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Dr. Dennis Swift
Ica Stones
Dr.
Dennis Swift claims there are certain Ica stones that picture dinosaurs
and man. In 1966 in a cave near Ica, Peru many engraved stones were discovered.
Dr. Javier Cabrera from Peru has 20,000 Ica stones many which depict giant
reptiles. He opened the Museo de Piedras Grabadas (Engraved Stones
Museum) in Ica, Peru which house his collection. His web site includes
pictures of these stones at
The Ica Stones Association. On the right is a picture of one of the
Ica stones that Dr. Kent Hovind has.
A farmer claimed to find the stones in a cave. He was arrested for selling the stones to tourists. He told the police that there was no cave, and that he made these engravings on the stones himself.
There
is a "very revealing interview with a Basilio Uchuya and his wife,
Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana, two peasants from Callango, published some years
ago by Mundial magazine (Anonymous 1975). In it, Basilio and Irma admit
that all of the stones they sold to Cabrera they had carved themselves....That
yellowish, ancient layer that covered the stones was as easily obtained,
said Basilio: once the etching was done, the stones were placed in a poultry
pen and chickens did the rest. Finally, a recent examination of the stones,
done in Barcellona by José Antonio Lamich, founder of the Spanish "Hipergea"
research group, revealed signs of sandpaper and recent carvings, thus fueling
the hoax hypothesis. When questioned why they did it, the hoaxers answered
that etching stones was easier than tilling the soil" (Skeptical
Inquirer, Sept/Oct 2002). See the online article at
Ica Stones: Yabba-Dabba-Do! Also see
Ica stones.
I bought a replica of a Ica stone with a craving of a dinosaur on it from Kent Hovind’s web site. I was amazed to find out that this craved dinosaur had five fingers and five toes, a turtle like shell on its back, and donut rings on its skin (see photos above). I do not know of any known dinosaur like this. There is an excellent article about the Ica Stones at Jurassic Library.
Phone Call To Dr. Swift (May 30, 2005)
While talking to Dr. Hovind on his radio program, Hovind said that Dr. Swift is the expert on the Ica stones, so I called Dr. Swift wanting to find out more information about the Ica stones. Dr. Swift said that he is finishing up a book about the Ica stones that he hopes to publish in a few months (Fall 2005). Dr. Swift's doctorate is in Systematic Theology, not anthropology, nor geology. We need qualified experts in their field to examine the rocks, not a pastor with a degree in theology to pronounce them authentic.
Dr. Swift admits that there are fake Ica stones. With a microscope one can see the hack saw blade marks on the stone, pencil marks of the drawing that were not erased, and dung that was used to make them look old. Dr. Swift insists that there are indeed authentic Ica stones. I agree with him on this point. The major problem is: Which Ica stones are real, and which ones are fake?
Many stones were craved by Indians for sale to Europeans after the Spanish conquest. So there are probably a number of stones that may have 400 years old carvings on them. Some may even be Pre-Columbian. Dr. Swift said there are some 122 untouched Ica stones stored in the Ica Museum. He said he saw and photographed 60 of them. Out of all of these stones only one stone seemed to be of a pterosaur. According to Neil Steede who also saw these stones, there were no extinct animals pictured. My theory is that the real stones do not have dinosaurs, or men riding dinosaurs, or telescopes, or the planets Neptune and Uranus carved on them. These would be the fake ones. I would like to offer a challenge to Dr. Swift to allow one of his stones with a dinosaur on it, to be examined and tested by experts. "The first-hand observation by Neil Steede that, even though the stones he examined did have this patina, there was no patina in the grooves. This suggests that while the stones were certainly very old, the carvings were clearly of far more recent origin" Jurassic Library.
