The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-12-23
INTERESTING RUINS.
An Americans Discoveries In Peru
and Bolivia
Thought to BE the Most Ancient Remains
OF Lower Civilization to Be Found
Upon the Western
HemiSDhero.

Thought to BE the Most Ancient Remains
OF Lower Civilization to Be Found
Upon the Western
Hemisphere.
Mai. William Sully Beebe, a retired
army officer living at Thompson.
Conn.,, is about to send to the leading
archaologists of this country and
Europe what he considers proofs of
some very remarkable discoveries that
he has made during researches that
have cost him twenty years of study
and a large sum Of money expended in
novel lines of investigation. He be-
| lieves, says the New York Sun, that
his findings will convince scientists
| that America is the seat of an older
source of occidental civilization than
either Assyria or Egypt. Maj. Beebe
claims that the races that hourished
around the Mediterranean-the Acca
dian, the Assyrian, the Egyptian, the
| Roman and the Greek-prove them
selves to have been the borrowers
from an earlier people on this CONT
nent, because in the parallels that
! occur in the early traces of both civili
cations the greater purity is found in
the American examples. Myths and
SYMBOLS and folklore tales that Euro
pean students have not been able to
make clear are simplifed when read
| by the light of his American discov-
cries. In the journey to distant lands
they have been altered, copied blindly
or repeated ignorantly, he thinks, SO
| that they have obtained altered or
| modified meanings on the other side.
To give only one example: Maj. Beebe
asserts that the zodiacal sign of
| Sagittarius was at first an armadillo,
the name of which in Peru meant an
armored hare or rabbit. The sign and
name remained the same wherever the
armadillo was known, but by the time
the symbol reached northern Mexico
and the region of our states it became
changed to an earned rabbit'-a rab-
bit carrying bow and arrow. 1t is
the same sign, Maj. Beebe says, and
stands for the same constellation in
the heavens as the European symbol of
a man with bow .and arrow, Sagittar-
| ius.
Maj. Beebe declares the most ancient
remains of former civilization on this
| continent to be those ruins of temples
and of cities that are found in the
neighborhood of Lake Titicaca, on the
Bolivia-Peru border. These relics are
scattered over a great extent of coun-
try and reveal remarkable skill in
stone cutting, in architecture and in or
nament. This region is fourteen thou
sand feet above the sea level and too
cold to provide sustenance for more
than sparse population, but there is
little doubt that it's climate and its
population were once very different
1t once supported thousands of stone
cutters who could neither live nor
work there row. The Aymara tribe
of Indians, the present inhabitants,
have retained in great purity the Ian
guage they spoke when the Span1ards
conquered the country, and at that
time the Spaniards took down their
fables and legends in great numbers.
Maj Beebe sent capable man there
! to verify the old observations and
make new ones, and, after a study of
eight other American tongues and
people to the north Of the Aymaras,
he is convinced that they are the rel
les of the Oldest American semiciyil-
ization, and that their influence spread
over North America. Proofs OF this
he claims to have found as far away as
Iowa and New Jersey. He asserts
that there are in Egypt, and, for that
matter, all around the Mediterranean,
the most evident Implications of the
work of these Aymaras in dials like
that at Stonehenge, in Assyrian and
Egyptian buildings, in the folklore and
in the languages of many peoples. 1
OF almost equal interest to Ameri-
cans is Maj. Beebe's discovery with re-
gard to the Photographic tablet found
at Davenport, Ia, and declared by
Smithsonian experts to be spurious
and worse than valueless. Maj. Bee
be declares that he is able to read it.
! lie says that it reproduces the SYM
bols and myths of the Aymara Indians,
and tells the same stories that are
conveyed by means of the great dial
temple at Tia Huanacu in their coun-
try-the same that Mr.. Inwards, Of Lon
don, found to correspond so nearly in
appearance with miniature temple
left in Assyria. Maj. Beebe has re-
duced all his proofs to writing, and ar
ranged the vast number of analogies
that he claims to have discovered be-
tween old and new world beginnings
in such manner that when all are
collected and presented in print and
| sent out, the scholars of the world
may, with the least possible trouble,
examine his work and judge his claims.
He is man of leisure and OF means,
who in taking up the study OF Hebrew
had his attention directed to those
| similarities between the Israelltes
/ and our North American Indians
] which have been often and generally
discussed.
Al Ho1a In Yar