The Ica stones

 

The Ica stones are a collection of engraved andesite rocks associated with the desert region of Ica Province around 300 km northwest of Lima, Perú. Thousands of these stones began circulating in the mid-twentieth century, bearing incised images that appear dramatically anachronistic: humans hunting or riding dinosaurs, performing complex surgeries such as heart or brain transplants, or using telescopes and other advanced technologies. While a small minority of stones with simple depictions of local flora, fauna, or geometric motifs may be pre-Columbian, the overwhelming majority are regarded by archaeologists as modern creations.

The figure most closely associated with the stones is Javier Cabrera Darquea, a Peruvian physician who amassed a vast private collection and promoted the objects as evidence of a lost advanced civilization. Cabrera claimed that many of the stones came from a secret cave and represented the record of an ancient, highly developed culture. In practice, however, much of his collection was acquired from local suppliers in the Ocucaje region.

The most prominent of these was Basilio Uschuya, a farmer who provided thousands of stones. When confronted with possible prosecution for trafficking in antiquities, Uschuya publicly stated—in interviews and on camera—that he had carved the stones himself using modern tools, including a dentist’s drill, and artificially aged them with cow dung and polish. Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana reportedly corroborated aspects of this account and indicated the source of the raw andesite used for carving. Other contributors included the Soldi brothers, Carlos and Pablo, who sold stones to Cabrera in the early 1960s, and Santiago Agurto Calvo, whose smaller collection of more conventional engraved stones helped spark early interest before the emergence of the more spectacular dinosaur scenes. Cabrera’s first stone was said to have been a 1966 gift from his friend Felix Llosa Romero, depicting what Cabrera identified as an extinct fish.

Cabrera elaborated his interpretation in The Message of the Engraved Stones of Ica, arguing that the stones were created millions of years ago by an advanced extraterrestrial humanity he termed “Gliptolithic Man.” The stones were also popularized internationally by alternative history writers. Erich von Däniken featured them in The Gold of the Gods as support for ancient astronaut theories, although he later acknowledged fabricating parts of his narrative about their discovery. Robert Charroux likewise promoted them in the 1970s, and various young-Earth creationist authors cited the dinosaur imagery as evidence that humans and dinosaurs coexisted within a biblical timeframe.

Critical investigation has consistently undermined such claims. In 1977, the Horizon episode “The Case of the Ancient Astronauts” featured Uschuya demonstrating how he carved and artificially aged the stones. Microscopic analyses conducted in the 1990s identified marks consistent with modern saws, drills, sandpaper, and chemical treatments. Researchers have also pointed out that while the stones themselves may be geologically old, the engraved lines lack the natural patina and weathering present on genuinely ancient incisions. Moreover, the dinosaur depictions frequently reflect outdated twentieth-century imagery—such as tail-dragging postures—rather than current paleontological reconstructions, further suggesting a modern origin.

Perhaps most significantly, no Ica stone depicting dinosaurs or advanced technology has ever been recovered in a controlled, documented archaeological excavation. Instead, they surface through private collections or informal digging, often associated with looted burial contexts. As with many “alternative history” artifacts, the Ica stones illustrate how local craft production, sensational interpretation, and global popularization can distort the archaeological record.