Erich Von Daniken - The Gold Of The Gods

1 - The Gold Of The Gods
from the grasp of Pizarro and the Spanish Viceroy. The Great Ocean
lurks at the end of the underground passages of 'Guanape,' so called
after the island that lies off the coast of Peru here, because it is
assumed that these passages once led under the sea to this island. After
the passages have gone uphill and downhill several times in pitch
darkness, a murmur and the strangely hollow sounding noise of surf is
heard. In the light of the searchlight the next downhill slope ends on
the edge of a pitch black flood which is identified as seawater. The
present-day coast also begins here underground. Was this not the case
in former times?"
Scholars think that a search on the island of Guanape would be
pointless, because there is nothing there to indicate that a passage from
the mainland ever emerged on to it. "No one knows where these
subterranean roads of the Incas and their ancestors end or whether they
lead the way to the bursting treasuries of worlds that vanished long
ago."
Francisco Pizarro and his rapacious followers had already suspected
that gold treasures existed in-impenetrable Inca hiding places. In 1532
the noble Spaniard promised the Inca ruler Atahualpa his life and
freedom if he filled two-thirds of a room measuring 23 by 16 by 10
feet with gold. Atahualpa believed the word of the ambassador of Her
Christian Majesty Juana the Mad (1479-1555). Day after day the Incas
fetched gold until the room was filled to the required height. Then
Pizarro broke his word and had Atahualpa executed (1533).
In the same year the Spanish Viceroy elevated the Inca Manco Capac
to the rank of shadow king. (He, too, was murdered by the Christian
conquerors in 1544.) His death saw the end of the Inca dynasty, which
had entered history with its legendary founder of the same name.
According to the historians, 13 "Sons of the Sun" are supposed to have
ruled the Inca kingdom between the first and the last Manco Capac. If
we date its historically established beginning to around A.D. 1200 and