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"The early Spanish travellers who visited the ruined Bolivian city of Tiahuanaco at around the time of the conquest were impressed by the sheer size of its buildings and by the atmosphere of mystery that clung to them. 'I asked the natives whether these edifices were built in the time of the Inca,' wrote the chronicler Pedro Cieza de Leon, 'They laughed at the question, affirming that they were made long before the Incas reign and . . . that they had heard from their forbears that everything to be seen there appeared suddenly in the course of a single night . . . '1 Meanwhile another Spanish visitor of the same period recorded a tradition which said that the stones had been lifted miraculously off the ground, 'They were carried through the air to the the sound of a trumpet.'2
Not long after the conquest a detailed decription of the city was written by the historian Garcilaso de la Vega.. No looting for treasure or for building materials had yet taken place and, though ravaged by the tooth of time, the site was still magnificent enough to take his breath away:
We must now say something about the large and almost incredible buildings of Tiahuanaco. There is an artificial hill, of great height, built on stone foundations so that the earth will not slide. There are gigantic figures carved in stone . . . these are much worn which shows there great antiquity. There are walls, the stones of which are so enormous it is difficult to imagine what human force could have put

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them in place. And there are the remains of strange buildings, the most remarkable being stone portals, hewn out of solid rock; these stand on bases anything up to 30 feet long, 15 feet wide and 6 feet thick, base and portal being all of one piece . . . How, and with the use of what tools or implements, massive works of such size could be achieved are questions which we are unable to answer . . . Nor can it be imagined how such enormous stones could have been brought here . . .3
That was in the sixteenth century. more than 400 years later, at the end of the twentieth century, I shared Garcilaso's puzzlement Scattered around Tiahuanaco, in defiance of the looters who had robbed the site of so much in recent years were monoliths so big and cumbersome yet so well cut that they almost seemed to be the work of super-beings.
Sunken temple
Like a disciple at the feet of his master, I sat on the floor of the sunken temple and looked up at the enigmatic face which all the scholars of Tiahuanaco believed was intended to represent Viracocha. Untold centuries ago, unknown hands had carved this likeness into a tall pillar of red rock. Though much eroded, it was the likeness of a man of power . . .
He had a high forehead, and large, round eyes. His nose was straight, narrow at the bridge flaring towards the nostrils. His lips were full. His distinguishing feature, however, was his stylish and imposing beard, which had the effect of making his face broader at the jaws than at the temples. looking more closely, I could see that the sculptor had portrayed a man whose skin was shaved all around his lips with the result that his moustache began high on his cheeks, roughly parallel with the end of his nose. From there it curved extravagantly down beside the corners of his mouth, forming an exaggerated goatee at the chin, and then followed his jawline back to his ears. Above and below the ears, on the side of the head, were carved odd representations of animals. Or perhaps it would be better to describe

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these carvings as representations of odd animals, because they looked like big, clumsy, prehistoric mammals with fat tails and club feet.
There were other points of interest. For example, the stone figure of Viracocha had been sculpted with the hands and arms folded, one below the other, over the front of a long, flowing robe. On each side of this robe appeared the sinuous form of a snake coiling upwards from ground to shoulder level. And as I looked at this beautiful design (the original of which had perhaps been embroidered on rich cloth) the picture that came into my mind was of Viracocha as a wizard or a sorcerer, a bearded, Merlin-like figure dressed in weird and wonderful clothes, calling down fire from heaven."

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"The name Merlin is supposed by some to be derived from that of the Celtic sky God Myrddin, which would link this ancient tradition of wizardry with the druids - the priests, doctors, and wise men of the Celts who were the inhabitants of Britain and France when the Romans came" 

