The Ica stones are a group of andesite stones with carved images made in the 1960s by a Peruvian farmer named Basilio Uschuya and others in the Ica Province. These items, many of which show non-avian dinosaurs and modern technology in a style similar to Mesoamerican art, were first sold as being from before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Later, Uschuya and other farmers admitted they had created the stones for money, which led some people to call them fakes.
Carved stones were first reported in Peru during the Spanish conquest in the middle of the sixteenth century. After that, few similar archaeological discoveries were made. However, grave robbers began selling stones that looked like the Ica stones before the 1960s. The modern collection of Ica stones became well-known in the 1960s and 1970s. The largest known collection, with about 20,000 stones, belonged to a doctor named Javier Cabrera Darquea. Cabrera bought most of his stones from Uschuya before the forgeries were admitted. He believed the stones showed proof of an ancient alien civilization that lived in Peru for hundreds of millions of years.
Even though the forgeries were admitted and the images show dinosaurs that did not live in South America and have incorrect body shapes, some groups, such as Young Earth creationists and ancient astronaut supporters, have used the stones to support their ideas. It is possible that some Ica stones without unusual images are real pre-Columbian artifacts. This idea is mainly considered for stones not in Cabrera’s collection and those with more typical pre-Columbian designs.
Description
The Ica stones are all found in the Ica Province of Peru. These stones are made of grey andesite, which is a type of volcanic rock. They come in many sizes, from very small (a few centimeters across) to large boulders over half a meter across. Most of the stones are small.
Each stone has a dark outer layer where images are carved or scratched through the oxidized surface. It is believed that weathering caused the patina to be thin. This thin layer is made of a weathered surface where feldspar has changed into clay, making the material softer. This material has a hardness of 3 to 4 on the Mohs scale, which is soft enough to be scratched.
History
Archaeological discoveries show evidence of Peruvian cultures that existed thousands of years ago. At later times, all of modern Peru became one political and cultural unit, leading to the Inca Empire, which was later conquered by the Spanish. At other times, areas like the Ica Valley, a region separated from others by desert, developed their own unique cultures.
Engraved stones have been found in the region long before the Ica stones were reported. The earliest known records of similar stones were made by the Jesuit missionary Padre Simón, who traveled through 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.
Early archaeological work in the Ica Province during the late 1800s and early 1900s by scholars such as Max Uhle, Julio C. Tello, Alfred Kroeber, William Duncan Strong, and John Howland Rowe did not include reports of engraved andesite stones. However, stones that had been stolen by huaqueros (grave robbers) were later sold to tourists and collectors.
Today, a large number of Ica stones are known, with estimates ranging from 50,000 to 100,000. The most famous collection belongs to physician Javier Cabrera Darquea (1924–2001). According to Cabrera, he first became interested in the stones on May 13, 1966, when a friend gave him one as a birthday gift. Cabrera, who had a strong interest in Peruvian history, identified the stone’s image as a type of prehistoric fish. He did not explain which fish species he believed it to be or why he thought it was prehistoric.
To grow his collection, Cabrera contacted brothers Carlos and Pablo Soldi, who collected pre-Inca artifacts. The Soldis claimed they had many engraved stones, which they said were found in the Ocucaje region after a flood of the Ica River in 1961. They sold 341 stones to Cabrera. Cabrera also bought thousands of stones from a farmer named Basilo Uschuya. Additionally, he kept a collection of stones that his father, Bolivia Cabrera, reportedly found at their plantation in the 1930s. By the late 1970s, Cabrera’s collection had more than 11,000 stones. While working as a doctor, including a position as head of the University of Lima’s Department of Medicine, Cabrera kept his collection and ideas about the stones secret. By 1970, his collection and theories were becoming widely known.
In 1996, Cabrera stopped practicing medicine and opened the Museo de Piedras Grabadas (“Museum of Engraved Stones”) to display his collection. The museum organizes the stones by their images, 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 the stones’ authenticity.