Another major problem is the claim that these are accurate drawings of dinosaurs. There is the claim of an accurate rosette pattern drawn on the skin of dinosaurs. From the picture above it looks more like donuts, or two concentric circles. There is also the claim of epidermal frills, but what scientists draw and what is pictured on the stones are two different things. It looks more like a turtle's shell on the dinosaur's back. The carvings on the stones look like they came from comic books. Look closely at the dinosaur's hands and feet in the above pictures. It has five fingers and five toes. I asked Dr. Swift about this. He said that there were Indian drawings in Utah of a deer that were not very accurate, but you could still tell it was a deer. So we have very inaccurate drawings of dinosaurs with five fingers and toes, yet at the same time he claims how accurate these drawings are of dinosaur skin patterns and frills. So they could see the very small skin pattern, but miss the dinosaur's big feet and hands. This defies logic. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Another major problem is the dating of the carvings. Also found with the stones, were clay figurines. Unlike the stones, clay figurines can be tested. "Von Däniken sent one to the University of Zurich for carbon-dating and they reported that the figurine was modern. His fellow researcher, Johannes Fiebag, sent two other samples to the University of Weimar who, likewise, concluded that the samples were “relatively young” and still contained water. Conclusion: these figurines were not “a hundred thousand” years old, as Cabrera claimed; they could have been made 20 years ago" Jurassic Library.
According to Swift, Dr. Cabrara was an eccentric. Dr. Cabrara believes that space aliens must have carved these very hard andesite stones with Nazca as their spaceport. He claims that one stone shows how the earth looked 50 million years ago. "The one researcher who has known Cabrera the longest, Erich von Däniken, has repeatedly stated that some stones are definitely fakes. He has also cast doubt on the origins of the entire collection. In the end, perhaps von Däniken understands Cabrera’s motive best. He is convinced Cabrera tells stories: “And stories is the right word, for they do not fit in with any scientific scheme of things. The old man uses engravings which he must know are fake to substantiate his beliefs. Why? Has he become so enamoured of his own theories that he thinks imitations will back them up?” Jurassic Library.
The problem I see is that many fundamentalists do not want to admit when they are wrong when confronted with the evidence. They want to hold on to the irrational belief that there are T-Rex like dinosaurs with five fingers and five toes running around in the Congo jungles somewhere waiting to be discovered. I think Dr. Swift is very sincere, but sincerely wrong.
I would like to end on a positive note. I am very glad that there are some fundamentalists that are willing to take a stand and say that these Ica stones are fakes. Answers in Genesis states: Unfortunately, some initially plausible evidences for man’s contemporaneity with dinosaurs have later turned out to be mistaken. The controversial ‘Ica stones’—allegedly genuine pre-Inca engravings of dinosaurs from Peru—have since been shown to be a fraud. Creation 24(2) featured these with the cautionary label, ‘Too good to be true?’ In fact, it turns out that an unscrupulous Peruvian surgeon had purchased the stones from a local artist and installed them in his museum, claiming them to be ancient artefacts; the artist himself makes these stones for tourists and never claims them to be ancient. The Institute of Geological Sciences in London has since examined one of the stones and confirmed its modern origin. The fraud was exposed on a Nova television documentary in 2002, entitled ‘The Case of the Ancient Astronauts’. See http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i4/bishop.asp#r17
Answer in Genesis has back off some from footnote17: [Ed. note Dec. 2003: "Footnote 17 of this article declared the Ica stones to be definitely fraudulent and a person associated with them (now deceased) as ‘unscrupulous’. However, as some reminded us, and we accept, this is an inappropriately sweeping judgment to make merely because one or a few were carved modern day hoaxes. While we would not advise using them as an apologetic evidence until the matter is fully investigated in the creationist technical literature, we apologize unreservedly for any distress caused by this footnote." (Creation 26(1):5; enthesis added) It has been almost three years now, and I am still waiting for their full investigation.
-written by Dr. Stephen C. Meyers (2005).
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Update 2007
Dennis Swift has written the book "Secrets of the Ica Stones and Nazca Lines." On page 50 he states, "...paleontologists are just now catching up to the accuracy of the dinosaurs depicted on the stones." On page 51 he claims, "The Pre-Hispanic cultures of Southern Peru must have seen dinosaurs to etch their portraits on stone with chilling accuracy. I called Dennis Swift on July 17, 2007. He says that the etchings are not prefectly accurate, but like an Indian drawning a crude deer, you know its a deer, and you know these are dinosaurs. He refused to talk to me unless I remove the lies about him from this web page. He wanted to know if I was a Christian, because Christians are not to tell lies. He wanted to know the name of my mother and her phone number so he could call her and tell her how I was spreading lies about him. I told him to email with what lies were written about him on my website. He hung up on me.
