Most readers are going to bring Tiwanaku-specific expectations to this book (logically so, since "Tiahuanaco"--the Spanish rendering of "Tiwanaku"--appears in the subtitle), and those readers will be disappointed. It is about Tiwanaku, sort of, but Bellamy regards the celebrated archaeological site primarily as a proof of Hanns Hörbiger's discredited "cosmic ice" theory, and devotes much more space to an explanation of that theory (specifically, of its alleged impact on Tiwanaku's geographical location) than to any analysis of Tiwanaku itself. Could Earth once have been orbited by another satellite before it captured its present Moon, and could that earlier satellite have orbited closer and closer to Earth, finally breaking apart and causing cataclysmic upheaval? This part of Hörbiger's theory, at least, seems plausible enough to me. But Bellamy, like Hörbiger himself, insists on unequivocal acceptance. He maintains that this theory is the only possible explanation for Tiwanaku's Gate of the Sun, which he interprets as a calendar documenting a significantly shorter solar year than our present one. Bellamy attributes this to the distorting influence of the earlier moon that eventually broke apart.

Possible? Certainly, but it doesn't tell us anything about the Tiwanaku people or their background. The author is content to leave these mysteries essentially unaddressed because he's more interested in Hörbiger's theory than in Tiwanaku. It's a sincere, serious-minded effort nonetheless, and worthy of a three-star rating. (That being said, Bellamy's explanation of the calendar is lengthy, tedious, and--at least to the average reader not smitten by Hörbiger--seemingly arbitrary. A circular symbol on the Gate of the Sun absolutely means thus and such, except in cases where it absolutely doesn't. And if so many of these interpretations are irrefutably correct, how can the meaning of some symbols remain--as he concedes--unknown? If the theory actually hangs together as well as Bellamy claims, shouldn't the significance of these obscure symbols, in relation to the others, soon become apparent? Despite his repeated assurances, it feels more like detailed guesswork than an airtight hypothesis. He assumes a lot, and you just have to accept it if you intend to get through the book.) Bellamy does draw the reader's attention to the many depictions of toxodons at Tiwanaku: surely an indication of the city's great age, since toxodons became extinct 11,000 years ago. ( )