Museo de Piedras Grabadas de Ica

Location:
Bolívar 170, Plaza de Armas
Ica, Peru

Museum Types:
Archaeology, Anthropology, ethnography

By Lorraine Caputo

In 1961 the Río Ica flooded and exposed a starnge phenomenon in the Ocucaje desert, 40 kilometers (24 miles) south of Ica. Locals found engraved stones and began selling them to tourists. Dr. Javier Cabrera Darquea received one as a birthday gift in 1966. This began his obsession collecting more than 11,000 of the rocks that depict ceremonies, flora, fauna and mysterious scenes of humans hunting dinosaurs. Some detractors claim these stone carvings are recent works by the locals. Others argue that they are pre-historic creations. Dr. Cabrera wrote a thesis on his theory of the rocks’ origins and Dennis Swift did microscopic analyses. To add fuel to the controversy, two Spaniards in 2002 found six such stones in the Occucaje Desert. The Universidad Autónoma de Madrid has tested two and found them to be 61,000 and 99,000 years old.

Travel Tips: Dr Cabrera’s work, The Message of the Engraved Stones of Ica, is for sale at the museum in English and other languages ($17). Dennis Swift is a proponent of the theory that populations of dinosaurs survived the cataclycism that wiped out their species and existed into human times (www.dinosaursandman.com / www.dinosaursandhumans.org). Thge two Spaniards, María del Carmen Olázar Benguría and Félix Arenas Mariscal penned a book about their 2002 find, which contains the lab report of the dating of the stones: La verdad sobre las piedras de Ica (Madrid: Editorial Sirio, 2008).

Price Description: Adults $3.35, children free

Relative price: Mid-Range

Open Hours from:Monday-Friday 9:30 a.m., 4:30 p.m.

Open Hours to:Monday-Friday 1 p.m., 7 p.m.

Days Closed:Saturday, Sunday

Travel Skills: None

You could organize an expedition into the Ocucaje desert yourself and see what you come across buried in those sands. As well, the Museo Regional de Ica holds some marvelous pre-Columbian artefacts, which are more accepted by the established scientific community.

Currencies accepted
Nuevo Sol

Contact Information:
Phone: 23-1933 / 21-3026 / (Lima) 01-9965-24106
E-mail: eugeniacabrerac(at)remove-this.gmail.com / bibliotecadepiedra(at)remove-this.viabcp.com