Erich Von Daniken - The Gold Of The Gods

1 - The Gold Of The Gods
abnormal feature is that he has only four fingers on each hand and four
toes on each foot. However, we also find representations of the gods
with some of their limbs-missing among the ancient Indians, the
Maoris, the Etruscans and other peoples.
Yet I read in a serious scientific publication how simple the solution of
this mystery is. Toes and fingers were a kind of adding machine. If the
artist wanted to express the number "19," he left out one finger or one
toe. Pursuing this scholarly fantasy, the number "16" was represented
as a being with four plus four toes and four plus four fingers = 16! This
ingenuous way of counting seems to me to be unworthy of a people
who built roads and fortresses and cities.
Why, by the gods of all the stars, did the intelligent Incas have to draw
or sculpt a whole man with hands and feet to express the number 4?
Deadly serious science gets entangled in the net of its own fantasy. To
be sure it admits that the Incas could count, but it does not credit them
with being able to represent "4" by four dots or four dashes. So they
had to lop off fingers and toes. O sancta simplidtas!
As for the figure that is minus two fingers and two toes, the
explanation as a childish method of counting is unconvincing, for
according to Father Crespi, it is a representation of the "Star God." In
his right arm the smiling sun god clasps an animal combination of
hippopotamus, parrot and snake, in his left, a staff with his emblem,
the laughing sun at the top and a decorative snake's head at the bottom.
Star-like points surround the god's happy face and they can be seen,
too, on his two colleagues from caves in the Australian bush, the two
"creators" (Fig 23). They wear overalls with broad straps around the
chest.