241: Tiwanaku & Puma Punku

All right, so Matt, there's these three older guys sitting on a bench, a 60-year-old, 70-year-old, 80-year-old. 60-year-old goes, man, I got this problem. I wake up every morning at 7 a.m. and it takes me 20 minutes just to pee. Well, the 70-year-old goes, man, my problem's worse. I get up at 8 a.m. and I sit there grunt and groan for half an hour before I'm finally able to have a bowel movement. And the 80-year-old goes, not me, at 7 a.m., I pee like a horse and at 8 a.m., I crap like a cow. And the 60-year-old goes, so what's your problem? He goes, I don't wake up till 9. No! Good evening everybody and welcome to the graveyard. Thank you for joining us tonight. My name is Adam and my name's Matt. Now, we'll up a tombstone or settle into your casket and get comfortable because this is graveyard tales. Oh, right, everybody. Here we are again, Matt. How you doing tonight, brother? I'm good, man. Good deal. Good deal. So, before we get into it, I want to say go check out the Pod Belly Network at podbelly.com. You can find a list of shows that we're happy to be associated with and I guarantee you're going to find something on there that you enjoy that you may not run across anywhere else. And they have tips and tricks on podcasting. If you're interested in starting your own podcast, they've got tips about doing that. We also want to thank tonight's sponsors Ray Conn and HelloFresh and we'll talk more about them coming up while you're on the internet doing your thing. Go over to patreon.com slash graveyard tales. Sign up to become a patron. We've got three different levels of patronage that you can sign up for. We could not keep doing this show if it wasn't for our patrons. Absolutely. I know that sounds cliche, but it's 100% true for us. We being an independent show, our patrons and our sponsors are the only way that we can keep doing this with the money that's needed for equipment and software and when equipment fails. If it wasn't for you guys, then the show would have probably quit years ago when our first equipment failed because we couldn't afford to keep buying new stuff all the time. And yeah, and believe it or not, we started the show with borrowed equipment. Yeah. I mean, that was just what we had. And now look where we've come. Started from the bottom. Now we're about midway up. That's the song, right? Started from the bottom where a couple feet there. Yep. But sign up to become a patron over there. There's going to be something on there. Enjoy it. Runs the runs a gamut of topics. We do different stuff than we talk about on normal shows. We try to put one out every week, whether it's a 15 minute one or a 45 minute one, you get a bonus episode weekly and our $10 a month, they get an ad-free version of the main episode. They get a video version of the main episode, which is also ad-free, and they get an audio and video version of the bonus episode every week. All right, Matt. So you know me. I'm a music junkie and I always have been. I've got to be listening to music all the time with some podcasts sprinkled in. And you know, I love making the music and the podcast part of my fall routine because I mean fall. You talk about spring cleaning. There's fall cleaning too. You got to get ready for the winter and all that. So you know, during the cleaning and everything I do around the house, I've always got my Raycon earbuds in. And I love using them because Raycon's everyday earbuds, they look, feel, and sound better than ever. Like, it's no joke. The best versions they've had. They've got optimized gel tips that range in sizes for the perfect in-ear fit. And they're so comfortable and they will not fall out of your head. Doesn't matter what I'm doing, I can be out sweating in the yard. I can be at gym sweating. I can be in the house cleaning or whatever. You know, listening to music avoiding editing, whatever it may be. And they do not fall out plus. They've got eight hours of playtime in a 32 hour battery life. So you can do like I do. Put your left one in, listen till it dies, pop it out, put it in the case, pull out the other one. Your left one will be charging while you're listening through the right one. And you get three customizable sound profiles. So you like jazz, you can find a sound profile that really makes that pop, podcasts, you know, vocal, spoken word, audio books, whatever. There's one for that. And one thing that I have started doing is I have listened to these, these, these tones that are meant to help stimulate focus and concentration while I'm working while I'm researching anything and it really makes a difference because it also has noise isolation. So I don't want to hear everything going on. I've got to be able to concentrate. You know, with all these kids in my house and dogs and cats and gorillas and everything else jumping around making noise. I need the noise isolation, but I do have kids. So I need to be able to know is something going on that needs my attention. And that's why the awareness mode is so great. You know, if you want to hear the best quality audio, but you still need to pay attention to the world that's around you, the awareness mode fixes all that. It's helpful if you're walking down the street too. That's right. Your car is coming. And their IPX water and splash resistant. So if you're out, you know, jogging in the rain, somebody throws water in your face for some weird reason, it's not going to hurt them. Okay. They're splash resistant. And like Adam said earlier, they're not going to fall out. So you don't got to worry about that. That school is back in session, which means Raycon is having their annual back to school sale for a limited time only. Go to buyraycon.com slash tails today to get 20% off sitewide plus free shipping. That's right. Go to buyraycon.com. That's B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N.com slash T-A-L-E-S to score 20% off. That's buyraycon.com slash tails. You won't regret it. So Matt, that's all I've got. Why don't you tell us? What are we talking about tonight, brother? All right. So this is one of these topics tonight that that Adam and I these are the things that that he and I talk about when we're just hanging out talking. And inevitably, if the girls aren't involved, then our conversation will shift to something like this. And this is more of the ancient aliens type thing. We'll mention the alien part. I promise. But we're going to talk about the city and the tribe of Tewanaku. And a lot of people feel that the Tewanaku were the first humans, that they were here. Even more believe that they were the first Americans. Right. You know, if we were talking about North and South America, they were the first ones here. We know that they're very old. We know from the artifacts they have left behind that they're very old. And with things that are very, very old, there's legends and stories and speculation on how they did things. And Tewanaku has all of that. So we're going to get into it. This one, Adam is going to talk about the actual site of Tewanaku. What makes it so unique and how they constructed these things and how what's theorized behind it. And then we're going to get into some of the legends of the Tewanaku people. They have their own creation story. It's really, really cool. So Adam, let's get into it. All right. So as we always say, go check our sources down on the bottom of the show notes. You can find where we found all this information. And you can continue the research, if you'd like, because I'm going to give a brief summary of the different parts, but we're not going to be able to get into all of it. There's thousands of years of history here in the Tewanaku area. So we don't have thousands of years to discuss it. We got like an hour and a half. So I'm not if that. Yeah, right. So we'll briefly go over it. And then when my ADHD kicks in, we'll move on to math. So but you know, if we're going to talk about Tewanaku, we're going to have to also talk about Puma Pumku, which is within the Tewanaku complex. And we're going to have to talk about Lake Titikaka. So for just like 30 seconds, go ahead and laugh to yourself about Titikaka. Yeah, for 30 seconds, everybody is in third grade. Here we go. I mean, you can't help it. I'm sorry, but you know, I told Matt, I said, we might have to because this is a PG 13 show, we might have to call it boobie poo poo lake, but not going to. We're going to go with Lake Titikaka. But of course, when when he brought this up, this was the first thing. Exactly. So that's why I said, let's just get it out because I'm going