The Ica stones are a group of andesite stones with carved images created as art in the 1960s by a Peruvian farmer named Basilio Uschuya and others in the Ica Province. These artifacts often show non-avian dinosaurs and modern technology, and they are made to look like Mesoamerican art. At first, the stones were sold as if they were real pre-Columbian items, but Uschuya and other farmers later admitted they made them for profit, leading some people to call the stones hoaxes.
Stones with carved images were first reported in Peru during the middle of the sixteenth century, when Spain conquered the region. Later, very few similar stones were found by archaeologists. Before the 1960s, grave robbers called huaqueros began selling stones similar to the Ica stones. The modern collection of Ica stones became well-known in the 1960s and 1970s. The largest known collection, with about 20,000 pieces, belonged to a doctor named Javier Cabrera Darquea. Cabrera bought most of his stones from Uschuya before the forgeries were revealed. He believed the stones showed proof of an ancient alien civilization that lived in Peru for hundreds of millions of years.
Although the forgeries were admitted and the images show dinosaurs that did not live in South America and outdated ideas about their appearance, some groups, such as Young Earth creationists and those who believe in ancient astronauts, have used the stones to support their claims. It is possible that some Ica stones without unusual images are real pre-Columbian artifacts. This possibility is mainly considered for stones not in Cabrera's collection and those with more common pre-Columbian designs.
Description
The Ica stones are found in the Ica Province of Peru. These stones are made of grey andesite, a type of volcanic rock. Their sizes vary greatly, ranging from very small (a few centimetres wide) to large boulders more than half a metre wide. Most of the stones are relatively small.
Each stone has a dark coating on its surface, and designs are engraved or scratched into this coating. It is believed that weathering caused the coating to form. The coating is thin and consists of a weathered layer where some of the feldspar in the rock has turned into clay. This process created a softer material, which has a hardness rating of 3 to 4 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. This softness allows the surface to be scratched easily.
History
Archaeological discoveries show evidence of Peruvian cultures that existed thousands of years ago. Later, all of modern Peru became one political and cultural group, leading to the Inca Empire and then the Spanish conquest. At other times, areas like the Ica Valley, a region separated by desert from others, developed their own unique cultures.
Engraved stones have been found in the area long before the Ica stones were discovered. The earliest known records of similar stones were made by Padre Simón, a Jesuit missionary who traveled in Peru during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the early and middle 1500s. Some of these stones were reportedly sent to Spain in 1562.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, scholars such as Max Uhle, Julio C. Tello, Alfred Kroeber, William Duncan Strong, and John Howland Rowe conducted early archaeological work in the Ica Province. Their reports did not mention finding engraved andesite stones. However, stones that had been stolen by grave robbers were later sold to tourists and collectors.
Today, many Ica stones are known, with estimates suggesting there are about 50,000 to 100,000 of them. The most famous collection belongs to physician Javier Cabrera Darquea (1924–2001). According to Cabrera, he first became interested in the stones in 1966 when a friend gave him one as a birthday gift. He identified the stone’s design as a type of prehistoric fish but did not explain which species he believed it to be or why he thought it was ancient.
To grow his collection, Cabrera contacted Carlos and Pablo Soldi, who claimed to have found many engraved stones in the Ocucaje region. They sold him 341 stones. The Soldis said they began collecting stones in 1961 after a flood of the Ica River revealed many of them. Cabrera also acquired stones from farmer Basilo Uschuya and kept a collection reportedly found by his father in the 1930s. By the late 1970s, Cabrera had over 11,000 stones. He kept his collection secret while working as a doctor until 1970, when his collection and ideas became widely known.
In 1996, Cabrera opened a museum called the Museo de Piedras Grabadas ("Museum of Engraved Stones") to display his collection. The museum organizes stones by their designs, which are displayed along the walls. By the end of his life, Cabrera’s collection reportedly had about 20,000 stones, many of which remain on display. The National Chamber of Tourism of Peru lists the museum as a tourist site but does not confirm whether the stones are real or fake.