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"Megalithic Structures - that is to say, prehistoric monuments built with stones of enormous size - exist in many parts of the world. The most famous, if not the greatest number, are found in the British Isles and in Brittany in the north-west corner of France. They are of many different kinds - dolmens or cromlechs (tables of two or more uprights supporting a flat stone on top), chambered tombs, menhirs or great stones standing alone, stone rings of various sizes and shapes (circles, flattened circles, ellipses, and egg-shaped rings), and straight avenues of standing stones arranged like grids in multiple rows.
Of all the megalithic structures by far the best known and the best preserved is the circular 'temple' of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. We call it a temple because, in the words of the official guide, 'almost everyone agrees that Stonehenge was a temple',1 but we print the word in inverted commas because there is no evidence to prove that it was ever in regular use for religious worship, much less that it was originally designed for that purpose. What was the original purpose of the founders of Stonehenge is, in fact, the core of the mystery that we are here attempting to unravel.
From the point of view of sheer size and complexity of structure perhaps the most important of the megalithic sites is the great stone ring at Avebury on the Marlborough Downs about 16 miles (25 kilometres) to the north. This is the centre of a cluster of prehistoric stones and earthworks which include the neolithic camp of Windmill Hill, the 350-foot (107 metres) long West Kennet Long Barrow, and Silbury Hill, the biggest man-made mound in Europe with a height of 130 feet (40 metres) and a base covering more than 5 acres (2hectares)' 
Of the single megalithic stones by far the biggest is the great menhir of Er Grah (Le Grand Menhir Brise), which lies broken in three pieces on a peninsular in Quiberon Bay, South Brittany, not far from the 1000-yard long stone avenues of Carnac. This megalith once stood over 60 feet high and was clearly visible from 10 miles across the sea. It is estimated to weigh 340 tons. this is six or seven times the weight of the biggest of the huge sarsen stones of Stonehenge, which itself weighs 50 tons..." 
In medieval times it was believed, not unnaturally, that the erection of the great stones at Stonehenge and elsewhere was the work of magicians. There was no other possible explanation. In his Histories of the Kings of Britain written in the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us that the stones of Stonehenge were brought to England from Ireland by the wizard Merlin to make a burial place for Britons who had been treacherously slain by the Saxon leader Hengist at a meeting to which he had invited them on Salisbury Plain. The British King Ambrosius Aurelianus (reputedly the brother of Uther Pedragon and uncle of King Arthur) wanted to build a memorial for the dead men which would last for ever, but his builders and masons could think of no way of doing this. So he sent for Mer-lin, the magician, who answered him thus:
' "If you want to grace the burial-place of these men with some lasting monument, send for the Giants' Ring which is on mount Killaraus in Ireland. In that place there is a stone construction which no man of this period could ever erect, unless he combined great skill and artistry. The stones are enormous and there is no one alive strong enough to move them. If they are placed in posi-tion round this site, in the way in which they are erected over there, they will stand forever." '2

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'These stones' (said Merlin) 'are connected with certain religious rites and they have various properties which are medicinally important. Many years ago the Giants transported them from the remotest confines of Africa and set them up in Ireland at a time when they inhabited that country. Their plan was that, whenever they felt ill, baths should be prepared at the foot of the stones: for they used to pour water over them and to run this water into baths in which their sick were cured. What is more, they mixed the water with herbal concoctions and so healed their wounds. There is not a single stone among them which hasn't some medicinal virtue.' "

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"Apollo, to whom the spherical temple of the Hyperboreans was dedicated, was not only a sun god: he was also a god of healing. Could there be a connection here between the famed good health of those people, the identity of the god they worshipped, and the magic medicinal properties of the stones of the Giants Ring which the wizard Merlin brought from Ireland in Geoffrey of Monmouth's tale? And could there also be a connection between the technical magic displayed in the erection of the stones and the worship of Apollo in his third capacity as god of technology and the arts?
The men whom King Aurelius sent to Ireland, according to Geoffrey, to fetch the stones had first to fight a battle with the Irish. He continues ..."

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" 'The Britons . . . made choice of Uther Pendragon the king's brother, with fifteen thousand men, to attend to this business.' The armada put to sea 'with a prosperous gale.' The irish heard of the proposed seizure of their monument, and king Gilloman raised a 'huge army,' vowing that the Britons should not 'carry off from us the very