to say it a lot throughout this episode. So you know, get your jokes out now. You can email them to us if you would like. But so people began actually to permanently settle around Lake Titikaka around 4,000 years ago. And I'm going to get a lot of this first bit of information from ancient organs and ancient organs. Wow, not Oregon, not ancient Oregon, ancient origin. Whoo, it's going to be a fun night. We can't even pronounce words. We know. I know. It's going to be a fun night from ancient origins and the Smithsonian. So, you know, follow those links in the show notes there if you're interested. But about 4,000 years ago is when they started to settle this area. And by 1,500 BC, a small agricultural settlement formed about 10 miles from the southern Bolivian shores of Lake Titikaka. So, Timunaku was the highest city in the ancient world in an altitude of 12,600 feet and would grow to cover an area of around six square miles, which is huge for a one of the first cities around Lake Titikaka in this region. If you think about the elevation and to have a six square mile city at this elevation around 1,500 BC, that's just incredible to think of. Yeah. It's like ancient Denver. Yeah. Because at that time, from what we hear, there weren't city complexes like that at 1,500 BC. There were not these massive city complexes. So, what made them do that here around Lake Titikaka at this elevation? And that's this this large an area. Yeah. And that's and that's an interesting point because most settlements had to begin near, you know, a flat area where we're farming could could take place. They had to be near a water source. So, that's why, you know, those those settlements were along lakes and rivers. But they were down on the ground. So, I mean, it was understandable that if you're if you're going to build a civilization in the mountains like this, you're going to have to have a water source. And that's probably why we don't see others. Sure. You know, with with Lake Titikaka being the lake at the highest elevation, it gave them a water source that they could build around. So, it was it was they had what they needed. The question is, is why? Because at that elevation, it seems like it would make everything more difficult. Yep. Yep. And for a lot of people like for us in North America, if we were to travel down there and travel to Lake Titikaka, it would be difficult for us to breathe because we're not used to that elevation or whatever. Now, the people that live there are because they live there for, I mean, generations. But that, you know, the first people to set up this city, it makes me wonder, were they from lower elevations or did they come from high elevation tribes and form this? That's just one of the questions I have. But hundreds of years before the Inka Empire spread along the Pacific coast of South America, there was this other civilization that prospered in parts of what is now Bolivia, northern Chile, and southern Peru. It was the Tiwanaku State. Now, the Tiwanaku State, which lasted from about 550 to 958D, was one of three major first millennium powers in the Andes. But very little archaeological evidence has been found from the Tiwanaku compared to the Inkas, whose empire rose to the height of his power in the 15th century. Now, I gave dates 550 to 950. Here's the issue. I'm going to, I'm going to say some more dates a little later on and you're going to go, but wait, you said it was different. I'm giving you the information that is out there. There are some conflicting time periods because we don't know for sure. Exactly. It was so wrong. When we're talking about something that old, it's very difficult to date it. And there's no written history that they have. So there's nothing to really use context to say, you know, they really just have to look at the geology. Yep. So the carbon date, some things, but you can't carbon date stone. And most of what they find here is stone. I'll talk about some of the other things they found, but it's from different time periods. So we'll go ahead and talk about some of the other dates here. Go ahead and get that out of some scholars date. The earliest remains found at the site to the early part of the early intermediate period, which is 200 BCE to 200 CE. Others suggest that the culture is evident in artifacts from the second millennium BCE. So there's questions as to exactly when. Probably much of the site, including many of the major buildings dates from the latter half of the early intermediate period, 200 CE to 600. Some construction, however, must have continued into the middle horizon, which was 600 to 1000. For during this period, it says Tewanaku influences are seen at Wari and elsewhere in the central and southern Andes. So after Tewanaku, the Incas kind of moved in, you know, to that area. So they're not sure whether well, which civilization passed these cultural influences along? Was it Tewanaku or the Incah? Right. Now this next part comes from Khan Academy that I found and they had an extensive piece on Tewanaku. And I thought they had some interesting information. It says the Tewanaku civilization was centered in the Lake Titicaka region of present day southern Peru and western Bolivia, although its cultural influences spread into Bolivia and parts of Chile and Argentina. Tewanaku's main city center boasted a population of 25,000 to 40,000 at its peak, which is wild, just so many people at that time for him. They said it consisted of elites, farmers, llama herders, fishermen, and artisans. So I mean, this was a full-blown city. This was not just some hunter-gatherers that came around and they all decided to live together. This was a city with a class structure living together 25 to 40,000 people. Just incredible. Its ceremonial center was featured a tiered pyramid called Acapana and a temple complex, the Kala-Sasaya. Kala-Sasaya. Close as I'm going to get, sorry about that. That's good. Perhaps one of the most iconic works of Tewanaku's public architecture is the gateway of the sun. This thing is incredibly cool. I know Matt will end up talking about it more later because it's a very prominent feature, but it's a monolithic portal carved out of a single block of andesite. The monument was discovered in the city's main courtyard and may have originally served as the portal to the Puma Pumku, one of the city's most important public shrines. The gateway contains low relief carvings across the lentil set into a square grid. At the center of the lentil is Tewanaku's principal deity. The figure is face-frontally holding two implements that end in bird heads. It's like sticks, fancy sticks that end in bird heads. We always see rulers, deities, holding staffs of some sort. No different. He's got one on each hand, ends in a bird head. It says, perhaps, representing a spear-thrower and spears, but says he wears an elaborate tunic decorated with human and animal faces. The eyes of the figure bear the characteristic Tewanaku stylized teardrop. A winged feline hangs down from the eye to the bottom of the face. Tendrils of hair emanate in rays from the head, terminating in feline heads and circles. Composite human bird deities flank the central figure on both sides. So, if you look at pictures of Tewanaku, you'll see this gate, you'll see this big stone, and it's very intricately carved. Archaeologists speculate that the doorway was originally brightly painted in inland with gold. That's what I was going to say. When you look at the pictures, it's impressive in and of itself, but when you have to picture it as it probably was, which is Adam said, covered in gold, and very ornate and jeweled, painted bright color and I mean, something to think about is the pyramids. If you think about ancient Egyptian work, it all looks the color of sand now because of weathering. Back in the day, it was painted bright colors and we know that because we found some unweathered pieces that had been hidden away. It's the same with the gate of the sun here. They say, remember that the, quote, pristine and unadorned state of the ancient monuments we see, they often bear little relationship to their original appearance. So, that's true. We see it and we think, oh, that's fantastic carving, it's beautiful. It was even more beautiful when it was painted, adorned with gold, probably jewels. It had to have been immaculate. Now, Puma Pumku is the name of a large temple complex located near Tiwanaku in Bolivia and it's part of a larger archaeological site known as Tiwanaku. Now, the temple's origin is a mystery, but based on carbon dating of organic material found