(ORDO NEWS) — In the course of a long search, archaeologists discovered something that they themselves designated as “a gift to the gods of the Incas.” The find was found under Lake Titicaca in South America. The new research has been published in the archaeological journal Antiquity.
After years of searching, diving archaeologists have discovered a box of volcanic rock beneath Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America, located in Peru and Bolivia. Upon opening the tightly closed box, the researchers found a small llama carved from the shell of a spiny mollusc called spondylus and a small sheet of gold believed to have been part of a bracelet.
Researchers believe that these finds were placed in the lake by the Inca civilization as an offering to appease their gods. A careful search in the lake revealed that the box, known as the Kakaya box, was placed there separately at least 500 years ago.
What makes the find more unique is that most of the Inca offerings to the gods on Lake Titicaca are found near the Island of the Sun or the Khoa Reef. This item was found near the Kakaya reef, which may open up opportunities for finding new places of worship that were used by the Inca empire. Here is what the marine archaeologist Christophe Delard of the Liberty University of Brussels in Belgium said:
“The inner underwater world remains largely unexplored and offers excellent opportunities for understanding prehistoric societies. The underwater heritage of Lake Titicaca still offers many surprises. One of the goals of our underwater archaeological survey was to reveal the existence of such sites, and to our surprise we found at least one.”
“The find represents not only one of the rare intact discoveries of an underwater Inca offering, but also that it was found elsewhere in the lake, which is essential for understanding the relationship between the expanding Inca empire and the local communities that lived on the shores of Lake Titicaca. before contact with Europe.”
“The location and orientation of the offering Which seems to be deliberate. Kakaya Reef is located almost directly north of Khoa, indicating a strong spatial relationship between the two sites.”
Lake Titicaca is a popular hunting destination for archaeologists seeking the ancient riches of South American civilizations. Last year, researchers found evidence of ritual offerings from the Tiwanaku people to unknown deities near the Island of the Sun.
The group was one of the most powerful and successful tribes in the Andes mountain range until the arrival of the Inca people around the 12th century AD. At the bottom of the lake, researchers found sacrificed llamas, gold and stone jewelry, and ceramic incense burners.
A team of researchers from Oxford University and Pennsylvania State University in Pennsylvania argue that the items date back to between AD 500 and 1100 – roughly 500 years before the Inca people arrived at Lake Titicaca.
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