Greek poet Hesiod described a place where the Greek gorgons dwell and where the god Atlas appeared as a giant mountain in his book “Theogony” circa 8th century BC. He spoke of a gorge with wild seas and his description was so detailed that retired Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UFRJ) professor Dr. Enrico Mattievich in 2011 realized that the details bore an uncanny resemblance to the mysterious labyrinthine ruins of Chavin de Huantar in the Peruvian Andes.
Dr. Mattievich’s book, “Journey to the Mythological Inferno”, also looked at Odysseus and his journey to the underworld that could not have been set anywhere but in South America.
Hesiod pointed to the dwelling place of the gorgons as a “grim and dank (place) loathed even by the gods with a chasm so great that, once past the gates, one does not reach the bottom in a full year’s course but is tossed about by stormy gales…” Dr. Mattievich knows the place as the mouth of the Amazon River.
Hesiod even gave a lengthy description of a journey up the Amazon to the gates of Pongo de Manseriche, a deep narrow gorge near the Maranon River that is prone to dangerous whirlpools.
Not only did the expert research Greek texts, but he also looked at local legends that also match Greek myth and artifacts in the temple that correspond to a link with Ancient Greece. Strangely enough, there is a sculpture of a horrifying deity in the middle of Chavin de Huantar that Dr. Mattievich believes is the Gorgon Medusa herself!
The Gorgon leads to a sacrifice room where the blood of victims was poured into her mouth. “I faced the impossible stone pillar,” writes Dr. Mattievich. “I tried to imagine how horrible it must have been to see it covered with blood. If suffering and anguish could leave their marks on matter, that pillar would certainly contain all the lamentations of Hell.”
A Chavin myth is even the Peruvian version of that of Perseus who managed to obtain the head of the Gorgon Medusa that had the power to turn others to stone. In the Peruvian version the god Huari was invited to a feast where there was a plan to trap him (much like in the Perseus myth), the guests were all turned to stone once Huari presented them with the Gorgon’s head.