on the site, archaeologists believe the complex may have been built by the Tiwanaku Empire. So, this expansive region, you know, when you hear it talked about, you'll hear Tiwanaku and you'll hear people mention Puma Pumku. I know for me, before I started doing the research, I assumed these were two separate areas done, you know, further apart, whatever, but Puma Pumku and Tiwanaku are fairly close together and it's assumed that they were made by the Tiwanaku people for the same complex, basically. It says the most intriguing thing about Puma Pumku is the stonework and this is amazing. Puma Pumku was a terrorist earthen mound originally faced with megalithic blocks, each weighing several tens of tons. The red sandstone and andesite stones were cut in such a precise way that they fit perfectly into and lock in with each other without using mortar. The technical finesse and precision displayed in these stone blocks is astounding, not even a razor blade can slide between the rocks. Some of these blocks are finished to quote machine quality and the holes drilled to perfection. So, there was an article from Wikipedia that describes a fantastic engineering that's involved in the temple's construction. Normally, I don't like using Wikipedia, but because I found this elsewhere, said basically the same way, I'm just going to go ahead and use this article. It says in assembling the walls of Puma Pumku, each stone was finally cut to interlock with the surrounding stones and the blocks fit together like a puzzle forming load bearing joints without the use of mortar. One common engineering technique involves cutting the top of the lower stone at a certain angle and placing another stone on top of it which was cut at the same angle. The precision with which these angles have been utilized to create flush joints is indicative of a highly sophisticated knowledge of stone cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry. Meaning of the joints are so precise that not even a razor blade will fit between the stones. Much of the masonry is characterized by accurately cut rectilinear blocks of such uniformity that they could be interchanged from one another while maintaining a level service surface and even joints. The blocks were so precisely cut as to suggest the possibility of prefabrication and mass production. Technologies far in advance of the Tiwanaku's Inka successors hundreds of years later. Some of the stones are at an unfinished state showing some of the techniques used to shape them. They were initially pounded by stone hammers which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries creating depressions and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand. So before we move on because I'm going to jump into Lake Booby Poopoo here in a minute but listen the way that describes these stones. This is I mean a maculate masonry work. If you got a brick house like we do go out and look at the brick not a one of those is they're not touching each other because they've got mortar in between them because they're not going to be so finely polished and edged that they seat together without any gaps. It's very rare to find any stonework that has such precise surfaces to them that they fit together like that and it's a highly skilled mason that can carve the stones to where they fit into joints and go look up pictures of the joints that some of these that I mean they're like tea joints and crazy. I joints where they have a piece in the middle shape like a cappal eye that fits down in there and it locks two stones together. It's amazing. They're not going to come apart and before we started recording I was telling Adam I saw a video earlier today with Georgio Suklos. He's the ancient aliens guy if you don't know the guy with the hair. He is at T. Wenaku and he is showing two very unique things about the stones there. He shows two stones side by side with about an inch and a half gap between them and he explains that the stone the one stone was cut using a diamond blade saw and the other one was cut by the T. Wenaku people. Some 2000 years before and his words were you know the most advanced cutting stone cutting technology we have available to us today and here's a cut from 2000 years ago that looks identical. So it makes a lot of people question how in the world did they do this? How were they this skilled it's one thing to just really be good it's another to not have not have the tools to do a job so well. Right. Well and that's the thing in that article the snippet of the article I just read it says they started with hammers stone hammers and then they finished by polishing it with a stone and sand. You can get there I get that you can get there with that because it's abrasive and you are going to wear it down but how would you get such primitive items like that to create such a smooth finish and to interlock together now some people are going to say well you know the weathering over time has made it seem like it's smoother than it really is that okay I'll give you that on the solo blocks laying out by themselves. But we still have pieces of the complex of Puma Punku together and we can see the joints. So it's not like it weathered that much whether it smooth between each other. Does that make sense yeah I get could weather the surface but where they're joined if water trickles in there it's going to trickle in a path it's not going to wear it smooth it's going to wear a it's going to make it worse right and it has not done that because they are they fit together so perfectly so I'll talk more about it later but this to me is points to it being proof that Matt and I are right in our theory that there was technology thousands of years ago that we don't know about I'm not saying it's the same technology that we have today I'm not saying they had diamond tip power circular saws to do this but they had some technology that was beyond what we give them credit for in order to be able to do this stuff because Tewinaku Puma Punku are not the only ancient sites like that you know when I may touch on some of the other ones at a later episode but before I you know blow into a whole nother realm of this I'll say that for after Matt talks about his stuff I want to jump into Lake Titicaka real quick so Lake Titicaka is the highest navigable lake in the world it's the largest lake in South America in terms of volume so Lake Titicaka Peru is located in the department of Puno bordering Bolivia in the Andes Mountains its surface is evenly distributed between Bolivia and Peru so the lake is surrounded by Indian mountain ridges and slopes varying an altitude between 4,000 and 4,200 meters or 13,100 and 13,800 feet above sea level the lake itself is located on a high plateau ranging from 11,200 to 13,100 feet above sea level at this altitude temperatures average less than 59 degrees Fahrenheit all year round and it remains constant throughout the year temperatures don't drop at night or in winter as much as in other places at similar altitudes so maybe that's a reason that area was chosen for the settlement yeah maybe they were it's very it's cold but it's temperate yeah it stays the same yeah know what you're getting so if if you have something if you it's like San Diego you know where it's always sunny and 72 it there's a very good chance that you're right and that was why that area was was chosen yeah because of that of the climate you know you didn't have big swings in temperature you know that allowed you to do things year round that you probably would only be able to exceedingly yep now lake titty caca is divided into two sub basins the larger one is lago grande and the smaller is lago picanio so both lakes are connected by the straight of the quina so lake titty caca is a geological wonder formed during the pre ice age about 60 million years ago the lake was formed when massive earthquakes shook the Andes mountains splitting the range into and forming a hollow that eventually got filled with water from the melting glaciers creating bodies of water and ultimately rivers and the immense lake titty caca so the lake was the cradle of Peru's ancient civilization the puraca culture settled in this fertile land around 200 BC and a millennium later the tywanaku culture emerged and spread throughout the altiplano and into Bolivia and warlike tribes like the amaras and the colas coias coias emerged but only to be absorbed by the Incas it was the Incas civilization that unified the many cultures and spread into the land forming the Inca empire that's why we hear so much about the Inca more than the