Cabrera called the stones "gliptoliths" and wrote a book called The Message of the Engraved Stones of Ica. He believed the stones were made by an ancient human species he called "Gliptolithic Man," who had larger brains than modern humans and could use psychic energy to influence space events. He claimed this group existed at least 405 million years ago and left Earth before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, traveling to a planet in the Pleiades star cluster. He suggested this event caused the extinction and the sinking of Atlantis. Cabrera believed Gliptolithic Man left Earth in electromagnetic spacecraft from the area of the Nazca Lines, which he called an "ancient spaceport." He also claimed they built the pyramids of Egypt. However, his ideas are not widely accepted, even by some historians who study non-mainstream theories.
The architect Santiago Agurto Calvo, who was rector of the National University of Engineering in Lima, also collected Ica stones. He reportedly bought many from locals and searched ancient cemeteries. In August 1966, he found an engraved stone in the Toma Luz sector of the Ica Valley, which was linked to the Tiwanaku culture. Calvo believed the stones were part of an ancient burial ritual.
Calvo shared his discovery with the Regional Museum of Ica, where archaeologist Alejandro Pezzia Assereto joined him on further searches. In September 1966, they found an engraved stone in a tomb from the Paracas culture. The stone was small and had a design that could be a flower with eight petals. Calvo reported this in a Lima newspaper. Pezzia later found another engraved stone in the same area, showing a fish, and another depicting a llama. He published his findings in 1968, including drawings and descriptions.
In 1968, Calvo donated some of his stones to the Regional Museum of Ica and tried to protect the area where they were found from illegal removal. The museum displayed the stones as "pre-Inca burial art" until 1970, when Cabrera’s collection and ideas became public. At that time, the museum no longer believed the stones were real.
Imagery
The Ica stones are covered with many different kinds of images. Some images are carved directly into the stones, while others are made by removing the surrounding material, leaving the image raised. The images range from simple pictures on one side of a pebble to very detailed designs. Some designs look similar to those from the Paracas, Nazca, Tiwanaku, or Inca cultures.
Some stones show pictures of extinct animals, mostly different types of dinosaurs. These include theropods, sauropods, ceratopsians, and stegosaurs. Pterosaurs are also shown. The animals on the stones were already known to scientists when the stones were discovered. However, no dinosaur fossils have been found near Ica, and some animals shown, like ceratopsians, are not found in South America.
On some stones, dinosaurs are shown being hunted or raised by humans. Some scenes look like humans fighting dinosaurs, and others show people cutting into the dinosaurs' spines, suggesting they knew about dinosaur anatomy.
Many of the dinosaur images on the stones match old, incorrect ideas about how dinosaurs looked. For example, one stone shows a Tyrannosaurus-like dinosaur standing almost upright with its tail dragging on the ground, a style from the 1960s but not how scientists now understand the animal. Other images show theropods with five fingers and five toes, which is not supported by fossil evidence. Some stones show dinosaurs changing from eggs into larvae and then into adult forms, which is not how real dinosaurs lived. Another stone shows a human riding a pterosaur, which is unlikely because pterosaurs could not support a human’s weight in flight.
The humans on the stones are said to belong to an unknown ancient Peruvian culture. They look similar to Incas or Aztecs. Some stones show advanced technology, such as surgeries, acupuncture, genetic engineering, telescopes, flying machines, and spaceships. Surgeries shown include heart and brain operations, caesarean sections, and organ transplants.
Most human figures have large heads and long noses. They wear loincloths and feathered headresses. In battle scenes, they carry axes and spears, even though other scenes show advanced technology. People who believe the stones are real argue that not all cultures develop technology the same way or that the scenes might show sports or rituals.
If a highly advanced civilization had existed in the region, it would likely leave more evidence, such as ruins, garbage, graves, or bones. These have not been found.
Some stones show maps of the land or stars. Others show acts of bestiality, which some call "pornographic." Some stones have images of flowers, fish, or living animals. Some animals shown, like kangaroos, are not found in Peru.