Cabrera called the stones “gliptoliths” and proposed a theory about their origins in his book 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 events in space. He claimed this group appeared on Earth 405 million years ago and left before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago to travel to a planet in the Pleiades. Cabrera suggested the extinction was caused by two of Earth’s three moons colliding with the planet, which also led to the sinking of Atlantis. He believed Gliptolithic Man left Earth using electromagnetic spacecraft from the area of the Nazca Lines, which he thought was an “ancient spaceport.” He also claimed this group built the pyramids of Egypt. However, due to a lack of evidence, his ideas have not been widely accepted, even by some pseudohistorians.
The architect Santiago Agurto Calvo, rector of the National University of Engineering in Lima, also collected Ica stones. He reportedly bought many from locals and led searches in ancient cemeteries. In August 1966, he found an engraved stone in the Toma Luz sector of the Ica Valley, which he said 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 and worked with its curator, archaeologist Alejandro Pezzia Assereto. In September 1966, they found an engraved stone in a tomb from the Paracas culture in the Uhle Hill cemetery. The stone, about a few centimeters wide, had an image that might be a flower with eight petals. Calvo reported this in a Lima newspaper. Pezzia later found another stone in the San Evaristo cemetery, which showed a fish. The tomb was dated to the Middle Horizon period (about 600–1000 A.D.). In a nearby grave, Pezzia found a stone with a llama image. 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 stones were displayed at the museum as “pre-Inca burial art” until 1970, when the museum removed them after Cabrera’s collection and theories became public. The museum later believed the stones were hoaxes.
Imagery
The Ica stones are covered with different kinds of images. Some images are carved directly into the stone, while others are made by removing the background, leaving the image raised. The images range from simple pictures on one side of a pebble to very detailed designs. Some of the designs look similar to artwork from the Paracas, Nazca, Tiwanaku, or Inca cultures.
Some stones show drawings of extinct animals, mostly different types of dinosaurs. These include theropods, sauropods, ceratopsians, and stegosaurs. Pterosaurs are also shown on some stones. The animals drawn on the stones were already known to scientists when the stones were discovered. However, no dinosaur bones have been found in the area where the stones were found. Some animals shown, like ceratopsians, are not known to have lived in South America at all.
On some stones, dinosaurs are shown being hunted or kept by humans. Some scenes appear to show humans fighting dinosaurs, while others show humans cutting into the dinosaurs' spines, which suggests knowledge of their body structure.
Many of the dinosaurs on the stones look like old, incorrect ideas of how dinosaurs appeared. For example, one stone shows a Tyrannosaurus-like dinosaur standing upright with its tail dragging on the ground, which matches how dinosaurs were drawn in the 1960s but not how scientists understand them now. Other images show theropods with five fingers and five toes, which is not supported by fossil evidence. Some stones show a dinosaur life cycle with larvae hatching from eggs and changing into adult forms, which is not how real dinosaurs lived. One stone shows a human riding a pterosaur, which is impossible because the animal could not carry a human in flight.
The humans on the stones are said to belong to an unknown ancient Peruvian culture. They look similar to the Incas or Aztecs. Some stones show images of advanced technology, such as doctors doing complex surgeries, using telescopes, and flying machines. Surgeries shown include heart and brain operations, as well as transplants of organs like hearts, livers, and kidneys.
Most human figures on the stones have large heads and long noses. They wear loincloths and feathered headpieces. In battle scenes, they carry axes and spears, even though other images show advanced technology. People who believe the stones are real say the difference in clothing and tools might be because not all cultures develop technology the same way or that the images show sports or rituals.
If a highly advanced society, as some images suggest, had lived in the area, there should be more evidence, like ruins, garbage, or bones. No such evidence has been found.