tywanaku culture is because the Inca grew and absorbed all those cultures into the Inca empire so and it this is a little side side note here but you know if if the ancient cultures of South America is intriguing to you and you know if you're like Adam and I it should be because there's a lot down there you know the Incas the Mayans that the Aztecs they they did things that we don't understand today but when we talk about the the Incas and how they were so successful in building their empire is they took the best parts of all of these cultures you know they the instead of saying if you're not like us wipe you out no they absorbed them they're like we we really dig what you're doing here um we're a lot bigger than you so you're just gonna become a part of us and you're gonna show us how you do this and instead of wiping out new ideas new technology um you know different maybe better ways of doing things they absorbed it and it made them better as a whole right which is something we need to keep in mind and I wish those during the Inquisition had learned because oh yeah I've said this before but with the the burning of Maya Incas tech ritual sites the the burning of the the Library of Alexandria I mean we have lost so much knowledge that we could probably use today think about the the society we would be now if we hadn't hadn't had so much hubris that nope this is the way we do it if you don't do it this way that's yeah you know that's ungodly that that's a sin against man and we can't do that and we're gonna burn it I mean it just not not to go off on a tangent but or or we have to we have to you know rid this region of these savages yes yeah you're gonna lose for you there's savages are probably smarter than you but by by many times I'm sure been around longer their civilization knows more and you probably just made yourself stupider by doing that you said yourself back 500 years because you burned their their text instead of reading their text anyway and I move on before I get angry so already a little perturbed but we won't anyway local indigenous people the Uros have settled in you know in the shores of the lake for thousands of years but they also live on the islands so this is right there in Lake Titicaca they live on 40 plus man-made floating islands these islands are made of reads that grow along the shores of Titicaca they also make boats from the reads they pretty much anything that you need they can make out of reads I've seen swings I've seen like big statues shoes shoes the boats are incredible that they make out oh yeah the reads are also edible if you need something peel the out of layer off it's like heart of palm you can eat the interior of the read and I mean I'm fascinated by that I know you're gonna talk more about the reads and the boats here in a second but it just fascinates me how this area and it is probably this way for a lot of areas if we don't overlook it there is something there that you can do anything and everything with uh-huh and these people knew it way back then during the Tiwonaku age and before and they still use that same knowledge today it's been passed down through their history their their elders pass this knowledge on they can do anything with this read and some people look at the reads and go it's a weed cut it down yeah yeah but it's a little known fact that there was uh there was a saying that came from this that we still you'll still hear people talk about today you know it was the whole if uh if I'm wrong I'll eat my hat yeah yeah yeah sure that's where that came from hey I will say this about the hat and this is not a joke um they had there there there is a specific kind of hat it's called a four corner hat uh that is that region and it's so funny because I saw a picture of this Tiwonaku hat it's it's made of it's it's it's I guess it's made of reads it's it's woven into almost like thread and they've you know it's got a design and everything but it has these unique little tuffs four spots at the top and it's called the four corner hat and it's indigenous to this area yeah I watched a documentary that was done in 2017 and they had a local man that was helping them he has on one of these hats oh no and it wasn't it wasn't like he found like an artifact and decided he was going to wear it they still use that design because his head the little the little mucluck ears they came down just remember it's cold you know they're they're way up in the mountains um and I it had like uh had like colors and and and lettering and stuff so I like that's some that's a modern hat he yeah he bought that at the Tiwonaku gift shop well speaking of I'm sure they have a gift shop oh they do and they've got some really cool stuff yeah um speaking of hat I can't remember if it's Bolivia or Peru but it's this area if you look at pictures the all the women in this area wear a shirt and it's all it's like a short top hat it's like a uh it almost looks like they're too small you know but they sit on top of the head and they're almost like a short top hat I I saw a thing apropos of none of this except for the hat thing that they wear down apparently there were some people that came through missionaries or something and they wore this old style hat it's not a bowler but that'll give you a good thought unless you look up the pictures you'll know what I'm talking about well the women I think it's Bolivia might be Peru the women thought that was a really awesome hat well the women started wearing it so it is now part of the culture to wear this hat the men don't wear it and I just think it's neat when you look at the area all of these women once they hit a certain age they can wear this hat and they're all what I mean it just looks cool I'm sorry but it looks cool it way better looking than if my dumb butt were to put that hat on they rock it and I'm a hat guy I'm always yeah yeah yeah I think it's cool because it was basically an import that they adopted for themselves and then they started making the hats and they're like this is our style I think it's cool now I'm going to finish my part up here with some of the artifacts that have been found in and around Lake Titicaca and this again comes from the Smithsonian since scientists have dredged Lake Titicaca and found a bunch of artifacts from Tiwanaku civilization so the Tiwanaku artifacts including gold medallions and stone carvings were found in the waters around the lakes island of the sun so religious iconography and the location of the object suggests that pilgrimages played an important role in the development of this early empire a practice that would later be adopted by the Inca civilization says quote the island of the sun is an island which has a history going back to 2700 BC says Charles Stanish an archaeologist at the University of South Florida one of the authors of a new study on this says it became a very important pilgrimage destination in the Tiwanaku state by around 650 AD so Christoph Delare of the for marine archaeology at Oxford University first detected underwater archaeological deposits more than a decade ago while diving in the lake he and his colleagues returned to Koa reef and underwater area near the island of the sun the dive team discovered semi precious carvings like a lapis lazuli puma and a turquoise pendant as well as valuable thorny oyster shells transported from the warm waters of Ecuador at least 1,250 miles away so many artifacts also had religious iconography such as gold medallions depicting a deity with rays exuding from the face and a ceramic incense burner shaped like a smoking jaguar so the divers also discovered a number of animal bones the remains of water birds like comor ants and teals as well as frogs fish and llamas Adam you know what I cannot stand is this time of year when everybody is so busy Brooks playing football I got hyper playing fall softball you know we were running all the time and dinner basically consists of sometimes a sandwich or a bowl of cereal but that's why hello fresh is so incredible right me it we don't have to think about it we don't have to go to the store and plan it we just get to cook something that's going to be really good and way better than a just a sandwich and if you don't know hello Fred with hello fresh you get farm fresh pre-person ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your door you don't have to go to the store you don't have to make a list and and buy ingredients that you don't need or you only need one one teaspoon you got to buy a bag of it whatever it is and you you wind up what you don't have to worry