Impact and investigation
The Ica stones are widely believed by historians and archaeologists to be fake and created to sell to tourists for money. Selling ancient items can be very profitable, and even fake versions of the Ica stones are sometimes sold for high prices online. In his book Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology, archaeologist Ken Feder said the Ica stones were "one of the most obvious and ridiculous archaeological hoaxes ever made" and that they were "not the most advanced hoaxes, but certainly the most ridiculous." Scientists now know that non-avian dinosaurs (dinosaurs other than birds) lived 66 million years before humans, so it is highly unlikely that humans and dinosaurs coexisted as shown on the stones. No non-avian dinosaur fossils have ever been found from the same time as humans.
The Ica stones became famous worldwide after a man named Cabrera shared them with the public. Some groups that do not follow scientific methods accepted the stones as proof of strange ideas. These groups often include people who believe in myths or pseudoscience. Cabrera became well-known in these circles, but his actions damaged his professional reputation and caused problems in his personal life. He was criticized by scientists and the press.
The stones were promoted by people who believe in the idea that ancient people were visited by aliens, such as Erich von Däniken and Robert Charroux. These ideas were shared in books during the 1970s, claiming the stones showed an advanced civilization before the dinosaurs died out. Some groups who believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old also used the stones to argue that humans and dinosaurs lived together. Replicas of the stones are sometimes displayed in exhibitions by groups that promote these ideas. Some people who once believed the stones were real, like von Däniken, later said they were fake.
No scientific studies about the Ica stones have been published. Since the stones are made of rock and not organic material, scientists cannot use radiocarbon dating to determine their age. This means there is no way to test if the stones are truly ancient. If a stone was found at its original location, scientists might study the surrounding material to estimate its age, but no Ica stone has ever been found in a clear, examinable archaeological context.
Cabrera claimed he sent some stones to researchers at universities in Bonn and Lima for analysis. A researcher in Bonn and a friend of Cabrera, Eric Wolf, supposedly said the stones were made of andesite and had a patina that suggested they were old. However, no proof of these claims has ever been shown. Even if the stones were old, the engravings on them are too clean to be ancient, as the grooves lack a patina. This suggests the engravings were made recently.
In 1977, a BBC team visited Ica to film a documentary about ancient astronauts. They were given a small stone, which was later studied in London. The stone itself might be from the Mesozoic era, but the engravings were found to be recent because the lines were too clean to have survived for millions of years. In 1993 and 1994, stones were examined in Barcelona, and evidence showed the engravings were made recently using tools like saws, acids, and sandpaper.
After the BBC documentary, Peruvian authorities and the press began investigating the stones. Selling Peruvian cultural items is illegal, so the authenticity of the stones became a legal issue. A man named Uschuya admitted he and his wife had carved the stones themselves and sold them to Cabrera to make money and inspire pseudoscientists. He claimed the designs were inspired by comic books, textbooks, and magazines. Uschuya continued making and selling similar stones after being released from custody.
Uschuya reportedly made the dark color on the stones by baking them in animal dung and polishing them with boot polish. The engravings were made using tools like a dentist’s drill, knives, and chisels. At one point, Uschuya said he placed the stones in a chicken coop, claiming the chickens helped create the engravings. He made stones for Cabrera over ten years, and the process was filmed by TV crews. Some stones could be made in as little as 15 minutes.
Despite Uschuya’s confession, some people who believed the stones were real doubted his story, suggesting he lied to avoid jail time. Others questioned how a farmer without formal education could make so many stones. Uschuya was not the only person to create fake Ica stones. Others, like Pedro Huamán and Aparicio Aparcana, also admitted to making them. In later interviews, Uschuya sometimes said he faked the stones or claimed he only said he did to avoid prison. In a 1995 interview, Uschuya admitted the stones were fake but also said Cabrera had "about 5,000 genuine stones" in a secret location. No evidence has been found to support this claim.
There is no proof that Cabrera helped Uschuya make the stones or that his goal was anything other than preserving what he believed were real artifacts and attracting attention to them. Some people thought Cabrera might have been involved in making the stones because medical scenes were common on them and he was a doctor. However, Cabrera always claimed the stones were real, saying the fake ones were copies of originals sold legally. He also said there were real stones hidden in a secret cave near the Ica River, but no evidence of the cave has been found. Von Däniken later said he made up the story about the cave when it was disputed.
In some cases, the designs on the stones clearly reflect cultural elements from the time they were made.