Graffiti in Marcahuasi

The scrawl that you can find on the rocks at Marcahuasi made by some visitors is an unrepairable damage. These "hight altitude graffiti artists" write their name in the rocks confusing the place with the streets of their city. This vandalism threatens the sculptures and nobody does anything to protect them.

Rock scrawled on by modern high altitude graffiti artists. How do we clean this? It's unrepairable.

This ugly fondness of painting and scratching the rocks isn't recent, because in the 80's when I went up for the first time I found lost names compromised in the process of destruction of the rocks, that at one point seemed to be the names of the calls of Marcahuasi.

Man always wants to leave something permanent wherever he goes and the petroglyphs, geoglyphs and pictographs are strange techniques that were used and show us, from the dawn of time. If the ancient graffiti artist represented what they saw and lived, the youth of today demonstrate something more complicated, for the difficult times that we live and reveal our frustrations and rejection. However this does not give us license to destroy Marcahuasi.

This image is a petroglyph, a sign or warning of something, perhaps the "missing link".

The lovers of the sacred mountain ought to get involved in caring for nature, because the rocks cannot talk or protest about the pseudo-graffiti artists. We ought to respect their petrified silence because Marcahuasi is an eternal presence.

The images recorded in the rocks of Marcahuasi, through the petroglyphs, geoglyphs and pictographs are messages from a generation that is signalling something to us. Perhaps these ancient expressions were the graffiti of ancient man.

The names recorded in the rocks of Marcahuasi could be memories of some love, a date with the mountain, a demonstration of our identity, or some rebellion for not finding what we wanted, or even some odyssey that was lived. No matter which of these is the real experience behind the graffiti, it is a testimony that they came here.

The mystical cross, a pictograph recorded using some strange pigment. What is the message?

The constant threats that the rocks of Marcahuasi suffer. The same tourists with their disorganised visits, scrawling, the rubbish, and the cruellest of all, the inclemencies of the weather. Every time we go to Marcahuasi we are indebted for the destruction that we cause. We enjoy the bonfires, but the unsupportable bombard not only destroys the rocks but also pollutes the legends and mystery of Marcahuasi.

"The dance of the octopus". An ancient expression, a mystic ritual. There is a free pass to write on the rocks, and destroy them, but who can save them from this scrawled beating? How do we repair the damage? How to save this natural marvel? How to sow a seed in the heart of the visitor of a love for Marcahuasi. I feel like a disabled person in this respect. Help me to recover from this petrified shock.

If painting, scratching and recording on the rocks was and is a human instinct, and if ancient man used it to communicate with his gods, why does man of today do it?


Read the original post (in Spanish)

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Photos : John Ysrael Guevara