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Akapana Pyramid

One thousand years before Columbus they were pyramid builders, warriors, the architects of an empire in South America. The Tiwanaku lived in the valley of lake Titicaca for 15 hundred years and then their civilization vanished leaving behind only stone ruins and the enduring mystery of their passing. The center piece of Tiwanaku’s spiritual power was the Akapana pyramid. Surrounding the pyramid, cities and temples was a vast maze of channels and ridges. Though they look like irrigation ditches, they were far too complex. The mystery of their purpose is one that archologist Alan Kolata had been struggling to solve. Kolata had a hunch and to prove it he asked the local farmers to plant crops along the channel banks. Then the archeologists and the farmers let in the water. Crops crowded and began to grow. But then a tremendous frost hit the altiplano. It devastated other fields but the crops planted along the canals were not affected.

“The key to the sophistication of these, for this raised field system, are really these canals that you see here all around me. What is important about them is they function like gigantic solar collectors. If you touch this water, you’ll see it’s warm enough to bath in it and it’s trully remarkable and here we are up at 14000feet and that’s really the key to the system. It really prevents frost from damaging the crops that would be growing up on these field platform surfaces here.”

The mystery was solved the Tiwanaku had found a way to control the environment of the valley itself. Their canals stored heat during the day and radiated it over the fields at night. This remarkable system provided the wealth to built an empire and to keep it for over a millenium. But then amid growing political turmoil the empire began to decline. For the Tiwanaku it was the end but for the local farmers it is a new beginning. Secure from the frost the raised fields prove to be seven times more productive providing hope for a better harvest and pride for their ancestors wisdom that has returned from the past.

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