Chapter 09

The black stones of Bolivia
The ruin site of Tiahuanaco lies at 4000 metres’ elevation in Bolivia. The gigantic expanse of rubble points to mysterious buildings and colossal statues. The “sun gate” is probably the most impressive among them. - Also in Bolivia, archaeologists discovered graves of human skeletons of gigantic proportions. Numerous odd-looking masks, musical instruments, tobacco pipes and other items are also of great importance to science. All are decorated with striking engravings and show the same black coloration. So far, it has not been possible to assign the artefacts to any known style. However, they display similarities to the ancient Italian culture of the Etruscans.

Unknown production technique and musical instruments
with foreign acoustics
Broken parts reveal another secret. The relics seem to be made from black stone. In fact, they are black clay, which is coated with a glaze. The production technique used is unknown. Scientists theorise that the black mass was shaped at extremely high temperatures. - Pan flutes of stone hold another mystery. Thus far, they have been known only from ancient China. Music experts acoustically tested the stone flutes. They obtained notes of an alien musical scale. The sounds of the small flute are comparable to sounds made by dolphins. Tests with the larger instrument create a particularly great resonance in the flute player.