The illustration presented is copied here as Fig. 126.
Fig. 126.—Petroglyphs near Arequipa, Peru.
The account is continued as follows:
In the province of Castro-Vireyna, in the town of Huaytara, there is found in the ruins of a large edifice, of similar construction to the celebrated palace of old Huanuco, a mass of granite many square yards in size, with coarse engravings like those last mentioned near Arequipa. None of the most trustworthy historians allude to these inscriptions or representations, or give the smallest direct information concerning the Peruvian hieroglyphics, from which it may possibly be inferred that in the times of the Incas there was no knowledge of the art of writing in characters and that all of these sculptures are the remains of a very remote period. * * * In many parts of Peru, chiefly in situations greatly elevated above the sea are vestiges of inscriptions very much obliterated by time.
The illustration is copied here as Fig. 127.
Fig. 127.—Petroglyph in Huaytara, Peru.
Charles Wiener (a), in Pérou et Bolivie, gives another statement, viz:
The archeologists of Peru have only found a single point—Tiahuanaco—where there were a limited number, though very interesting, of signs on rocks or stones which seemed to all observers to be symbolic. While there are a few petroglyphs found in Peru there are a large number of inscriptions properly so called on the tissues which cover or are found in connection with remains in the graves.