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smallest stone of the Dance.' But the invaders 'fell upon them straightway at the double-quick . . . prevailed . . . pressed forward to mount Killaraus . . . '
Then the would-be monument-movers were faced with the problem of how to transport those great stones. ' They tried huge hawsers . . . ropes . . . scaling ladders [memories of the lists of weapons in Caesar's Gallic Wars!] . . .never a whit the forwarder . . .' Merlin had to take over. He burst out laughing and put together his own engines . . . laid the stones down so lightly as none would believe . . .bade carry them to the ships,' and they all 'returned unto Britain with joy' and there 'set them up about the compass of the burial-ground in such wise as they had stood . . . and proved yet once again how skill surpasseth strength.'
Geoffrey added that Uther Pendragon, and King, or Emperor Constantine, were both buried at Stonehenge.
Most of Geoffrey's story is useful only as entertainment but there are certain bits of it that merit consideration or if not consideration at least comment. ITEM:: Stonehenge was certainly not built to c ommemorate either Saxon or British dead - but it is interesting that the old legend so firmly links it with such a use, when it was only recently found to have been a place of burial. ITEM: Geoffrey said that its stones were of supreme 'virtue.' It is true that there was general reverence for the mystic powers of stones for a long time after the coming of Christ - in 452A.D. the Synod of Arles denounced those 'who venerate trees wells and stones' and such de-nouncement was repeated by Charlemange and others down to recent times - but modern discoveries, to be discussed later, have demonstrated the possibility that the stones of Stone-henge may have been regarded by their original erectors as of especially sovereign powers. Two stones were crucial in the legend of Arthur: the unknown lad became king by literally one twist of the wrist - he grasped that mysterious sword and lightly and fiercely pulled it out of the stone' -... " The S ' word again, intercepted Zed Aliz. " and then the only man, or being, who could have saved him became asotted and doted on one of the ladies of the lake. . . that height Nimue . . . and always Merlin lay about the lady to have her maidenhood, and she was ever passing weary of him,

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and would fain have been delivered of him, for she was afeard of him because he was a devil's son . . .and so on a time it happed that Merlin showed to her in a rock whereas was a great wonder . . . so by her subtle working she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her wit of the marvels there,but she wrote so there for him that he came never out for all the craft he could do and Merlin thus entombed beneath that stone - the fate of king and kingdom was sealed "

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"...It is interesting that in the legend Merlin did not resort to simple magic to whisk the stones from the old site to the new. He was of course more than capable of that: legendizers other than Geoffrey state that he transported the stones by his 'word of power' only. Could it be that there lurks folk-memory of actual moving of Merlin's 'engines'?
In the realm of purer myth, there may be more than engin-eering connection between Merlin and Stonehenge. Some mythographers have thought that the name 'Merlin' is a corruption of the name of the ancient Celtic sky god 'Myrddin,' who might have been worshipped at stone monuments. A Welsh triad states that the whole of Britain, before men came was called 'Clas Myrddin,' or 'Merlin's Enclosure.' The Welsh folklorist John Rhys in an 1886 Hibbert Lecture said, "I have come to the conclusion that we cannot do better than follow the story of Geoffrey, which makes Stonehenge the work of Merlin Emrys, commanded by another Emrys, which Iinterpret to mean that the temple belonged to the Celtic Zeus, whose later legendary self we have in Merlin.' In 1899

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Professor A.T. Evans wrote in the Archaeological Review that Stonehenge was an advanced representation of sepulchral architecture, ' where the cult or worship of departed ancestors may have become associated with the worship of the Celtic Zeus; the form under which the divinity was worshipped would have been that of his sacred oak.' "
 My God, said the scribe to Alizzed you were gone such a long time I thought you were never coming back. And, said the scribe, indicating the shadows of time past, 'those of tomorrow could'nt help but wonder, about the why's and wherefores of it all, whyever were you? 'The Y as in YOU of the I's that seize', said Zed Aliz ' taking a learning lean on a magic's tick, has been to the downside up of the upside down, to see how far it is. All the way there, and all the way back.
Reight writ the scribe, right on.
 Here thy iz wah scribe, said Zed Aliz, a present, from Avondales proud Eagle,
The scribe describes the present, of the presence.

Goldarn it, yes sirree, He oughtnta get tangled up with Purty Miss P. R, A, precious Prard, Whaal that gal, show iz one hell of a bell. . . Time, her chime. Ah tell yer sranger, there aint many ring that southern bells, bell. know warra mean, know warra mean. When that honey prard, when she sho call they all fall know warra mean, know warra mean and my little love dove, please on receipt of these wordies, don't be thinking the manias running away with him.
Hey you, who? you
What me?

Oh dearest God, He held his flat Postman Pat hat flat by finger and thumb, finger thumb or dumb, hmm. He was the ginger tom from next door, bald and pink, pink and red, freckled proverbially fat, sweat a lot. Standing in brightly polished boo'its, boo'its jam packed with odour eaters, that wernt eating enought odour. Pink cherubim for a seraphim skin, skin parchement pink, pinky rosae rosaous. Look see, so sensitive said one, neath his uniform he's nought but paps, midriff and bum.