Lets look at some of these so-called pictures of dinosaurs. The very first picture of Color Plates in the middle of the book, shows a dragon like head with a long neck coming out of the rear of the animal's body. Notice how the leg is backwards. This is because there is a second head on the front end of its body. This animal has two heads. Do dinosaurs have two heads? One head in the front and another head on its tail? You could see this more clearly on Dennis Swift's website at http://www.dinosaursandhumans.org/. His website is apparently not up and running at the present time that I am writing this. He did have this same picture on his web site Number 14 and the other side of the vase was number 11. You can clearly match them up to see that the animal had two heads. Is Dennis Swift only telling us half the truth? Why not show both sides of all of these Moche vases? In his book on the 12th color plate with Moche vases, the top left vase has two heads with apparently one body going around the vase.
Dennis Swift asked me to remove pictures 11 and 14, and I have removed the pictures (July 19, 2007). He said he would supply me with the accurate pictures of both sides of the vase. He says the dinosaur does not have two heads.
Waiting for Dennis Swift's pictures of both sides of the Moche vase.
I think it is about time for Dennis Swift to come clean on these Moche vases, and show pictures of both sides of these vases. Did dinosaurs have two heads, one at each end? Did they have paws? Did they have V stripes on their body and legs?
Addition Note: On the web page http://www.creationism.org/swift/Nazca/index.htm there are more pictures of these Moche stirrup vessels by Dennis Swift. The Nazca 11 picture is a drawing that clearly shows an animal with two heads. The animal has a second smaller head on the end of its tail. The Nazca 19 picture of a vessel shows almost the same thing as Nazca 11. There is a small head on the end of its tail. Nazca picture 24, 25 and 27 shows two heads. There is a smaller head on the end of each tail. Nazca 28 picture shows a tail with a small head. Note the direction of the feet.
--Written by Dr. Stephen Meyers, July,17,2007
Open Email letter to Dennis Swift
Dear Dennis Swift,
Please help me to clear up any misunderstandings about your book, "Secrets of the Ica Stones and Nazca Lines."
1. Thank you for your willingness to have the patina on your Ica stones carbon 14 tested. Hopefully we can arrange to have this done.
2. On page 53-54 you write that you found a fossil skull near a turtle skelton on the Paracas Penninsula in Peru. I believe you found a turtle skull and not a human skull. Please prove me wrong by sending a photo of the skull, so it can be examined by experts.
3. On page 9 of your book you claim there is a pterosaur engraved on a stone in the Ica, Peru Regional Museum. I do not think it is a pterosaur. Please prove me wrong by sending a photo of the pterosaur so it can be examined by experts.
4. On page 81you claim there is a stegosuarus carved at Ta Prohm Temple in Cambodia. The head of the animal looks more like a rhino and not a stegosaurus. The stegosaurus head is much smaller with a neck. It is hard to see from the photo if there is a horn, or a broken off horn. The tail has no spikes. A stegosaurus has four large spikes on the end of its tail. The humps on the back of the animal look like they are not connected to the animal, but are background decorations as seen in other carvings of animals in the same column. These humps are not even the same shape as the plates on a stegosaurus. The plates form points at the top. The plates go from the head to the tail spikes. Please send pictures from the 1922 expedition at Ta Prohm Temple in Cambodia.
5. On page 98-100 you tell about seeing a giant dinosaur from the air, but no pictures. Please send some pictures of this giant dinosaur (drawing) so experts can examin this find.
6. Can you send more information and pictures on the tracks in Turkmenistan so they can be examined by experts?
Thank you very much for you help.
Sincerely,
Dr. Stephen Meyers
July 20, 2007