about all that with hello fresh that's why it's America's number one milky like I said the fall is busy but it's also a really great time to kick into some fall fresh meal hello fresh handles all the meal planning and all the shopping and delivers everything you need to cook up a tasty meal right at home and when it comes to options you can't even can't even fathom all the options that hello fresh has that's why hello fresh's menu includes 40 recipes and over a hundred add-on items to choose from every week so a busy fall schedule doesn't always have to mean that you don't have time to cook great food and with hello fresh you don't have to spend all evening in the kitchen to whip up a whole some meal I tried and we actually got a box a couple days ago so we've had a few meals this week and we just ate one before I came up here and it was like pork chop that had a ginger glaze on it and it sounds good rice and broccoli and we try to make sure we do a hello fresh on recording days so that I can eat before coming up here because they're so fast that they're literally done like we had this thing done in 20 minutes longest thing was the rice and it goes quick too you know I mean right but Michael loves them we haven't found a meal that he doesn't eat from hello fresh and he's kind of a picky eater he loves helping us cook the meals I mean you can't beat it and when you get hello fresh you know you're getting top-notch produce since it travels from the farm to your door in less than seven days and hello fresh has more than just dinners you can also stock your fridge with easy breakfast quick lunches and fresh snacks just shop hello fresh market and add any of these tasty time-saving solutions to your weekly box and that's a big deal for breakfast in the morning with kids going to school a lot of times you're like I don't have time to do anything for breakfast here's you know there's some pre-made muffins from the store well you don't have to do that with hello fresh you can get a quick easy breakfast to send them off to school so if you're interested and you want to get on the hello fresh train like Matt and our families do then all you've got to do is go to hellofresh.com slash 50 graveyard and use the code 50 graveyard that's 50 g-r-a-v-e y-a-r-d for 50% off plus 15% off the next two months yeah I know you may be holding off because you think oh it's just too expensive have you been to the grocery store lately no joke this is a great time to give hello fresh a try all you got to do go to hellofresh.com slash 50 graveyard use our promo code 50 graveyard 50 g-r-a-v-e y-a-r-d and you'll get 50% off plus 15% off the next two months later analysis of the llama bones by delirian colleagues found that most of them were unfused revealing at least one infant and three juvenile individuals the team also found gold ear tassels and other decorative regalia likely attached to the llamas before they were sacrificed so this Lake Titicaca was an important pilgrimage site for the religious beliefs of these people and they would make sacrifices in the lake near the island of the sun you know it's believed that they would take boats out there make the sacrifices sacrifice the llama other sacrifices to their gods in this lake so that just shows how important Lake Titicaca is and was to the people that live around it yeah exactly it is it is critical to the culture of these people and we've already talked about how unique it is how big it is and the elevation it's such a unique place we don't see anything else like this anywhere else in the world so these people were drawn to it and of course they're going to have stories and legend associated with this magical lake that they settled around and the most common legend revolves around the origin of the lake itself and it says Lake Titicaca was a fertile valley where happy men lived in this paradise that was protected by the opus or the mountain gods now to enjoy this paradise men had to live by only one rule they could not climb to the top of the mountain where the sacred fire burned that was it you know you can do whatever else you want the one rule is you cannot climb to the top of the mountain where the sacred fire is I like that because I wouldn't do it anyway that's right I'm not going up there well I got to climb this mountain are you joking it happened okay but in the land there was also a devil and he couldn't bear to see so much happiness so he incited the men to do what they had been forbidden and that was to climb to the top of the mountain and the opus the mountain gods saw this saw the man climbing the slope and they were so angry that they released the cougars which devoured the entire population except for one couple now faced with this slaughter into the sun god wept for 40 days and 40 nights thus creating Lake Titicaca everything was flooded and as a result of this the cougars were turned to stone and and as Adam has said you know inside the lake they have found many artifacts and it's it's interesting too because the lake is actually smaller than it was 2000 years ago so it's it's less of well this was right on the shore well no the when they were here the lake was another 10 kilometers that way yeah right you know so they were coming out here you know and this stuff you know wound up out here in the water or it was covered by a flood and again the resemblance to the biblical flood you know that's not purely coincidental I mean there are a lot of religious stories based around a large devastating flood that wiped out the population with the exception of one family one couple something like that okay now Lake Titicaca is famous in the mystical communities for being the center of powerful energetic it emanations is the word I'm looking for there are controversial reports by some authors about underground tunnels in the islands now remember a lot of these islands that are out there in the lake are man made so we know those don't have any tunnels right but these other ones that are present it has been speculated that there are tunnels underneath that could have potentially been been inhabited at one point that maybe they were above the the water level at some time yeah we we don't really know there's a there's debate there but according to another myth that was recorded by one the batanzos this this myth is about vira coca and vira coca was the supreme ink and god now vira coca as the legend says emerged from the waters of Lake Titicaca a vira coca was also described as quote a man of medium height white bearded dressed in a white robe with a bow attached to his waist and carrying a staff and a book in his hands very very descriptive there yeah who's that sound like sounds like Moses with a bow and arrow once again we see the similarities with the Islamic Jewish Christian stories yeah uh you know there's a lot of similarities why i mean these are these are groups that we've believed forever that they did not interact right i mean they were they were on opposite sides of the planet you know how would their their religious myths be intermingled like this i'm wondered that a lot of times when you see stuff you're like wait a minute that sounds like this that sounds like the Christian flood myth and Noah or this sounds like you know the Christian Adam and Eve story and it's all of these different different civilizations and cultures have such similar creation myths or flood myths or whatever there's gotta be something to that either they were able to communicate when we didn't think they were or this crap actually happened the way they say it happened right you know what i'm saying yep because not everybody it's my my same theory with mass hallucination you can't get multiple people standing in the same area to mass hallucinate the same thing in their heads so how can you get disparate cultures to create the same and people say well you know the human brain it they all work the same you've met some people right not there's some people that got some wacky ideas they ain't gonna think like i think you know so there's gotta be something going on here that either they communicated worldwide that there was some worldwide communication network to pass this myth along and put their own spin on it or it really happened and they're all putting their own little spin on something that really happened yep that's exactly what that's exactly what i was thinking i mean you said it verbatimoma so as we're saying uh varicoka uh according to inkin mythology um was born out of lake titi kaka um he was responsible for creating the sun the moon people and the cosmos