Go on Dave,sez Deb.Aw go'on Do'ive Sez Denise. Behold the skin. A frown past o'er the royal loyal sun kings son's face Oh beam sun beam.With kind old eyes that watered meekly, bleekly, and weakly in the sun. He sulked and skulked behind dark clouds.Until, of reigning in the rain he'd had enough. His royal dignity was there for all to see, A smile was summoned, ordered, pass by me. And then, as if by will intended, In him the sun, a rainbow thought engendered. This shimmering coronet of rainbow tears. This hovering irridescent quick silvered dragon fly.
The quintessential moment, time suspended, Then time restarted, a little late. A second perhaps, or maybe even two.The basking sun, basked on. The officer in custom pink pulled through. This newly painted image of the mind, With entrance unanounced it longed to make, To execute a bow, or maybe even two. He watched, entranced, transfixed. Merlin, the Master Shaman. Sole sorcerer to Arthur, once a king. This master of illusion, with a wink, Gave lie to his existence. The crusty conjurer, A card sharp, card carrying member he, Would turn a trick, for pensioners and young kids, At half the price, but only half the tricks.His magic now, a tawdry dull affair.Nights at Camelot, too, long gone. None now have faith in magic anymore.
He paused, he thought, he knew. I'm half the man, of half the man, I was before. Merlin the man of tattered habits. The master shaman, standing,whisky still, stock still. Deep in thought. Where now old man, the wisdom that you sought. He thrust a hand in dirty habit clean, His many pocketed cloak around thin shoulders draped. Without a glance, Merlin, drew out, from in, the pocket, of his pock marked, many pocketed memory coat. His myriad, mirrored images, of glazed glassed eyes. A residue of demons, once his fiends, and cause now, only for a laugh.
The shaman seer, a seance of the senses would he make.Pull a trick, of maybe even two. Merlin, an incantation breathed. . . . . Slight silver spear, sliver of light, sleight of hand, of mind and sight.
 The august magi, belched twice, His plumbing turbulent. An island alone Aloof, strange, silent. Reborn images appeared. . . . Magic into image see. Magi the magic, blinks, thinks, winks, And pokes sad embers of a dying brain. Light provoked barely an echo of his once bright flame. He raised his hand as if to bid adiue. His tired magic, look still works. A rag appeared from out thin air, t 'was old, and rough and stained. In bleak despair he turned to stare and stare, and stare anew. Startled from his reverie, he rested on the hard rock cafe of his reality. The rag meanwhile had nested in his hand. He raised the mirror to his knees, and careful not to look Gently began to wipe and scrub, and scrub and wipe and rub and rub and rub and rub. Lapsing again into thoughful mood mode The busy bee of static in his head paused.
Merlin for that were he felt the creeping, stalking, numbness. Creeping and stalking, stalking and creeping, within his brain his skeletal brain, his skeletal, eletal brain. The anaethetization of his faculties His memories continued apace. Magic of a sort there. He thought the illusion of his illusion was, Is. . .Was. . . Is. . .Was. . . Is. . .
The delusion of the illusion, this lay in mother sense, the womb of all his creations. Herein the source of all his theatre, how skillfully and clearly, cleverly and dearly.Productions such as his were hard to find. As long as the human race had existed, he had worn the rainment of his myriad names with pride.He knew this magus of magicians.That he, Merlin the magical. Sorcerer to KingsWas coming towards the end of his line. That he, confidence trickster of the senses. Working in many guises and disguises in many lands, throughout all ages the magician extrordinaire, Master of magic, trick and illusion. Like his forebears he knew all that had passed, and also of the future knew he too. This wizard of pantomine This master of the five. Servants, ready to serve his every wish. . . . . . I wish, I wish. When you wish upon a star, oh how wonderful you are. The old magus had continued all the while polishing his mirror, without once glancing at it. When you wish upon a star.
He ceased his task The waning of his powers coincided, as if by chance with the knowledge that had struck him like a lightening bolt of his own creation. Like a swift arrow of truth, of sudden realization, Deep in the heart of the soft, full, fat, cheese mollases of his brain. Its poisened tip of truth had dealt the self a mortal blow. This central character in his own magic, knew at last the truth of his magic. He was part of the magic of something else. Something much greater. Something of which he was but a piece. A piece of a jigsaw. A grain of Blakes sand on all the oceans of the world. All the ages of his creations had been an oddysey. The stars he wondered about on an evening,were the same stars that all existing within this magical reality. That they also were marvelling at. His journey a pilgrimage. A seeking of the self. He had asked many questions, experienced many things. There was alway something strange about my magic, the wisdom that he thought he had he'd never had before.Wise wisdom lost at sea. Drowned in a sea of knowledge. His blinded, gelded senses, had masked the way intended.
New age thoughtful thinkers, now the rage. They'd seen it all. Wonder of wonders, and they would not wonder. Their vices it suffices, were sensory devices.Their aim to transmute base metals into gold. Sub atomic particles Articles of particles, a techno magic revolution, changing human evolution, pale imitators of the wizards craft. Suddenly as was his custom, as offen, in the past. . A sunbeam thought impinged the polished mirror, of his future past, and sped of into its own reality. In a wink of a blink, thinking pink. The man that never was, with skin that made the sun retreat in shame, behind dull clouds, for fear of Mary Shellys skin, saw Merlin the magus, spend his last trick, and he who in error, terror paused, became a pig a lily the pink pig a fat, happy, joyful pig. This pig, happy, happy, as a pig in shit
Merlin again, ruefully ruminated. Those of today, those creating a great past from a future yet to occur, they too still entangled hog tide and fixed, fettered by the senses
Suddenly, a bigger magic, more powerful magic than his. None the less a magic, which like his had no basis in reality, sparked and this custom made happy pig, found a partner, had lots of suckling pigs, and lived happy ever after.
 Merlin the magus, raised the mirror to his eyes. His old blind eyes. Eyes he now realized he had no need of. Looking at the mirror He saw its early finery, remembered its beauteous clearness. He gave it the tenderist of wipes, as first he'd done. As at the dawn of human history, he'd practised his craft, when first aware of its perfection. It's glorious perfection, and the clarity clear depth of the pool of its sight. The pool in which his senses had swum for so long together.
Before the corpreal nature of his sight caught the glass, he noticed how old it had become, how tarnished, cracked and glazed, this glass. He sighed not, when finally, his eyes, looked at the eyes, that were finally looking at him. Today Alice did not look back . . Saw only throught the mist, a spectre of an apparition, of a spectre he sought with fingers cold, to rub away the cold hot mist of his breath. Only for an instant did he see.That that, far away, that that, was me. For a split second he realized all He knew, "I know"
Someone, something, somewhere, an illustrious magician, pulled another trick And had there been a mirror, surely it would have cracked from side to side
 Hereuponin the Zed Aliz Zed, and the very far yonder scribe, made humble obeisance to that moment of moments. In celebration of that F in Act. Zed AlizZed, quickly tuned a front zummer salt back'ards, and the very far yonder scribe, tuned a back zummer salt forr'ards
 