Some stones show maps of land or the stars. Others include images of acts of bestiality, which some people call "pornographic." Other stones show 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 trick people into buying them for money. Selling ancient artifacts can be a profitable business, and even fake copies 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 silly archaeological hoaxes ever made" and that they were "not the most clever hoaxes in the book, but they are definitely among the most ridiculous." Scientists now know that non-avian dinosaurs (dinosaurs that are not birds) lived 66 million years before humans, so it is highly unlikely that humans and dinosaurs lived together as shown on the stones. No non-avian dinosaur fossils have ever been found that are the same age as humans.
The Ica stones became famous worldwide after a man named Cabrera shared them with the public through magazines and newspapers. Some groups that do not follow scientific methods accepted the stones as proof of strange ideas. These groups often use the stones in books that claim to support false or unscientific beliefs. While the stones made Cabrera well-known in these groups, they also caused him to lose his professional reputation and led to criticism from scientists and the media.
People who believe in the idea that ancient humans were visited by aliens, like Erich von Däniken and Robert Charroux, used the Ica stones as supposed evidence of a civilization that existed before dinosaurs went extinct. Young Earth creationists, who believe Earth is only a few thousand years old, also used the stones to claim that humans and dinosaurs lived together. Some groups that mix myths with history have also used the stones as proof of their beliefs. Some people who once believed the stones were real, including von Däniken, later said they were probably fake.
No scientific studies on the Ica stones have been published. Since the stones do not contain 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 using current technology. If a stone were found at its original discovery site, scientists might be able to date it by studying the surrounding material. However, 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 mining engineer named Eric Wolf, who was a friend of Cabrera, reportedly said the stones were made of andesite and showed signs of being old due to their oxidized patina. However, no proof of these claims or the analyses has ever been shared. Even if the stones were old, the lack of patina on the engravings suggests the carvings were made recently.
In 1977, a BBC team visited Ica to film a documentary called "The Case of the Ancient Astronauts." Cabrera gave the team one of the stones, which was later studied in London. The stone itself may be from the Mesozoic era, but the engravings were found to be recent because the clean edges of the carvings would not last long under natural erosion. In 1993 and 1994, studies in Barcelona found evidence that 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 cultural heritage from Peru is illegal, so the authenticity of the stones became a legal issue. A man named Uschuya admitted to engraving the stones himself and selling them to Cabrera, along with his wife, to make money and inspire people who spread unscientific ideas. He claimed the designs were inspired by comic books, textbooks, and magazines. Uschuya continued making and selling similar stones after his arrest, but no longer claimed they were real.
Uschuya reportedly made the dark patina on the stones by baking them in donkey and cow dung and rubbing them with boot polish. The engravings were made using tools like a dentist's drill, knives, and chisels. At one point, he claimed chickens helped finish the engravings by scratching the stones in a poultry pen. Uschuya said he made stones for Cabrera over ten years, and the process could take as little as 15 minutes.
Despite Uschuya’s confession, some people who believed the stones were real did not accept that they were fake. They doubted his confession, thinking he might have lied to avoid going to jail, and questioned whether a farmer without formal education could have made so many stones. Other people, like Pedro Huamán and Aparicio Aparcana, also admitted to making Ica stones. In later interviews, Uschuya sometimes said he faked the stones or claimed he only said he did to avoid jail. In a 1995 interview, Uschuya again admitted to the hoax but also said Cabrera had "about 5000 genuine stones" in his collection.
There is no proof that Cabrera worked with Uschuya to make fake stones or that Cabrera had any reason other than trying to protect what he believed were real artifacts and generate interest in archaeology. Some people suggested Cabrera might have been involved in making the stones because medical scenes were common on the stones and Cabrera was a doctor. However, Cabrera always claimed the stones were real, saying the fake ones made by Uschuya were copies of real stones that could be sold legally. He said only 20–40 fake stones existed and that real stones were hidden in a secret cave near the Ica River. No evidence of the cave has ever been found, and many believe Cabrera made up the story. Von Däniken once claimed he was taken to the cave by Cabrera but later said this was false.
In some cases, the designs on the stones clearly reflect cultural elements from the time, but these are not connected to any known ancient civilizations.