now in the uh i got it i got to do it now the colossusia temple at tiwanaku which is carved atop a monolith known as as Adam said the gate of the sun uh is a deity holding a lightning bolt and snuff and i'm i think a snuff is uh like what you would put out a uh uh like a ceremonial fire with so i think if you're putting your but i don't know not yet i think i think i think that would come much later they had snooze back in the day that's right hands of snooze yeah no spit you know come many speculate that this is a representation of varicoka because the figure is depicted wearing a sun crown however it's also possible that this figure represents a deity that the amara referred to as tenupa who like varicoka is associated with legends of creation and destruction right i mean you know you're you're not really a god until you've destroyed something you know you can make everything you want until you've decided that uh that's no good wipe it out and start over yeah you're not you're not really a god right i mean that's how all the stories go yeah you gotta get angry at the idiot mortals and then destroy something yeah yeah but knowing what we know about the the gateway of the sun um and and when you look at pictures of it you'll see that figure at the top this is what they're talking about this is what they think could that could be varicoka or right whatever the sun deity was to the tiwanaku because we know they were there before the inkis so it would be really difficult for the inkis to influence the the tiwanaku it would you would think it would be reversed but again it's happened a long time ago so we don't really know um if if maybe there was some you know a time where they were both together and and i mean who knows we've talked we talked about how the ink is operated so there's always that change now i mara legends put tiwanaku at the center of the universe okay probably because of the importance of its geographical location which we discussed earlier the tiwanaku were highly aware of their natural surroundings and would use them and their understanding of astronomy as reference points in their architectural plans okay where have we seen this before all the other ancient sites um you know we've we've seen it at the pyramids we've seen it at stone hinge you know we're seeing it here okay um the most significant landmarks in tiwanaku are the mountains and lake titi kaka although the shores of lake titi kaka are now located 20 kilometers west of tiwanaku like said the lake is decreased in size due to drought they used to be bigger and it was closer to the tiwanaku site uh then it is now but in ancient times it likely extended all the way up now the spiritual importance and location of the lake uh contributed to the religious significance of tiwanaku if lake titi kaka was this mystical lake 2000 years ago then the building of the temples and the and the monoliths and everything in that location had to be significant there had to be a religious significance there because we know how they viewed the lake so why else would you build these structures here on the lake unless this is part of your your spiritual origin now let's talk about the tiwanaku story on the birth of humanity now their story on on the beginning of humans is an interesting one the story says that after vera koka rose from the waters of titi kaka he created a team of stone or mud giants and instructed them to build all the megalithic sites and carved statues of their great god along the path of vera koka which is this long extended trail that is lined with these stones and these carvings supposedly representing vera koka um it began at tiwanaku now eventually the giants turned against their creator and vera koka turned them back into stone thus explaining the presence of these large monolithic humanoid statues okay you know so i'm going to make the giants the giants are going to do my bidding the giants get tired of doing it so i just turn them back into stone and mud and whatever you know and now they're now they're just kind of stuck there now some of them i could do it i would too that's right again that's what that's what it's what makes you a god you know and that's like hey i'm i brought you into this world i'll take you out yep don't matter to me because i'm like another one's just like it as i was like a mom that's right now Adam mentioned this earlier some of the statues are made from and decide that it was quarried from sarrow sarrow kapia i know i'm saying that wrong maybe i can't see no it's it's sarrow kapia that's the only way i can pronounce it this was across the lake in Peru now remember i said earlier it's a big big lake this is now two thousand years ago or more think about the the great lakes yeah and trying to cross the great lakes if you're here in north america yeah now it's it's huge yeah even think about an ancient civilization trying to go from one side of lake michigan to the other you know so i mean you know if we can find the most narrow point that's still you know an extraordinarily daunting and dangerous task for an ancient civilization or so we believe so we think yeah um so along this trail there are these huge monoliths that they call lazy stones and they still exist and they mark the route to the duanaku site and it's theorized that andesite was taken from that particular site because it was thought to possess a certain energy or even a spirit that made it the best material for a statue of a god now if you if you buy into the idea of giants did all this then giants grabbing up these huge rocks and walking them to the other side of the lake okay they might get a done that but if you take that as a myth um it really makes you start to wonder but makes me wonder wonder how how did they do it and number two why why not use what they had right there unless there was something special about the andesite that was on the other side of the lake well and we see that with several other cultures we see it with tywanaku we see it with uh uh uh uh stone hinge we see it with the pyramids these stones that they're using there has to be something about these stones that they knew or that they thought um during that time because it is a monumental task with technology or not whether they had more technology than we assume or not it's a monumental task and all of these cultures go and get stone and bring it elsewhere and we've heard well you know their god told them this is the stone to use okay I I gather that but why like you're saying why this specific stone and and that's what we don't have is records of why these stones were chosen but it's funny because uh in this documentary it they ask some native community members um who built who built tywanaku giants I mean they also I'm giants you know it's just it's the legend you know that's what they that's what they grew up hearing that's what their their fathers grandfathers and and that's what they were told and so it's still there it's still fresh in people's minds that that this was something that was done by giants um but interesting about these lazy stones these stones that that are along this path of varicoka native community members will tell stories about seeing these statues walk around at night yeah and even approach humans to ask for help but can you imagine one of these big giant statues come walking up to you or waddling up to you hey uh hey buddy you got a light you know I who knows what what do they need help with you know it could you even say no to them that was a problem yeah if I had a big-ass stone dude walk up to me and go hey give me a hand with it uh yes sir yes sir whatever you need brother yeah whenever you need but but assuming that these walking stones didn't just get up and walk their butts across the lake some 40 kilometers away from the quarry site 40 kilometers they had to drag this stuff or not to just drag they couldn't drag it they had to get through the water and as I said earlier the the lake is a thousand feet deep in some areas okay how in the heck could they do that well the the easy guess is they did it by boat okay um and and the stone work that we were talking about earlier shows how skilled the craftsmen of the T. Wenaku were so if they can make cuts if they can join stones together like this they most likely could build a pretty good boat um so a lot of people archaeologists I mean they believe that this is just a wonderful example of human ingenuity that allowed these people to move these stones to their final location now University of Pennsylvania researcher Alexi Vranich led an expedition to prove