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"Images of extinct species
Leaving the fish-garbed figures, I came at last to the Gateway of the Sun, located in the north-west comer of the Kalasasaya.
It proved to be a freestanding monolith of grey-green andesite about 12 1/2 feet wide, 10 feet high and 18 inches thick, weighing an estimated 10 tons.14 Perhaps best envisaged as a sort of Arc de Triomphe, though on a much smaller scale, it looked in this setting like a door connecting two invisible dimensions - a door between nowhere and nothing. The stonework was of exceptionally high quality and authorities agreed that it was 'one of the archaeological wonders of the Americas'.15 Its most enigmatic feature was the so- alled 'calendar frieze' carved into its eastern facade along the top of the portal.
At its centre, in an elevated position, this frieze was dominated by what scholars took to be another representation of Viracocha,16 but this time in his more terrifying aspect as the god-king who could call down fire from heaven. His gentle, fatherly side was still expressed: tears of compassion were running down his cheeks. But his face was set stem and hard, his tiara was regal and imposing, and in either hand he grasped a thunderbolt.17 In the interpretation given by Joseph Campbell, one of the twentieth century's best-known students of myth, 'The meaning is that the gi-ace that pours into the universe

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through the sun door is the same as the energy of the bolt that annihilates and is itself indestructible. . .'18
I turned my head to right and left, slowly studying the remainder of the frieze. It was a beautifully balanced piece of sculpture with three rows of eight figures, twenty-four in all, lined up on either side of the elevated central image~ Many attempts, none of them particularly convincing, have been made to explain the assumed calendrical function of these figures.19 All that could really be said for sure was that they had a peculiar, bloodless, cartoon like quality, and that there was something coldly mathematical, almost machinelike, about the I way they seemed to march in regimented lines towards Viracocha."