The Mysterious Giant of Atacama is a 119-meter long figure drawn on the northwest flank of Cerro Unita (Chile) on the surface of the earth.
Some Scientists and Historians strongly believe the Atacama Giant was likely an astronomical guide, as the lines that stretch off the figure’s head predict the movement of the moon and can be used to map the changing of the seasons.
Also, some believe, perhaps it really is a depiction of the alien who created it.
It was made with a mixture of stones and soil, almost at the top of the Unitas hill, 52 miles Northeast of Iquique.
It is now considered to be the world’s largest prehistorical anthropomorphic figure, and resembles the divinity that the area’s native cultures used to worship.
It is the geoglyph ( handmade features created on the surface of the earth) with the largest human representation in the world.
It has also been considered an archaeological monument and cultural heritage of Chile.
And it is not alone, there are many other large geometrical figures drawn on the western and southern slopes in the same hill.
The figure of the Atacama Giant was made by inhabitants of the area between 900 and 1450 years AD.
It is supposed that it is the representation of a shaman or yatiri.
That is a man who makes predictions, invokes the spirits and practices healing in some religions.
The legends of Titicaca tell that this geoglyph may correspond to the Andean deity Tunupa-Tarapacá, who made a journey from lake Titicaca to the Pacific Ocean.
In the Aymara-speaking region around Lake Titicaca, the foremost god was and still is known as the Thunder-Lightning deity Tunupa (Thunupa).
The Aymara, an ancient but still thriving Indigenous people, live on the altiplano (high Andean plateau) around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru.
At one point in time, Tunupa and Viracocha were two distinct deities.
Tunupa, an Aymara god, predates the Inca conquest in the Kollao area of the Titicaca region.
Over time, the Inca deity, Viracocha (a Quechua word) largely replaced the pre-Inca deity, Tunupa (an Aymara word), although not completely.
Tunupa also came to be venerated as a Catholic saint.
The Indigenous Peruvian chronicler, Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua, who wrote An Account of the Antiquities of Peru and lived in the area between Lake Titicaca and the Cuzco Valley during the 16th century, equated Tunupa with Saint Thomas:
“I affirm that I have heard, from a child, the most ancient traditions and histories, the fables and barbarisms of the heathen times, which are as follows; according to the constant testimony of the natives touching the events of past times …
Some years after the devils called Hapi-ñuñus Achacallas had been driven out of the land, there arrived, in these kingdoms of Ttahuantin-suyu a bearded man, of middle height, with long hair, and in a rather long shirt.
They say that he was somewhat past his prime, for he already had grey hairs, and he was lean.
He travelled with his staff, teaching the natives with much love, and calling them all his sons and daughters.
As he went through all the land, he performed many miracles.
The sick were healed by his touch.
He spoke all languages better than the natives.
They called him Tonapa or Tarapaca (Tarapaca means an eagle) … Although he preached the people did not listen, for they thought little of him.
He was called Tonapa Uiracocha nipacachan; but was he not the glorious apostle St. Thomas? …
They say that this man came to the village of a chief called Apo-tampu … very tired.
It was at a time when they were celebrating a marriage feast.
His doctrines were listened to by the chief with friendly feelings, but his vassals heard them unwillingly.
From that day the wanderer was a guest of Apo-tampu, to whom it is said that he gave a stick from his own staff, and through this Apo-tampu, the people listened with attention to the words of the stranger, receiving the stick from his hands.
Thus they received what he preached in a stick, marking and scoring on it each chapter of his precepts.
The old men of the days of my father, Don Diego Felipe, used to say that Caçi-caçi were the commandments of God, and especially the seven precepts …. This worthy, named Thonapa, is said to have visited all the provinces of the Colla-suyu, preaching to the people without cessation ….
So, afterwards, Tonapa was taken prisoner and shorn, near the great lake of Carapucu. … They say that, when day broke, when Tonapa was a prisoner, a very beautiful youth came to him, and said:—“Do not fear …” So saying, he touched the cords, by which Tonapa was tied hand and foot, with his fingers.
There were many guards, for Tonapa had been condemned to a cruel death.
But at dawn, being five in the morning, he entered the lake with the youth, his mantle bearing him up on the water and serving in the place of a boat. … They say that Tonapa after he had been freed from the hands of those savages, remained for a long time on a rock called Titicaca …
Tonapa then followed the course of the river Chacamarca until he came to the sea.
This is reported by those most ancient Yncas. –”
Consider this observation from Sabine MacCormack, the author of “Pachacuti: Miracles, Punishments, and Last Judgment: Visionary Past and Prophetic Future in Early Colonial Peru,” in the American Historical Review:
“These Andean epochs were marked by the departure and return of founding deities; the myth of the return of the Inca thus had counterparts in the divine world. The Creator, Viracocha, had departed over the ocean but promised to return. Christian missionaries, in an endeavor to make their message more convincing, identified Tunupa from the Titicaca region, another beneficent deity whose return was expected, with the apostle Thomas, who, so it was suggested, had in former times preached in the Andes.”
Speaking of Tunupa, Vinson Brown, in Voices of Earth and Sky, commented that:
“The Spaniards thought he might have been one of the Christian saints who somehow came to America, such as Saint Thomas or Saint Bartholomew, but it could as well be assumed that the vanity of the white men did not allow them to admit that the Indians could have ever had equivalent holy beings of their own!”
In any case, the most curious thing is that there is no way to establish how the ancient mysterious figure was shaped taking into account the technological tools available at that time.
The Atacama Desert, in northern Chile, is the driest non-polar desert on earth!
The place is filled with colored lagoons (some as salty as the Dead Sea), geysers, salt flats, caves, a valley that looks like the moon’s surface, plus the ancient giant of Atacama
This part of Chile also has mummies older than those found in Egypt!
The Atacama Desert has more than 5,000 ancient geoglyphs—immense designs and figures drawn into the dry flats and hills—similar to Peru’s famous Nazca Lines.
Some of the Atacama geoglyphs are about 1,200 years old, dating to 800 CE.
The most recent was made 500 years ago in the 16th century.