his theory on how the stones were transported now he theorized that the Reed boats were used to get the stones across the lake so utilizing tools that would have been available at the time his team set out to construct boats out of tutorial reads farmed by using a long pole with a blade to reach underwater and cut the reads about 12 inches from the bottom now this was important because this would allow the reads to continue to grow and they would be ready for harvesting the next year okay so they actually show a gentleman doing this okay he's got what looks like a long bamboo pole which is the poles probably made of reads um probably and there's a blade on the end of it and he is he is dipping this thing down deep into water that he cannot see the bottom and he is just very smoothly sweeping this blade through and then pulling a bundle of these big bundle of these reads that probably average anywhere from six to 10 feet long up into the boat and he's on this little like little read skiff where he's like it's like a paddle board you know he's standing up on it and he's collecting the reads this is what they had to do if they were gonna if they were gonna prove that the T1aku used these read boats to get these giant stones across the lake they had to do it just like they would have done it and it proved to be an exhausting effort just getting the boat to the water was a significant challenge I mean you know they're trying to roll this this big read boat on on the logs and they're making essentially rolling tracks you know with with these big logs to try to get it a hundred yards to the water from where they constructed it and they've got I mean there's probably 200 people helping them yeah get it there and and they they mess up they knock over this adobe wall you know I mean it it it was not pretty but they finally got it in the water but once they got it in the water their problems didn't in because Lake Titi Kaka is huge 53 5300 square miles it's more ocean sailing than it is lake sailing yeah and that includes winds of over 40 knots like you're out in the open sea now as they were making their initial voyage to the other side of the lake where the quarry was the boat took damage in a storm and it had to be repaired but ultimately the team was successful they got they got one of these large like I am 90 tonne stone onto the boat and got it to the other side of the lake but it took a lot of people I mean a lot of people I mean it's it looks like a looks like a dagum concert there's so many you know it's like are the backstreet boys in town you know there's people everywhere that are and they're all doing some aspect of this to try to help these guys succeed and even though they did accomplish their go it was still just one stone yeah I mean it was all of that it took them months to get one stone from one side of the lake to the other and truthfully there is no guarantee that everything they did was exactly how the team Wannaku would have done it in fact I'd say it they maybe 50% that's just a guess I mean I I don't know I just I just can't see how you could reenact a process that you may not have enough evidence to reenact you know exactly you're just making a lot of assumptions here that's always been my thing is how you're like they did with the pyramids yeah you're guessing as to how they do it because you're guessing as to what their technology was you're guessing as to what they were capable of doing it's all a guess so maybe it's right right but it could be completely wrong too just like this complex system of of ropes and pullies and logs and people that drug these large stones for the pyramids up these seemingly impossible incline there's there's no way that we know that that's right we've just figured out how to do it with what we know they could do yeah what we think they could do but it all goes back to the the point that Adam and I make pretty routinely is they must have had some technology that we don't know about right they I mean they had to it this I mean even even figuring out a way to do these things um trying to avoid using our modern technology it's it's it's just a guess yeah we're just superimposing what we believe on what they actually did and we may not be right because they they must have had something and I'm not saying they had iPhones and they're out there taking pictures you know always saying is they understood something that we didn't know they understood they they understood how to move large stone they understood how to construct buildings and surfaces so that you know they they would withstand harsh weather you know that they that the rains wouldn't completely destroy them um so you know where they got that knowledge we don't know and that's debatable but it it just seems obvious that they knew something that that today you know even people that researched we just don't we don't have to say sure how they did it right right now um there there are a lot of connections with cosmology and tiwanaku um and in many ambient cultures um you know the mountains are are their sacred objects you know that there was something about the mountain you know the gods lived on a mountain or you know whatever now um in reality the site of tiwanaku is located in the valley between two sacred mountains pukura and chiki kawa now at such temples and ancient times ceremonies were conducted to honor and pay gratitude to gods and spirits and they were places of worship and rituals that helped unify the andian people through shared symbols and pilgrimage destinations and tiwanaku became the center of this pre-Columbian religious ceremonies for both the general public and the elites so for example human sacrifice was used in several pre-Columbian civilizations to appease a god in exchange for good fortune excavations of the acappana temple at tiwanaku revealed that the remains of sacrificial dedications of humans and camelids camelids would be like llamas yeah now researchers speculate that the acappana temple may also have been used as an astronomical observatory it was constructed so that it was aligned with the peak of kimsacha providing a view of the rotation of the milky way from the southern pole other temples like calasasia try to say that i'll never say it that way again um they are positioned to provide views of the sunrise on the equinox the summer solstice and the winter solstice although the symbolic and functional value of these monuments is just speculation the tiwanaku were able to study and interpret the positions of the sun moon milky way and other celestial bodies well enough to give them a significant role in their architecture so beyond the idea of okay this ancient civilization was able to build this you know incredible example of stone craftsmanship they were able to get this you know and andite from the other side of an enormous lake that was cold and then put it all together they also understood about celestial bodies and they used that in the construction of the tiwanaku temples okay again how how did they know how were they able to do that you know how were they able to position you know these these gates and and these temples so that on those specific times of year that it would be a line just so where you could see the the sunrise at the equinox that you could track the rotation of the milky way let me come on this is two thousand years ago yeah and yeah i wanted to throw this throw this at you because you were talking about you know we talked about the blocks and we talked about the joints of the blocks and all this stuff i'm gonna throw this theory that i read at you and get your thoughts see if they're the same as what i've got they say that the H blocks especially the ones you were talking about being like the ibeams the i joints right there's a bunch of those H blocks there the H blocks show it and the fact that the joints are so tight that this shows this is proof for quote scientific evidence that these blocks are artificial geopolymer rock or that they were able to melt the rock to form these joints so what they're saying is that they were heated huh super heated to a point where they lavaed and then they were flattened together so that the joints you know are are so tight you can't put a razor blade through them i see how that would work like i get the theory behind that and that the H blocks they're so squared off and the the seams are so perfect on there that that could be what they're saying artificial geopolymer rocks a molded rock but my my thought is yes i do believe there was technology then using technology loosely not i'm not