help us understand the origins, evolution, the role and importance of belief systems in identity and society. Belief systems have traditionally helped us explain our existence and form the basis of how we see the world around us, often providing a guide to how we relate to our world. Time and again it is a leap of faith to explain the inexplicable and at times of fear, the belief structure can provides protection, consolation and even understanding. But with the benefits of modern science, is all religion and belief as Richard Dawkins claims, delusional? If so, is there a place for delusion? And how does that understanding, help us deal with religious extremism?

Is human morality defined by our modern religions or did it grow out of primate sociality, and evolved through our tribal ancestry? These are questions that I do not know the answers to, but they are questions I feel I should ask if I want to learn about our past, and leave my minds open to enjoy the magical possibility that we might just not have all the answers.

Read this journal on the Discovery site