talking about like handheld computers or like you said iPhones or Samsung's or anything back then but yes they had this technology that we don't understand or know they had but i don't personally think they had a way of melting the end of sight rock right and and shaping it into form yeah i mean you know even with fire they would still they would still have to find a way to generate more heat to melt stone yeah i mean you know i i go out here with a cigarette lighter right now and put put it to a rock and it ain't it's not going to do anything no you know many thousands of degrees to melt the stone exactly and and it does it that that seems way beyond what anybody would expect if they if they were able to generate that much heat to do that i mean we don't even do that now right and we can melt rock you know we've got furnaces that can get that high yeah but we don't even yeah we don't do it and and even even if they had forging abilities to forge weapons out of steel you still couldn't get it hot enough to melt stone into lava yeah where you could then mold it into these age blocks or whatever mm-hmm but you know when you talk about tewinaku and pumapuku stuff like that always comes up and then they say well it was cut by lasers and that's why it's so smooth yeah lasers lasers sharks sharks with fricking lasers on their head no but you know uh i promised you guys i'd get to this uh who might have had lasers aliens yeah and that's kind of why I threw that in yeah i mean you know we can't you can't talk about somebody is going to come up with the the idea that aliens helped because it's been it's been pitched out there about the pyramids forever you know stone hinge too so why not tewinaku you know the aliens come down and we're like hey guys look at this you know see we'll you know play with this toy you know what you look what you cut the rock with this thing oh great you know this is how you make these joints so it won't fall over you know this this is how you can do this and I don't know I know that it seems that seems even less plausible than the giants to be honest with you uh for me I don't I don't know um but there is something interesting about it and it was the discovery of elongated skulls right yeah and they predate the milestones that were already established for the tewinaku civilization right so it it would indicate that yeah the there was a civilization there before tewinaku and for whatever reason they may have had elongated skulls which would make you wonder okay some people say it's an alien skull i but could it be a different race an advanced race that was there that had been there for millions of years maybe and for whatever reason they were like it's it's time for us to go and they left with you know virtually no evidence other than maybe these skulls and so but what if they lingered around and they were there to show the tewinaku this is how you do these things right this is this is how this works this is how the earth works why would they know because they've been here for millions of years and and it's possible that the tewinaku didn't completely build puma pungu and the tewinaku area it was already partially built or completely built by that predated civilization right you know with i mean this gets into the woo woo train but it's like the uh Atlantis myth where they were supposed to be technologically advanced so if if it was the same race of people from before the the quote modern tewinaku or whatever what if you know maybe they moved yeah maybe they up and moved to another part and then that civilization stayed around and it's what the Greeks knew as the people that lived on Atlantis the the modern you know advanced civilization that had all this stuff maybe it was a traveling band of highly advanced people yeah and and and that is a theory that i can get behind you know that you know if you if you develop technology you know that was more advanced than what a civilization two thousand years in the future was going to realize you had where did you get it you know did you did you learn it if you learned it where did you learn it from yeah you know i mean there had to have been some indicator that they didn't just figure it out you know they didn't just go i mean because you think about it if you've got a group of people it doesn't matter you know what two thousand years ago yesterday you know if if they're going to go to a site and they're going to go this is where we're going to construct whatever we're going to use the materials that are the most readily available to us why would they have even known that the and i on the other side of the lake was what they should have been using unless something or someone told them this rock over here is better you know this is what you need ancient cultures that speak of their ancestors that taught them how to do stuff right and you know some say it was gods so but like the varicoka he didn't look like the tea winnaku peep right he was white right white skinned had you know a book and and staff and all this so what if because that matches a lot of that description matches what a lot of cultures from the Americas say about ancient peoples so what if there was a band of these ancient super smart people that went through and they'd live in an area for a little while when more people started kind of move in there and they teach them stuff and move on and then that perpetuated the myth of these gods or these ancient peoples where their civilization started from and i'm a firm believer that humanity has risen and fallen multiple times within the earth's history completely you know get to a point of high technology for the time and then get wiped out what if one of those cycles not everybody was wiped out and it was this band that moved throughout the Americas maybe throughout Asia and Africa and stuff and was showing things to the next generation of humans that were coming along because most everybody got knocked back to the stone age because of this event that happened on earth but they hung on to their knowledge and their abilities and they taught it to these people yeah varicoka being a good example i think i think i think i think everybody has an idea that the Americas were populated with these Native American tribes and that was it you know whether we're talking about um you know all the way from you know in Canada down through what is now the United States you know across Latin America into South America you know they were they were all along there but there's a really good chance that they weren't yet and there's also a really good chance that they weren't first right right so you know take that for what you will it just when you when you begin to look at the world with that kind of open view i mean it just it blows your way and Adam and i could sit here and discuss this for another two hours um we're not going to do that but we're going to ask you guys what do you think you know what do you think did did the the the T1aku did they have some help that did somebody well somebody already there that showed them how to do this stuff that that taught them what what stones to use or did they know where did they come from did they migrate up the mountain and decide to settle at Lake Titi Kaka or were they already there well you know was this just where they were from were they from a higher elevation um lots of questions let us know what you think and the best place to do that is in our Facebook group just go on Facebook and search graveyard uh you'll find us there um the graveyard is absolutely keeming with activity every day you know it's one of the coolest groups of people um you know we don't have any trouble it's you know we just want to hear great stories so if you've got some good experiences share one guy named Carl it's not Carl oh man he's harmless sorry if your name is Carl i'm just making a joke but when you're done there you can go check out our website which is graveyard podcast.com and there you can find links to purchase graveyard tells merchandise you can listen to the show and you can become a patron and we we mentioned this at the top of the show we couldn't keep doing this without the support of our patrons so thank you very much don't forget to write and review us on iTunes it brings us up the charts and it makes it easier for people to find the show. This was a good one man. I love topics like this you know one of my passions besides cryptozoology is ancient civilization. That's right. So this is right up my alley. That's right. I love it. Until next time we'll save you a seat in the graveyard.